Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter

Reviews for Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter

Customer Reviews and Ratings

2.5 out of 5 stars

Based on 452 reviews

Write a Review
  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Sleep problems with firmware update 1.3

    • Written by from Amersfoort

    Setup: Mac Pro 2010 with ATI Radeon 5870 with two duallink DVI to minidisplayport adapters and three DELL 1920*1080 LCD monitors.

    After sleep the computer frequently hangs for a while and then responds again. Time for another firmware update?

    Was this useful?

    Flag as inappropriate

  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Gives static/snow when waking from sleep mode

    • Written by from Whitby

    I decided to buy this adapter due to the fact that they updated its firmware to 1.03. Turns out it didn't fix anything. It still gives a static/snow distortion to the external display when waking up your computer from sleep mode.

    27 of 31 people found this useful

    Was this useful?

    Flag as inappropriate

  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Just so so

    • Written by from NEW YORK

    sometimes, display perfect when connected with mac mini (2010) and HP LP3065,BUT randomly desktop dispeare.

    32 of 32 people found this useful

    Was this useful?

    Flag as inappropriate

  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    When it works, it's great. When not, it's annoying.

    • Written by from Chapel Hill

    I use this to connect my 11" Air to a 27" WQHD non-Apple monitor (I had tried HDMI and regular DVI adapters and couldn't get full resolution). Most of the time, the D-L DVI adapter works fine and the picture looks great.

    About 1/10 times if I wake up my monitor from sleep, it looks great for a second or two, but then overlays the entire displayed image with a weird static. You can still barely see the picture, but you wouldn't want to use it. To recover from this, I often have to unplug the adapter from my Air and try again, sometimes multiple times are required. Also, it uses up a USB port and the pass-through one it provides does not provide much power: a mouse works, but the USB->Ethernet adapter does NOT work, nor does the external superdrive.

    21 of 21 people found this useful

    Was this useful?

    Flag as inappropriate

  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Snow on screen when waking up, sometimes

    • Written by from BERKELEY

    This product works fine 99.9% of the time with a new Mac Mini/Lion and a Dell U2711 monitor running at 2560x1440.

    The only problem is that when the Mac Mini I am using wakes up from sleep mode, sometimes I get a lot of colored video "snow" on the screen.

    I can remove this snow by power-cycling the monitor. (I am not certain the problem is due to the cable - it could also be the Mac Mini itself or the Dell U2711 monitor at 2560x1440 resolution.)

    I am using firmware version 1.03 of the cable.

    If someone has suggestions, or even a location for support for this, that would be helpful.

    24 of 25 people found this useful

    Was this useful?

    Flag as inappropriate

  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Expensive and Bulky

    • Written by from Saint Paul

    For the price, this adapter should include a dual-link DVI cable. The adapter doesn't work properly unless you have the very latest version of the cable (with 1.03 firmware), so don't look for used cables on eBay. The adapter is bulky and requires the use of a USB port (though it does have a USB port on it). If you have a MacBook Air, and especially if you want to use an Air SuperDrive, you will have trouble connecting everything at once. This is because the SuperDrive will not work with USB hubs.

    Sadly, this is the only option available for some people depending on their display. If possible, a Mini DisplayPort or DisplayPort connection (with adapter) is a better bet for hi-res work.

    15 of 16 people found this useful

    Was this useful?

    Flag as inappropriate

  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Microsoft like solution

    • Written by from New York

    Sure it works but instead of plugging directly into the computer now I need two adapters plus it takes up additional USB port. A major hassle not to mention that it's expensive!

    18 of 19 people found this useful

    Was this useful?

    Flag as inappropriate

  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Adapter is unreliable ... lots of snow

    • Written by from Cary

    I have a Del U3011 display that I use at home and connect my 2009 Unibody via the display port to the display. The cheap DVI Display adapter would not let me get a resolution greater than 1680x1050 and so I sprung the $100 for the Dual-Link DVI adapter.

    It is a very poor quality device as I generally have to change resolutions to get the "snow" to disappear. When it is working its fine but its definitely not worth the $100. The display will also intermittently cut out (blank) for up to 20 seconds and then start working again. I know its not the monitor as I also use it for a Windows box and the Dell display works flawlessly with that system.

    I'm a big Apple fan but on this device they get a major thumbs down.

