What is the best way to connect my PC with my monitor if they are not close to each other?

[K0stas]

Good-day everyone,

 

I am currently trying to figure out what is the best way to connect my monitor and USB hub to my PC, which is 7-12 meters away (7 direct route, 12 around the door), with as few cables as possible.

 

My initial thought was an optical HDMI for the monitor but I hear that they are not very reliable and also have trouble transmitting uncompressed audio.

Then I came across active HDMI cables but I remember hearing before that they can damage the GPU's ports because they draw power from it. Can an active cable really damage the GPU's ports?

 

For the USB, I found some externally powered 3.0 cables which should do the trick.

 

I have also seen docks that provide you with every single connection you need, even 8K/60Hz HDMI output, with a single input cable (similar to the dock Linus used a few years ago) but based on the reviews they are not reliable nor cheap.

 

Is there any other reliable solution would you recommend me apart from active cables (as long as they don't damage my hardware) and minimal cables?

 

Some more information about my use-case:

- I will be gaming on it so I need something with low latency

- I will be using the usb hub to connect my peripherals and an audio interface for sound

- The monitor I will be using is 2K 165Hz which means I will either need an HDMI 2.1 or display port 2.0

 

 

 

 

[matt0725]

linus uses optical thunderbolt i believe in order to get all of his stuff from his basement to his office. If you go back through his house build videos he talks about specific units he uses,

[K0stas]

2 hours ago, matt0725 said:

linus uses optical thunderbolt i believe in order to get all of his stuff from his basement to his office. If you go back through his house build videos he talks about specific units he uses,

Yes, I did some research on the dock he used before. You need a thunderbolt PCIe card, an optical thunderbolt and the dock which costs over 300-350$ alone. That would bring the total for everything around 450-500$. In one of his newest videos he is using another type of dock (If I remember correctly the name of the brand was Omicron) which costs thousands of dollars. From what I learned, he changed to this because he had issues with the thunderbolt solution.

 

What do you think of active cables? Can they really damage ports?

[mapegl]

I have a 10m HDMi cable that works without any issues...

One isn't supposed to go much further, but maybe you can go through the wall? It's not that hard to hide the cable channel and would save you a ton. Get a nice cable sleeve to bundle everything together and it should look ok. 

 

I have thought about similar stuff and at the end you could just build a secondary PC for the money you save....unless you have a Linus problem and need the PC in another room. 

 

There are solutions out there, but they are sometimes not reliable, sometimes very expensive and more often than you would like even both.

[K0stas]

16 minutes ago, mapegl said:

I have a 10m HDMi cable that works without any issues...

One isn't supposed to go much further, but maybe you can go through the wall? It's not that hard to hide the cable channel and would save you a ton. Get a nice cable sleeve to bundle everything together and it should look ok. 

 

I have thought about similar stuff and at the end you could just build a secondary PC for the money you save....unless you have a Linus problem and need the PC in another room. 

 

There are solutions out there, but they are sometimes not reliable, sometimes very expensive and more often than you would like even both.

A 7.5m cable is still long enough If I take a shortcut but will it work for 2k 165hz or will I get visual glitches? Is your 10m cable active and if not, what is the resolution and refresh rate of your monitor?

[mapegl]

I have used it with a 4k 60hz display without issues, but YMMV. Get a decent quality one and try it out. 

I could run a test with 1440p 165hz tomorrow though. 

I don't use any special audio gear though. 

1 hour ago, K0stas said:

A 7.5m cable is still long enough If I take a shortcut but will it work for 2k 165hz or will I get visual glitches? Is your 10m cable active and if not, what is the resolution and refresh rate of your monitor?

 

[K0stas]

39 minutes ago, mapegl said:

I have used it with a 4k 60hz display without issues, but YMMV. Get a decent quality one and try it out. 

I could run a test with 1440p 165hz tomorrow though. 

I don't use any special audio gear though. 

 

Oh, If you can test it at 2k 165hz it would be very helpful information!!

For this HDMI I won't be using any fancy audio gear either. My PC will be next to my receiver so I will use a short, good quality cable for this.

 

So far, I found an active 2.1 HDMI 7.5m made by stouchi.

https://amzn.eu/d/8GXTOz6

I ve never heard of this company before and I can't find any reviews outside amazon, but the reviews there are good.

