3 Monitors on MacPro

Apple OS X

3 Monitors on MacPro

Posted by Ted Irving on April 29, 2011 at 3:34 pm

i have a Quad-Core Intel Xeon MacPro 2.8 Nahalem, just bought a month ago. It comes with the two mini-DVI ports and one large DVI port. For the large DVI port I have a DVI-VGA adapter going to my first monitor. The 1st tiny or mini-DVI port is connected to a mini DVI-HDMI adapter and going to my 32″ Polaroid HD screen. The last mini-DVI port has a mini-DVI to VGA adapter. Why can my MacPro not see all three and allow the mouse to glide between all 3? I can only see two monitors at a time despite all three being on and connected. Any ideas?

Ted Irving
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http://www.tedtv.tv
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Ted Irving replied 15 years ago 3 Members · 6 Replies
6 Replies

Michael Sacci
April 29, 2011 at 10:50 pm

Just read the specs on apple’s site yesterday, if you want to use 3 monitors you cannot use an adapter on either of the mini-ports.
Ted Irving
April 30, 2011 at 12:44 am

Thanks. just scanned their site. do you have a link for where you found that info?

Ted Irving
Content Freelancer
Media Instructor
http://www.tedtv.tv
tedirving@yahoo.com
Ted Irving
April 30, 2011 at 12:52 am

Just one crazy question and hopefully you know it but why would there be three output options if all three can’t work if connected. why limit the capability to two when there are three? Or are there options out there that exist that I don’t know of? Could be. It reminds me of the old Intel/AMD RAM chipsets where the motherboard had four slots for RAM but you could only use three. LOL

Ted Irving
Content Freelancer
Media Instructor
http://www.tedtv.tv
tedirving@yahoo.com
Craig Thomas quinlan
May 2, 2011 at 8:11 pm

There are ways to get three monitors to work simultaneously, but you can’t use the standard mini-display port to DVI adaptor – you’ll need the mini-display port to dual link dvi adaptor. Here’s the link on Apple’s site:

https://support.apple.com/kb/HT4279

This shows all the supported display configurations.

Specific provisions for three simultaneous monitors:

# To connect three DVI displays at once, you must use two Apple Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapters (sold separately).
# To connect up to three VGA displays simultaneously, use the Mini DisplayPort to VGA adapter and DVI to VGA adapters (sold separately).
Ted Irving
May 2, 2011 at 11:50 pm

thanks for the link and help. i’ve decided to go with the Black Magic Intensity Pro PCI card and just run the second HDMI out to my 32″ HD screen. I read about three different articles discussing the issues with the Apple Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter and they don’t sound too positive. But thanks again.

Ted Irving
Content Freelancer
Media Instructor
http://www.tedtv.tv
tedirving@yahoo.com
Ted Irving
May 3, 2011 at 10:42 pm

Man, you learn something everyday. Now I have to see if my three year old HDTV set runs off of HDMI 1.3a or 1.4a. If not, the Intensity Pro won’t work on it!! LOL Technology.

Ted Irving
Content Freelancer
Media Instructor
http://www.tedtv.tv
tedirving@yahoo.com

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