    29 of 29 people found this useful

    Was this useful?

    Flag as inappropriate

  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    MacBookPro and Dell U3011

    • Written by from Aptos

    This dual link adapter did not provide the 2560 x 1600 resolution capable on the Dell U3011. My MBP is a mid-2008 with Nvidia graphics card 9400M and 9600GT. Using the minidisplay port to HDMI I could achieve 1920 and using the minidisplay port to VGA I could achieve even higher resolution, but still short of about 400x550 -- ish.

    I am going to return this product. And try the minidisplay port to display port cord. Otherwise, I'll be sticking with the VGA adapter.

    31 of 35 people found this useful

    Was this useful?

    Flag as inappropriate

  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Weird behavior

    • Written by from Albuquerque

    So setup - Brand new Mac Mini, Brand new 30" LG W3000H, Brand new - Dual link mini display port adapter. Random flicker, pink noise on the screen, blurred blacks (blue flicker). Tried with different DVI cables, different power cables, different power sources (i.e., wall vs UPS), all with similar but different problems. Plug the screen into an old MBP with full size DVI, no problems at all.

    So, I tried to plug the display port adapter into another 30" screen, 2yr old Samsung 305T. Looks great.

    I have suspicions that some monitors will work, and that some won't after this. However, I am going to blame the adapter for being quirky. For a $99 piece of equipment, I would like to have seen better performance than this. Basically, my new monitor is useless with this display port adapter. I'm transitioning to a linux box with a dual link DVI graphics card in it. Sigh.

    15 of 16 people found this useful

    Was this useful?

    Flag as inappropriate

  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Lasted almost five months

    • Written by from Sandy

    Worked fine with an HP LP3065 monitor, for a while. I was banging away at a document earlier this week and the screen went black. Thought I heard a very quiet 'pop' so I assumed it was the monitor. Not so. HP's trouble shooting revealed that it hadn't dropped dead. I connected the Mac to another monitor via another adapter. No problems there. Then I envisioned that call with Apple about this $99 adapter, then obviously the culprit. Is there another one you can try? Nope - this is the only $99 accessory that I have ever needed for connecting a computer to a peripheral device.

    I bought another one from Amazon. If you have a dual-link DVI monitor, you really don't have much choice but to shell out for this thing. Plugged it in (after checking one more time to see if the old one had fixed itself) and sure enough the replacement solved the problem. I called Apple then, and at least they are willing to ship a replacement, to arrive in 2-5 days. I guess I'll have a spare.

    Given the hassle I wish I'd sought an aftermarket mini-DVI compatible monitor (not that there are many of those). Apple really needs to examine its perspective on video ports. If the designers are going to demand an adapter, and Apple is going to charge a whopping premium for it, it should at least be a quality product.

    15 of 16 people found this useful

    Was this useful?

    Flag as inappropriate

  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Flicker

    • Written by from Chanhassen

    Connected to the Cinema HD 30", to the iMac LED 27".

    The adapter works, but the screen has scattered horizontal flicker (graphical artifacts that last for, oh, 1/60th of a second) that is very, very annoying. Especially visible with a darker background.

    Disappointed. Gave the produce 2 stars instead of 1 star, because it is makeshift usable.

    One of the other posters said that they switched to using a powered USB hub and his problem went away. Tried using a Belkin powered USB hub, but that did not change the flicker issue.

    Firmware version 1.03. Hopefully the problem will get fixed with firmware version 1.04.

    15 of 15 people found this useful

    Was this useful?

    Flag as inappropriate

  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Buy a powered USB Plug

    • Written by from Victoria

    I encountered the screen flickering issue mentioned by other users, but fixed it by getting a powered USB hub that I plugged the USB plug from the dual-link DVI adapter into.

    Because the dual-link adapter doesn't work properly without a separate powered USB connector, I give this product 2 stars. It's basically junk without the powered USB connector.

    14 of 15 people found this useful

    Was this useful?

    Flag as inappropriate

  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Buyer Beware

    • Written by from Ashburn

    The firmware on my adapter was version 1.03. I bought it to use with my mac mini (mid 2010) and 30" LG W3000H LCD monitor. Like many others, I had a lot of noise and flickering on my display. Took the adapter and mac mini to the Apple store and used it on one of their 30" Apple Cinema Display and it worked perfectly. Took it to a friends home and used his 30" ACD, again, it worked perfectly. My monitor works with any PC with a DVI connection, so I know it's not the the monitor. I guess it will only work with Apple Displays and not the other brands. I ended up returning the adapter. It's a shame Apple can't make it work with other LCD monitors.

