Let's see a bit of ordering trying to make a short guide on the cables that can be attached to the computer because there are many and you never know what they are for.
There are so many computer cables, with different standards, acronyms and terms often similar and often difficult to distinguish.
We may need a USB Type A, Type B or Type C cable, a SATA cable or one of the newer ones, DisplayPort or Thunderbolt.
To distinguish the types of cables that you may need, we see in this guide which are the main ones, what are the differences between the cables and the numerous ports or sockets that a PC can have .
READ ALSO: Buy cables on Amazon Basics
USB cables are now the standard for connecting any portable device to your computer.
You can use USB cables to attach external drives, pens and USB sticks, portable media players, internet modems, digital cameras and mobile phones to your computer.
Normal accessories such as mice, keyboards, webcams, microphones, printers, scanners and even some types of speakers are also attached to the USB ports of the computer.
The USB cable is generally used to transfer data from the peripheral to the computer or vice versa or even between two computers.
The differences between the versions of cables and USB ports, from the oldest to the most recent, are related to the speed of data transfer and are all compatible with the previous version.
- USB 1.0 can transmit data at speeds up to 1.5 MB / s.
- USB 2.0 can transmit data at speeds up to 60 MB / s.
- USB 3.0 can transmit data at speeds up to 625 MB / s.
USB 3.1 can transmit data at speeds up to 1.25 GB / s, the most common today.
- USB 3.2 can transmit data at speeds up to 2.5 GB / s, but only when using a USB-C connection.
- USB 4.x is a future specification that will transmit data at speeds up to 5 GB / s, only with USB-C connection.
It will be released in 2019 and will only be compatible with USB 3.2 and USB 2.0.
There are also several forms for USB cables and ports:
- Type A supports USB 1.0, USB 2.0, USB 3.0, USB 3.1.
- Type B supports USB 1.0, USB 2.0, USB 3.0, USB 3.1.
- Type C (i.e. USB-C) supports USB 3.1, USB 3.2, USB 4.x.
- Mini-USB supports USB 2.0.
- Micro-USB supports USB 2.0.
The USB-A connector is the thick rectangular one present on at least one side in almost all USB cables of the computer, the input of the standard USB ports.
The other end of the USB cable can be USB-B, the square connector commonly used with printers, external hard drives, and larger devices, or smaller connectors that we can call mini-USB and Micro-USB, which are commonly used. with portable devices, such as media players, digital cameras and cell phones.
USB-C is clearly the most convenient USB connector, since it can be inserted in any direction.
Also important are the USB cable extensions, those that have the male on one side and the female on the other.
There are also other USB cables (personally never used) that have the standard USB socket on one side while on the other there is a connection to another port such as Ethernet (network socket) or the audio jack.
If you buy an adapter from one USB type to another, the data transfer speed will be limited by the slower connection.
READ ALSO: Which USB cables to have for each function
When it comes to audio, you can indulge yourself because there are many types of cables and especially converters which eventually all fall back to two types: 3.5 mm (1/8 ") and 6.3 mm (1/4").
The most common cable is the standard mini audio jack for headphones, otherwise known as a TRS connector or simply an audio cable.
Virtually all computers, stationary or portable, use the 3.5mm audio jack.
Most speakers and microphones are able to connect to your computer with these audio cables.
The computer microphone port is usually pink while the speaker port, where the stereo audio cable is plugged in, is green.
Some computers have additional TSR audio jacks which are black, gray and gold and mean front, rear and center / subwoofer speakers respectively.
These are the PCs whose sound card supports 5.1 systems .
A variety of the TSR connector is the largest 6.3mm (1/4 ") which is the largest, used in professional audio recording equipment, for amplifiers or microphones (even karaoke ones) which can be connected to a computer using a 1/4 "to 1/8" converter.
On Amazon there are all the cables and audio connectors to buy.
- In recent years all televisions, DVD players and stereos also have a digital optical audio socket .
To listen to music or if you want to watch a DVD movie on your PC with high quality audio, you must connect the computer to a DVD player, a stereo or a Home Teather Doby Surround system with the connector called TOSLINK (or S / PDIF) connector.
These are fiber optic cables and can therefore transmit digital audio through light.
Some laptops and audio equipment have a TOSLINK mini-jack socket that can be used via a converter to connect to a standard TOSLINK (Toshiba Link) port.
- The oldest video connector on computer monitors and high definition televisions is the VGA cable .
A standard VGA connector is the 15-pin connector and is the typical and classic one with which monitors are connected to computers.
