Can I break those 4 pins off of my DVI cable?

[N. Abstentia]

Way back when, I ran a DVI-I cable to my projector and I'm just now getting around to using it (thanks an Xbox Elite and an HDMI-DVI cable!). The projector actually has a DVI-I connector (which uses the 4 little pins around the blade) but my preamp/switcher does not. It has the DVI without the 4 pins (DVD-D, I think?). Can I just simply break those 4 pins off so it will plug in? I assume it shouldn't be a problem since obviously nothing I have uses them. I just want some other opinions before I do it because I don't want to render my DVI cable useless since it runs through the walls and through the ceiling...and as you can tell I'm no DVI expert.

For reference, my cable looks like this:
http://www.bluejeanscable.co.uk/store/dvi/dviiplug.jpg
And the 4 pins I'm referring to are the ones on the right side, 2 on top of the blade and two on the bottom.

The DVI plugs on my preamp look like the ones on this thing:
http://www.comprehensiveinc.com/compvideo/images/catalog/Brand_images/Gefen%5Cadadviff.jpg
As you can see, no provisons for the 4 pins.

[N. Abstentia]

Actually, the DVI connectors on the back of my preamp are not identical to that bottom picture, here's the back of my Outlaw 990 where you can see the DVI connectors easily. They're just slightly different.

http://www.outlawaudio.com/images/990-back-huge.jpg

[AVMASTER]

if i remember my DVI cables correctly you have a dual link DVI-I connection at the projector end; this provides a faster transmission and signal quality. However if you were to remove the pins at both ends it shouldn't be a problem? Don't quote me, I'm just guessing and I wouldn't want you to ruin your cable on my behalf!

[N. Abstentia]

Well I went ahead and broke off the pins, and it works fine!

I concluded that the extra 4 pins were useless to me anyway and if it didn't work after breaking the pins it wouldn't have worked anyway.

But I'm happy now :) Compared to the component outputs (both at 720p) the image quality is pretty much the same, but games run just a tick smoother...maybe because I'm bypassing the digital to analog converter in my projector? Heck I don't know. I just know it's worth the $12 HDMI-DVI cable.