 

[mapegl]

12 minutes ago, K0stas said:

Oh, If you can test it at 2k 165hz it would be very helpful information!!

For this HDMI I won't be using any fancy audio gear either. My PC will be next to my receiver so I will use a short, good quality cable for this.

 

So far, I found an active 2.1 HDMI 7.5m made by stouchi.

https://amzn.eu/d/8GXTOz6

I ve never heard of this company before and I can't find any reviews outside amazon, but the reviews there are good.

 

CSL - 10 m HDMI Cable 2.0a 2.0b - Ultra HD 4k 60Hz - Latest Standard - High Speed HDMI 2.0 - Ultra HD Full HD 1080p - 3D ARC CEC HDCP HDR - Triple Shielded - up to 18 Gbit s - White https://amzn.eu/d/hgwOvol

 

That's the one I use and there is a review claiming it works at 4k/120hz. I will test my gaming monitor tomorrow though.

I doubt you need an active cable, but get one with good shielding. 

[mapegl]

...tested and it works without any issues. 
The connection is limited to 144Hz though. I can't say if that is my GPU, display or cable, but that is what it is. 

Hope that helps somehow.

[K0stas]

56 minutes ago, mapegl said:

...tested and it works without any issues. 
The connection is limited to 144Hz though. I can't say if that is my GPU, display or cable, but that is what it is. 

Hope that helps somehow.

Thank you so much for testing this!! It could be limited due to bandwidth since it's an hdmi 2.0 cable. Still I would be happy with 144hz as long as it works!

[mapegl]

41 minutes ago, K0stas said:

Thank you so much for testing this!! It could be limited due to bandwidth since it's an hdmi 2.0 cable. Still I would be happy with 144hz as long as it works!

You are correct sir. It's enough for m 120hz 1080p projector. That's all I cared about then. 

I didn't really check what I bought this time, but yeah. 

 

Anyways, as I mentioned before, I think you will be fine with regular cables. And yes, a single cable is more elegant, but think about what it costs vs. how much you will actually care later on if you do a nice cable management job. 

You could probably buy a Steam Deck for the money you are saving.

[K0stas]

12 hours ago, mapegl said:

think about what it costs

That's the main problem! Linus proved again and again that everything can be solve with either a lot of money or an immense amount of money Unfortunately I cannot afford to spend 500 euro just to send signal to a monitor...

 

As long as a good old regular copper cable works everything is good!!

 

Thank you again for your help!

[K0stas]

All my PC components have arrived and I connected everything, so I wanted to give you an update regarding what I did and how well it worked in case someone else has the same problem as me.

 

In the end, I went with the old fashioned way and connected everything using standard cables. I bought a 7.5M 2.1 HDMI to connect my PC with my monitor and a short 2.1 cable to connect my TV to my PC. I used the Stouchi 8K HDMI 2.1 7.5 m, CL3 In Wall cable which worked just fine even though it's right at the length limit of HDMI cables. I could also have gone with the maxonar 7m cable which is certified too but the stouchi one was on sale. Connecting 2 monitors with different resolutions and Hz is not ideal but if you don't mind changing the resolution and HZ every time you use your PC with either your monitor or TV then it's fine. I only do it when I am gaming on my TV anyways so it doesn't bother me personally.

 

Regarding the USB, I went with a 5m active usb extender by MutecPower combined with the Tp-link 720 which worked just fine. I have my wired keyboard, wireless mouse, audio interface and hard drives on my usb hub without any issues. The only "problem" is that If I want to enter the bios I have to plug my mouse and keyboard directly to my PC which is not a big issue for me. A wireless keyboard plugged directly on my PC would solve this but I would have to charge it quite often due to the less than ideal distance draining the batteries.

 

One very important thing to keep in mind is that if you want to use a long, over 7.5+m HDMI cable to connect your PC to your home theater receiver is to not get an optical HDMI. Good optical cables are reliable no matter their length but they cannot pass-through HD audio such as dolby atmos or DTS-HD. If you need to connect your receiver with your PC and you need something longer than 7.5m to do so I would recommend you either a Zidoo TV if you mainly watch local content or a Nvidia shield for streaming content (Plex, netflix etc) and gaming. Another solution which works just fine for me is using the Plex app on your TV to play movies and use the e-arc pass-through to send the audio signal to your receiver.

 

I hope that was helpful