The VGA cable can also be used to connect the laptop to a TV (the new ones all have this port) or to a projector.
The converters allow you to connect your VGA monitor to newer computers that only have HDMI or DVI output.
A smaller variant of the VGA is the mini-VGA, found on some older laptops.
Here, too, a converter is needed to connect any standard VGA monitor to a mini-VGA port on the laptop.
The VGA cable is an analog video signal cable, now surpassed by digital video cables.
Still today, however, the VGA port is present on most video cards and monitors.
On Amazon, all types of video cables
- The DVI port was the competitor of the VGA port, with digital signal.
DVI connections are available in three types:
DVI-A can transmit analog signals, allowing backwards compatibility with VGA (useful for CRT monitors and old LCD monitors).
DVI-D can transmit more recent digital signals.
DVI-I capable of sending analog and digital signal.
In some cases, a VGA-DVI or DVI-VGA converter cable may be required.
DVI now in disuse, having been replaced by more modern types of cables such as HDMI, DisplayPort and Thunderbolt.
The new generation of ultra-flat laptops such as the MacBook Air had to make variants of this socket with smaller versions called Mini-DVI and Micro-DVI.
A DVI cable has 29 pins, although some connectors may have fewer pins depending on their configuration.
The DVI video signal is compatible with the HDMI one, therefore, with a simple converter you can make sure that a DVI monitor receives input from an HDMI cable.
Of course there are also DVI to VGA adapters in order to connect the new graphics card to an old monitor that only supports VGA mode.
- HDMI ( High-Definition Multimedia Interface ) cables
HDMI is the standard for transmitting high quality audio and video through a single cable .
HDMIs support a maximum resolution of 4096 × 2160p (HD 1920 × 1200 only) with up to 8 channels of digital audio and are used to connect Blu-Ray players to a full HD TV.
Some HDMI cables can be up to 5 meters long and, higher quality cables, up to 15 meters long which can also be increased with amplifiers.
HDMI connections are available in five types:
- Type A is the most popular, with 19 pins on the male head, compatible with single link DVI-D connections.
- Type B, larger than type A, with 29 pins on the male side, compatible with dual-link DVI-D connections, are quite rare to find.
Type C (Mini HDMI) is a 19-pin connector often used with portable devices, such as camcorders and digital cameras.
Type D (Micro HDMI) also has 19 pins and a Micro-USB cable, sometimes included in smartphones and tablets, looks similar.
- Type E is much larger with a locking mechanism, mainly used for automotive applications.
HDMI is compatible with the DVI socket via a converter that allows you to watch video on a DVI device using the HDMI cable although, in this case, it will take another cable for audio.
You can buy cheap HDMI cables on Amazon
- DisplayPort
Display Port is a multimedia interface that transmits video and audio signals together, designed to replace VGA and DVI, mainly used to connect computers to monitors.
They support high video resolution and up to 8 channels of digital audio.
The types of cables and DisplaYPort ports are:
RBR (reduced bit rate): up to 810 MB / s.
HBR (High Bit Rate): up to 1, 350 MB / s.
HBR2 (High Bit Rate 2): up to 2, 700 MB / s.
HBR3 (High Bit Rate 3): up to 4, 050 MB / s.
DisplayPort is compatible with HDMI and USB via adapters.
There is also the Mini DisplayPort, which was mainly used in previous Apple devices released before 2011.
On Amazon you can buy any type of DisplayPort cable
READ ALSO: Differences between HDMI and VGA cable, and between DVI and DisplayPort sockets
- Thunderbolt
Thunderbolt cables are mainly used by Apple to connect its devices to the computer.
Thunderbolt 1 and Thunderbolt 2 cables use the same connector as the Mini DisplayPort and are compatible with Mini DisplayPort connections.
Thunderbolt 3 cables use the same connector as USB-C and all Thunderbolt 3 connections are compatible with USB-C connections.
While SATA cables are used internally to connect the hard drive to the computer motherboard and therefore not seen, eSATA cables are designed for external hard drives or portable hard drives, and can transfer data faster than USB or FireWire connection .
However, the eSATA cable does not transmit energy as USB does and therefore cannot power a portable external hard disk that has no autonomous power supply.
A standard SATA cable can be recognized by two connectors, each with 7 pins and an empty notch.
- The IDE cable was used before SATA cables to connect disks to the computer motherboard.
It looks like a 40-pin wide ribbon-like cable.
Among the network cables we mention the old RJ11 telephone cable, still used all over the world for connecting to the Internet via modem, consisting of 4 wires, with a four-pin connector.
