mwedge21 wrote:
Hi there - I have an HP Elitebook 640 G10 Notebook PC for my company and I have a personal Apple thunderbolt monitor (a1407) for my WFH setup. I have a thunderbolt 2 --> thunderbolt 3 converter that I've used with other Macs. My HP has a Thunderbolt™ 4 with USB4™ Type-C® 40 Gbps signaling rate (USB Power Delivery, DisplayPort™ 1.4) port.
When I plug in the converter into the thunderbolt port between the monitor and the laptop, the display remains dark. Is there a different type of converter to buy that would help the two to be compatible? I really don't want to have to stop using the retina display.
Thank you!
A 27-inch Apple Thunderbolt Display (model A1407) is not a Retina display. It has 2560x1440 pixels, which works out to roughly 108.8 PPI.
A 27-inch Apple 5K Studio Display with a resolution of 5120x2880 pixels and a pixel density of about 217.6 PPI is a Retina display. At the same text/workplace size setting ("UI looks like 2560x1440"), it can draw letter shapes, and fill in photo areas, with 4x as many pixels, for sharper detail.
As far as converters, the Apple TB3-to-2 one would be the one to use, if the connection to the A1407 Thunderbolt Display was going to work at all.
There is one possibility you could explore. Sometimes the permanently-attached "hydra cable" on those displays goes bad. In that case, running a Thunderbolt 1/2 cable from the TB2 side of the adapter, to the TB daisy-chaining port on the monitor, can sometimes bypass the problem. This might work for you if the reason that the display is dark is because of a bad "hydra cable", but it won't work if the problem is some software incompatibility between the display and Windows.
