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Acmee Author

Level 1

5 points

Mini Displayport to Dual-Link DVI not working?

I have just received my Mini Displayport to Dual Link DVI Adapter. The good: After I cancelled my initial order, because it delayed my notebook, I reordered last week and got it within 5 days or so (despite the store displaying 2-3 weeks). I was positively surprised to see it featuring a USB repeater. I plugged it in and it seemed to work instantly I also encountered no jumpy mouse whatsoever. I tried with a Dell 30" screen (3007WFP).

The Bad: The dvi connector is pretty bad and unstable, you can also not use the screws on the dvi cable to the monitor to fix the plug to the adapter. They also didn't recreate the analog video signals on the dvi connector, so no luck in trying to use the adapter with an old dvi to vga adapter (I was sort of expecting that, but given they have all kinds of circuitry in the box anyway, there was a tiny quantum of hope).

The Ugly: A few minutes later the problem surfaced: The picture became somehow distorted, it looks as if the Dual Link connection is losing a link, meaning that every second pixel or so is missing on screen. But the symptoms can also include shadows etc. I tried a few things:

* Cycling the monitor power has no effect
* It makes no difference if the adapter gets power via the Macbook Pro USB ports, a powered hub, a usb ac adapter etc.
* It makes no difference if there is something plugged into the adapter USB repeater or not.
* The problem seems to be occuring later if the main display is folded down and only the 30" screen is connected
* Re-plugging the connection DVI side fixes the problems sometimes.
* Re-plugging the Mini Displayport side connection either fixes the problem, or kills the connection forever, requiring complete adapter removal and redetection of the main display (sleep, function key etc.).

Over time, the problem surfaces 100%, typically after a few minutes. Funny enough, sometimes it vanishes by itself.

Does anyone have a similar problem? Or is my adapter defective? Any suggestions towards a fix? Any help is appreciated. I am cursing the day someone decided to replace the old dvi connector.

Regards,
TB

Macbook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on Dec 24, 2008 3:58 PM

145 replies

albo

Level 1

45 points

Nov 6, 2009 6:33 PM in response to direwolf8

I bought mine full price from Apple, so I guess I'd like it work correctly. I think they probably want the same.

Nov 9, 2009 10:05 AM in response to Acmee

I can't believe that in 2009 Apple can't make this work. I ran this display from a 12" 867MHz Powerbook WITHOUT ISSUE and a brand new 2.8Ghz MacBook Pro can't handle it?

This is insane. Why move to a new display connector if it is so much crappier than the old one?

albo

Level 1

45 points

Nov 11, 2009 6:55 PM in response to Acmee

Another video example of the flashing issue here: http://vimeo.com/7563175

Again, this only happens when waking the machine from sleep.

Nov 14, 2009 6:37 PM in response to Acmee

Wow - had i realized I would not have bought this new MBP but would ahve purchased a used 2006 model which works quite well. I'll describe my problem below which is more general than the one described in many of these threads.

I'm having a possibly related problem. When I have my brand new macbook pro 15" plugged in with the mini displayport to dvi OR hdmi OR MDP->dvi->hdmi - I get intermittent problems as follows. After the computer goes to sleep and wakes up there are a variety of problems. Sometimes it recovers, sometimes it freezes and wont wake even after disconnecting the external monitor. Sometimes it cycles through black, blue and dithered looking screen in what looks like an attempt to match the display but it will do this endlessly. I may have finally gotten some success by using a mini displayport to rgb. But what is the point of having all this fancy and expensive hardware if we are back in analog RGB land?

Another possibly related problem - when I have an external monitor plugged in AND the audio jack plugged into my stereo - I get terrible noise on the audio line which ruins any movie watching experience. So basically this brand new MBP is useless for watching movies on my home entertainment system. Which is a real drag.

Ive been reading about problems similar to the 1st one but have yet to hear of the second one. Ive been trying every combination of adaptor and plug and power setting i can think of to troubleshoot this problem. I even have a 2 year old MBP with the older full dvi slot and it has none of these symptoms using the same external hardware and adaptors (excepting the mini displayport adaptor which obviously would not work with my older MBP)

Apple needs to step up to the plate and find a solution because external monitors are a must for many mac users. I have a full Apple Care plan along with my laptop all purchased only a month ago so im hoping that working with my local apple store will resolve these issues.

Nov 16, 2009 10:24 PM in response to Acmee

I'm having great success so far, as long as I connect the converter to a USB hub and not to the Mac itself. When it's powered by the Mac, I get flickering after sleep. But there are no issues when the adapter is powered by the hub. I've only been using it a day though.

Using a 30" HP LP3065, the Mini Displayport to Dual-Link DVI adapter (firmware 1.02) works fine with both my Mac mini and my MBP 13". I hope it stays that way.

GBH

Level 1

73 points

Nov 17, 2009 6:21 PM in response to David Clark 2

David, what specific model of USB hub are you using so I can buy one?

albo

Level 1

45 points

Nov 19, 2009 3:17 PM in response to David Clark 2

I bought a powered USB hub a few days ago and everything seemed fine. Got this same problem waking from sleep just now however - http://vimeo.com/7563175

Scriv

Level 1

0 points

Jan 25, 2010 4:24 PM in response to Acmee

Can I just say that I had this exact problem with my Dell 3007 WFP display and 1.01 adapter, but after lengthy talks with an Apple engineer I managed to get my adapter replaced with one having firmware 1.02. This totally fixed the problem.

Message was edited by: Scriv

tsumuji

Level 1

0 points

Feb 19, 2010 3:12 PM in response to Scriv

I and many others have the 1.02 firmware. The case of the vertical stripes continues..though less..only about 5 times a day. The problem is not fixed. Apple does not address the issue. The best result is to sell the MBP with the ignored graphics problem hardware and just move on. I take a loss.Apple keeps the profit and hides it's head in the sand again. Over a year waiting for a solution is just not acceptable!

oliau

Level 1

0 points

Apr 30, 2010 6:26 AM in response to Acmee

I can't believe I am posting in a thread that was started at the end of 2008 to complain about a problem others have reported with the same piece of hardware...

I recently got a replacement MBP courtesy of Apple since my 32 month old MBP had 4 major hardware failures. The old one had a proper Dual Link DVI port which worked 100% perfectly with my 30" Dell 3007WFP monitor.

Now I am using the Mini Display Port adapter with the same monitor and the connection is VERY unstable. If I just apply a small amount of pressure to the port on the laptop it will drop the connection. If I connect the USB port to a powered USB hub it is slightly better, but still not good enough.

This has made the FW800 port and the other USB port very inconvenient to use as each time I try to plug a different device into either of those ports I will lose the external display, which then moves all my windows to the 15" laptop display. After that when I replug the 30" in I have to reposition all my applications on the screen.

Very frustrating! Does anyone have any suggestions or should I be (even bother?) contacting Apple about this?

Mini Displayport to Dual-Link DVI not working?