The universal network cable is called Ethernet cable which is the standard for wired networking around the world.
The Ethernet cable, otherwise known as RJ45, is based on a Cat5 twisted pair and consists of 8 single wires.
The Ethernet connector has 8 pins and is very similar to a thicker and wider phone plug.
READ ALSO: Differences between Ethernet, CAT5 and CAT6 cables and which ones to use
- Firewire or IEEE 1394 or also known by the names i.LINK and Lynx, is an alternative to the USB socket and is commonly used for connecting digital video cameras and external hard drives
to a computer.
Firewire cables can also be used to connect PCs to the network, without a router, but personally I never did it when I tried.
The FireWire cable is typically 6-pin in its connector, although there is also a 4-pin one.
- S-Video or Super Video cables are those used for the transport of analog data and are used to connect DVD players, camcorders and old video consoles to the TV.
S-Video cables are very useful for connecting laptops to older televisions, those without a VGA socket.
There is a possibility that the TV supports S-Video despite not having the socket to attach the cable to it.
In these cases, it takes a Scart converter that has this port.
The standards of S-Video connectors are round in shape and can have a variable number of pins, between 4 and 9.
- RCA
The RCA connector cables are represented by a group of 2 or 3 wires, which almost always include composite video (yellow color) and, always, stereo audio cables (red for the right channel and white or black for the
left audio channel).
Sometimes there may be others in this bundle for additional audio and / or video channels .
Among the videos there may be the Video Component ( component video) which offers a better image than the composite because the video signal is divided into several signals, while, in the case of composites, everything is transferred by means of the only yellow plug.
RCA cables are usually used to connect the DVD player, stereo speakers, digital camera and other audio / video equipment to the TV.
You can attach an RCA cable to your computer via a video capture card so you can transfer recorded video from an analog camcorder to the old computer hard drive.
- Molex cable
The Molex cable has a plastic socket with 4 holes and looks like a plug.
It is an internal computer cable that energizes internal components such as internal LED lights or fans.
I skip the serial cable which is no longer used except in rare cases of hacking.
The cables that can be connected to a computer are closely connected to the cables that are used for a television and in fact we have seen in another article all the possibilities to connect a laptop to the television .
There are so many computer cables, with different standards, acronyms and terms often similar and often difficult to distinguish.
We may need a USB Type A, Type B or Type C cable, a SATA cable or one of the newer ones, DisplayPort or Thunderbolt.
To distinguish the types of cables that you may need, we see in this guide which are the main ones, what are the differences between the cables and the numerous ports or sockets that a PC can have .
READ ALSO: Buy cables on Amazon Basics
1) USB cables
USB cables are now the standard for connecting any portable device to your computer.
You can use USB cables to attach external drives, pens and USB sticks, portable media players, internet modems, digital cameras and mobile phones to your computer.
Normal accessories such as mice, keyboards, webcams, microphones, printers, scanners and even some types of speakers are also attached to the USB ports of the computer.
The USB cable is generally used to transfer data from the peripheral to the computer or vice versa or even between two computers.
The differences between the versions of cables and USB ports, from the oldest to the most recent, are related to the speed of data transfer and are all compatible with the previous version.
- USB 1.0 can transmit data at speeds up to 1.5 MB / s.
- USB 2.0 can transmit data at speeds up to 60 MB / s.
- USB 3.0 can transmit data at speeds up to 625 MB / s.
USB 3.1 can transmit data at speeds up to 1.25 GB / s, the most common today.
- USB 3.2 can transmit data at speeds up to 2.5 GB / s, but only when using a USB-C connection.
- USB 4.x is a future specification that will transmit data at speeds up to 5 GB / s, only with USB-C connection.
It will be released in 2019 and will only be compatible with USB 3.2 and USB 2.0.
There are also several forms for USB cables and ports:
- Type A supports USB 1.0, USB 2.0, USB 3.0, USB 3.1.
- Type B supports USB 1.0, USB 2.0, USB 3.0, USB 3.1.
- Type C (i.e. USB-C) supports USB 3.1, USB 3.2, USB 4.x.
- Mini-USB supports USB 2.0.
- Micro-USB supports USB 2.0.
The USB-A connector is the thick rectangular one present on at least one side in almost all USB cables of the computer, the input of the standard USB ports.
The other end of the USB cable can be USB-B, the square connector commonly used with printers, external hard drives, and larger devices, or smaller connectors that we can call mini-USB and Micro-USB, which are commonly used. with portable devices, such as media players, digital cameras and cell phones.