    21 of 23 people found this useful

    Was this useful?

    Flag as inappropriate

  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Video noise in black areas

    • Written by from Louisburg

    2010 MBP i7 2.66, 8g ram, 10.6.4, plugged into original 30" Apple Cinema Display. Same issues as others with 30" display, noise in any region that is black color. Also when waking from sleep to input password, 30" display has a LOT of noise until I type password and hit enter key. This is really unacceptable. My 2006 MBP with DVI had no issues driving this display for the past 4 years.

    21 of 22 people found this useful

    Was this useful?

    Flag as inappropriate

  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Works, but flickers and dies unexpectedly

    • Written by from LaGrange

    I read all the bad reviews, but had to buy the adapter anyway -- when I upgraded from my old MacBook Pro to the new MBP with mini displayport, this adapter was the only way to get my 30" Dell monitor to work.

    I never had any problems plugging the DVI directly into my old MBP, the monitor was crystal clear and never had a single issue. Since using the adapter, there is a constant flicker of red, green and blue pixels that are hard to notice, but if you're looking at a very dark screen they're very apparent.

    The adapter will also just die at random times, displaying a distorted picture, vertical lines, or both. I'll have to completely disconnect and reconnect to get it running again.

    For $100, you'd think it would be made better. Very disappointing especially since it's the only way to get my MBP to work with my monitor.

    31 of 31 people found this useful

    Was this useful?

    Flag as inappropriate

  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    New Macbook Pro and Display Connectors

    • Written by from Tempe

    I just bought a new Macbook Pro with the i7 chip. It's a screamer and works beautifully in almost every respect but the display connectors. My old Macbook Pro had a full size DVI connector that directly supported every display mode I needed out of the box. Now to support my 30" Apple Cinema display I need this clunky connector? Really? To top it all, I bought the mini display port to DVI only to discover it's DVI-D (single link) not DVI-I. Every VGA to DVI adapter in my school is DVI-I so I can't connect without another adapter! So in the end I'm going to have to buy 3 connectors: mini displayport to dual-link DVI, mini displayport to DVI and mini displayport to VGA. A total of $160. For a company that has a reputation of attention to detail, Apple failed on this one.

    35 of 37 people found this useful

    Was this useful?

    Flag as inappropriate

  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    It's a driver issue

    • Written by from HILLSBORO

    I got this for my Samsung 305T. Although it displayed properly, the screen would continue to flash. It was never showing the screen for more than a few secondss before it would flash dark again. Totally unusable. I tried connecting the USB to a more powerful source but that didn't help.

    I measured the current drawn from the device from the USB port and it never drew more than 200 mA, which should be fine for most computers with USB ports. I don't see how that could be the issue.

    I partioned my mini mac for Windows XP and lo and behold. There are absolutely no issues when running the cable and monitor using XP on the same mini mac. This rules out the problem being the monitor, cable or mini mac. The problem is the Apple driver, either for the adapter or for the integrated video. Since it works on XP, I'll keep the cable. But I can see why there are so many complaints!

    35 of 35 people found this useful

    Was this useful?

    Flag as inappropriate

  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Sometimes works

    • Written by from Sandy

    Expensive piece of hardware, but is amazingly flaky. I mean it works most of the time, but is subject to random problems is the form of messed up displays (get used to unplugging and plugging back in). It's a digital to digital converter but it produces artifacts that you would expect from a analog to digital converter.

    Seriously, can this not be done better?

    (yes I have the latest firmware)

    25 of 27 people found this useful

    Was this useful?

    Flag as inappropriate

  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Flaky at best

    • Written by from Peekskill

    I was so excited to get my new 17" MacBook Pro until I realized that this "Pro" product didn't work with my 30" Cinema Display anymore without me dropping another $100. I then get the adaptor to find that it is really flaky, my screen flickers few times an hour and it just seems like the whole thing was an afterthought at best. Really, really disappointed that Apple did this to their core audience who spends the most money on their products.

    23 of 24 people found this useful

    Was this useful?

    Flag as inappropriate