Dual non-Thunderbolt monitors on Late 2011 MBP

Try the Matrox dualhead2 go external video card. I have been told it will work, it says on its webpage it will work, but I have not tried it myself. I have purchased one, but it has not yet arrived.

A mini-Displayport to DVI adapter will connect one monitor to your Thunderbolt port for high performance, and a USB video adapter will give you a second monitor, considerably less responsive because of USB's limited bandwidth.

My Matrox Dual Head 2 go DP Edition arrived and it hooked up great. However, my external dual monitors are seen as one Monitor by the Macbook Pro, not what I wanted, I want the extended display, not one giant screen (too much dragging around). So, I have contact Matrox to see what kind of magic advice they have to offer. It may be that I just needed to update the firmware.

Hi s2parks - did you ever get it two work in extended display and not just one giant screen?

I too have a late 2011 macbook pro and have 2 external monitors that I want to connect but after talking with the folks at apple care, the apple store, best buy, etc... I am getting answers that are all opposite of each other...

So I am curious if you or anyone else has a solution that might work with my laptop...

15" macbook pro, thunderbolt, mini-display, etc...

Tsawmac: if you want answers about what you can do with the DualHead2Go, why not talk to Matrox tech support? They'll know.

eww... thanks I will try to do that - I was actually very curious if anyone else has had success or ideas of accomplishing this without adding something like Dualhead2go...

When I spoke with apple folks today some felt that it was doable, but wasn't sure exactly what I needed to purchase to accomplish it...

So I am toally open for thoughs and ideas and recommendations from those that have had it work on their end...

Are you using 2 monitors on a macbook pro?

Thanks!

Tim

One 27" Cinema Display is all I need, so no, I'm not.

eww - very nice!

I was told today by apple care that I should be able to come out of the mini-display port to hdmi... Then get a hdmi splitter and run hdmi cables to each monitor...

I asked if the macbook pro graphics cards would recognize that there are 2 monitors and that they would not be mirrored - they would be like an extended monitor.

But I asked another person at apple and they told me that they didn't think that could be done...

So after talking with 4 or 5 people today I am not sure which direction to head in plus I didn't want to invest the $$ yet until I was more sure of a solution...

Hopefully someone that has this working or a solution will come along... I have read many of the discussions and haven't found the answer yet.

And that's why I suggest that you talk to the people who know, at Matrox.

I seriously doubt that an HDMI splitter would enable your Mac to recognize two different displays and send different signals to each, but of course I don't know for certain. I do know that the first thing I suggested above would work, if you can live with one display being less responsive than the other.

Just wanted to update everyone - I ended up purchasing a matrox DualHead2Go Digital ME and it works great! I ended up getting it from MacMall for $179 and they overnighted it... Works great!

It allows you to run 2 monitors in extended mode - basically one large wide screen between both monitors... It works when you have the macbook pro lid closed as well... When the lid is open you actually have 3 screens that you can use.

Matrox sells the product themselves - but I was told that no retail stores sell it - you have to order from matrox or internet stores that seel it like CDW, etc... They have a list of places on their site - I found it at Macmall and they weren't listed on the matrox site.

thanks...i am trying this cirago NuViewX2 and it is not working!!.... I will look in to it.

what size mac are you using?

I can get DualHead2Go to work with dual HDMI but not dual DVI on my 15" 2011 Macbook Pro. Can anybody confirm how they got it to work with dual DVI?

Also, BootCamp works fine (no installation whatsoever) either with DVI or HDMI, which is funny as I'm using the Mac version of DualHead2Go. OSX seems to be the problem, not the Mac. I'm going through communications with Matrox and am trying to find a solution to dual DVI displays in OSX but so far their DualHead2Go seems to only work with dual HDMI monitors in OSX. Considering how buggy HDMI support is in OSX this it is equally confusing why it only works with HDMI, but Windows BootCamp works flawlessly with whatever you throw at the DualHead2Go.

The only thing I could think of and something I am going to try, is using the Apple TV for mirroring on one monitor and then plugging the mini display port to HDMI into another one. I don't know if this has been tested or if someone has tried, but I certainly will and let you know how it goes.