USB-C is clearly the most convenient USB connector, since it can be inserted in any direction.
Also important are the USB cable extensions, those that have the male on one side and the female on the other.
There are also other USB cables (personally never used) that have the standard USB socket on one side while on the other there is a connection to another port such as Ethernet (network socket) or the audio jack.
If you buy an adapter from one USB type to another, the data transfer speed will be limited by the slower connection.
READ ALSO: Which USB cables to have for each function
2) Audio cables and connectors
When it comes to audio, you can indulge yourself because there are many types of cables and especially converters which eventually all fall back to two types: 3.5 mm (1/8 ") and 6.3 mm (1/4").
The most common cable is the standard mini audio jack for headphones, otherwise known as a TRS connector or simply an audio cable. Virtually all computers, stationary or portable, use the 3.5mm audio jack.
Most speakers and microphones are able to connect to your computer with these audio cables.
The computer microphone port is usually pink while the speaker port, where the stereo audio cable is plugged in, is green.
Some computers have additional TSR audio jacks which are black, gray and gold and mean front, rear and center / subwoofer speakers respectively. These are the PCs whose sound card supports 5.1 systems .
A variety of the TSR connector is the largest 6.3mm (1/4 ") which is the largest, used in professional audio recording equipment, for amplifiers or microphones (even karaoke ones) which can be connected to a computer using a 1/4 "to 1/8" converter.
On Amazon there are all the cables and audio connectors to buy.
- In recent years all televisions, DVD players and stereos also have a digital optical audio socket . To listen to music or if you want to watch a DVD movie on your PC with high quality audio, you must connect the computer to a DVD player, a stereo or a Home Teather Doby Surround system with the connector called TOSLINK (or S / PDIF) connector.
These are fiber optic cables and can therefore transmit digital audio through light.
Some laptops and audio equipment have a TOSLINK mini-jack socket that can be used via a converter to connect to a standard TOSLINK (Toshiba Link) port.
3) Video cables
- The oldest video connector on computer monitors and high definition televisions is the VGA cable .
A standard VGA connector is the 15-pin connector and is the typical and classic one with which monitors are connected to computers. The VGA cable can also be used to connect the laptop to a TV (the new ones all have this port) or to a projector.
The converters allow you to connect your VGA monitor to newer computers that only have HDMI or DVI output.
A smaller variant of the VGA is the mini-VGA, found on some older laptops.
Here, too, a converter is needed to connect any standard VGA monitor to a mini-VGA port on the laptop.
The VGA cable is an analog video signal cable, now surpassed by digital video cables.
Still today, however, the VGA port is present on most video cards and monitors.
On Amazon, all types of video cables
- The DVI port was the competitor of the VGA port, with digital signal. DVI connections are available in three types:
DVI-A can transmit analog signals, allowing backwards compatibility with VGA (useful for CRT monitors and old LCD monitors).
DVI-D can transmit more recent digital signals.
DVI-I capable of sending analog and digital signal.
In some cases, a VGA-DVI or DVI-VGA converter cable may be required.
DVI now in disuse, having been replaced by more modern types of cables such as HDMI, DisplayPort and Thunderbolt.
The new generation of ultra-flat laptops such as the MacBook Air had to make variants of this socket with smaller versions called Mini-DVI and Micro-DVI.
A DVI cable has 29 pins, although some connectors may have fewer pins depending on their configuration.
The DVI video signal is compatible with the HDMI one, therefore, with a simple converter you can make sure that a DVI monitor receives input from an HDMI cable.
Of course there are also DVI to VGA adapters in order to connect the new graphics card to an old monitor that only supports VGA mode.
4) Audio and video cables together
- HDMI ( High-Definition Multimedia Interface ) cables HDMI is the standard for transmitting high quality audio and video through a single cable .
HDMIs support a maximum resolution of 4096 × 2160p (HD 1920 × 1200 only) with up to 8 channels of digital audio and are used to connect Blu-Ray players to a full HD TV.
Some HDMI cables can be up to 5 meters long and, higher quality cables, up to 15 meters long which can also be increased with amplifiers.
HDMI connections are available in five types:
- Type A is the most popular, with 19 pins on the male head, compatible with single link DVI-D connections.
- Type B, larger than type A, with 29 pins on the male side, compatible with dual-link DVI-D connections, are quite rare to find.
Type C (Mini HDMI) is a 19-pin connector often used with portable devices, such as camcorders and digital cameras.
