• Apple OS X

  connecting three monitors to a G5

  Posted by Mark Chadwick on January 31, 2006 at 11:57 pm

  Hi,
  I have a G5 dual 2g and I have

  a 17inch apple studio display
  a 20inch cinema display
  and a 42 inch sharp flat screen (has DVI in)

  I want to hook up all monitors but I only have one DVI into the computer and the cinema display and the sharp TV has DVI connections. The apple studio display hooks up fine so I got
  a geffen DVI splitter and hooked both the cinema display and sharp tv into the spliter and had one cord going into the G5. When I boot up… only the apple studio display comes up… but
  when I go to system prefernces under displays it says I have 3 monitors. When I only hook up the television into the spliter and leave the cinema display out both the studio display and the television comes up. I want 3. Any help would be great. Do I need another DVI card?? Should I get rid of the geffen spliter?

  thanks
  mark

  Jeff Carpenter replied 20 years, 3 months ago 2 Members · 3 Replies
• 3 Replies

• 

  Jeff Carpenter

  February 1, 2006 at 1:36 am

  Is this splitter just a Y-cable, or something like that?

  I suspect you’ll need something that actually amplifies the signal instead of just splitting it. I think the video card is not putting out a signal strong enough to run two monitors from just one plug. You’d need something like this:

  https://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=404006&is=REG&addedTroughType=categoryNavigation

  You are aware that the TV and the Studio monitor will display the exact same thing though, right? You’d have dual-monitors spread across 3 screens. Is it something like a classroom where you want others to be able to view one of your two monitors?
• 

  Mark Chadwick

  February 1, 2006 at 6:01 pm

  Hello,
  Thanks for the reply. Its not a Y spliter its a DVI distribution amplifier that has 2 DVI inputs and one DVI output. You did bring up a good point about signal power. It just doesn’t make sense because this dvi spliter should not have this problem since its an amplifier also.

  https://www.gefen.com/kvm/product.jsp?prod_id=1403

  Another option I saw on the apple website was to get a dual DVI card for the G5. Will that slow me down?

  This setup is for doing multiple tasks such as photoshop, FCP, compression. The flat panel is for presenting videos to our clients.

  thanks
• 

  Jeff Carpenter

  February 1, 2006 at 6:14 pm

  Getting a dual-DVI card would work, but it would mean that you’d have to give up your 17″ studio display.

  But it looks like what you’re doing SHOULD work with that gefen device, yes.

  At this point I’d suggest calling up gefen and saying “hey, I’m trying to do this, is this right?” Even if the problem isn’t their problem they probably haev enough experience to recognize what’s going on.

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