Type D (Micro HDMI) also has 19 pins and a Micro-USB cable, sometimes included in smartphones and tablets, looks similar.
- Type E is much larger with a locking mechanism, mainly used for automotive applications.
HDMI is compatible with the DVI socket via a converter that allows you to watch video on a DVI device using the HDMI cable although, in this case, it will take another cable for audio.
You can buy cheap HDMI cables on Amazon
- DisplayPort
Display Port is a multimedia interface that transmits video and audio signals together, designed to replace VGA and DVI, mainly used to connect computers to monitors.
They support high video resolution and up to 8 channels of digital audio. The types of cables and DisplaYPort ports are:
RBR (reduced bit rate): up to 810 MB / s.
HBR (High Bit Rate): up to 1, 350 MB / s.
HBR2 (High Bit Rate 2): up to 2, 700 MB / s.
HBR3 (High Bit Rate 3): up to 4, 050 MB / s.
DisplayPort is compatible with HDMI and USB via adapters.
There is also the Mini DisplayPort, which was mainly used in previous Apple devices released before 2011.
On Amazon you can buy any type of DisplayPort cable
READ ALSO: Differences between HDMI and VGA cable, and between DVI and DisplayPort sockets
- Thunderbolt
Thunderbolt cables are mainly used by Apple to connect its devices to the computer.
Thunderbolt 1 and Thunderbolt 2 cables use the same connector as the Mini DisplayPort and are compatible with Mini DisplayPort connections.
Thunderbolt 3 cables use the same connector as USB-C and all Thunderbolt 3 connections are compatible with USB-C connections.
5) Cables to connect hard drives (Hard disk or SSD)
While SATA cables are used internally to connect the hard drive to the computer motherboard and therefore not seen, eSATA cables are designed for external hard drives or portable hard drives, and can transfer data faster than USB or FireWire connection . However, the eSATA cable does not transmit energy as USB does and therefore cannot power a portable external hard disk that has no autonomous power supply.
A standard SATA cable can be recognized by two connectors, each with 7 pins and an empty notch.
- The IDE cable was used before SATA cables to connect disks to the computer motherboard.
It looks like a 40-pin wide ribbon-like cable.
6) Network cables
Among the network cables we mention the old RJ11 telephone cable, still used all over the world for connecting to the Internet via modem, consisting of 4 wires, with a four-pin connector. 
The universal network cable is called Ethernet cable which is the standard for wired networking around the world. The Ethernet cable, otherwise known as RJ45, is based on a Cat5 twisted pair and consists of 8 single wires.
The Ethernet connector has 8 pins and is very similar to a thicker and wider phone plug.
READ ALSO: Differences between Ethernet, CAT5 and CAT6 cables and which ones to use
7) Other cables
- Firewire or IEEE 1394 or also known by the names i.LINK and Lynx, is an alternative to the USB socket and is commonly used for connecting digital video cameras and external hard drives
to a computer. Firewire cables can also be used to connect PCs to the network, without a router, but personally I never did it when I tried.
The FireWire cable is typically 6-pin in its connector, although there is also a 4-pin one.
- S-Video or Super Video cables are those used for the transport of analog data and are used to connect DVD players, camcorders and old video consoles to the TV. S-Video cables are very useful for connecting laptops to older televisions, those without a VGA socket.
There is a possibility that the TV supports S-Video despite not having the socket to attach the cable to it.
In these cases, it takes a Scart converter that has this port.
The standards of S-Video connectors are round in shape and can have a variable number of pins, between 4 and 9.
- RCA
The RCA connector cables are represented by a group of 2 or 3 wires, which almost always include composite video (yellow color) and, always, stereo audio cables (red for the right channel and white or black for the
left audio channel). Sometimes there may be others in this bundle for additional audio and / or video channels .
Among the videos there may be the Video Component ( component video) which offers a better image than the composite because the video signal is divided into several signals, while, in the case of composites, everything is transferred by means of the only yellow plug.
RCA cables are usually used to connect the DVD player, stereo speakers, digital camera and other audio / video equipment to the TV.
You can attach an RCA cable to your computer via a video capture card so you can transfer recorded video from an analog camcorder to the old computer hard drive.
- Molex cable
The Molex cable has a plastic socket with 4 holes and looks like a plug.
It is an internal computer cable that energizes internal components such as internal LED lights or fans.
I skip the serial cable which is no longer used except in rare cases of hacking.
The cables that can be connected to a computer are closely connected to the cables that are used for a television and in fact we have seen in another article all the possibilities to connect a laptop to the television .
