HDMI died - Thunderbolt 1 dock for late 2012 Mini i7 for dual display?

[jtara]

The HDMI display functionality seems to have died on my late 2012 i7 mac Mini.

Note that I wrote "functionality". Not "port". I get no output from the HDMI port. I also get no output from the Thunderbolt/Mini Display port when using an HDMI adapter. I get output with a Mini Display to DisplayPort cable.

So, I was thinking a work-around would be to get an inexpensive Thunderbolt 1 dock. But of course they are obsolete, and so will probably have to buy used. And, even so, they don't seem "inexpensive"...

I really only need one TB1 in, two miniDP or DP out. I don't want to spend a lot on this "experiment". I don't think I know anybody who has a dock I can try.

Maybe some "travel dock"?

Can I use a TB2 or TB3 dock? Maybe there is an inexpensive product that will do what I need for this and be of some use in the future with different computer.

I don't MIND if it has some additional ports. I MIGHT use an external drive with this in the future.

I use this machine for software development, and I realize I have stretched it as far as it will go. But difficult to decide Macbook vs iMac vs another Mac Mini, so want to stretch it just a little more.

I recently put a new 2TB flash drive in it (my 1TB replacement for the original dead Fusion Drive died as well) and it's maxed-out at 16GB of RAM since purchase. The current models can take more memory, have more cores and most importantly the SSD is much, much faster. So, I will probably re purpose this as an "always on" machine for various internal network servers. (For which purpose it dual serves now.)

Recommendations? Would rather buy a new, guaranteed product rather than going to eBay for stuff that may be having reliability issues with worn connectors, etc.

 

[Boyd01]

Not sure if this is relevant, but a number of years ago I bought an OWC Thunderbolt2 dock for my 2013 MacBook Air, hoping it would be a way to connect another monitor. It would not work reliably and I returned it for a refund. It would connect to the display, but after awhile the image would break up and become useless.

I didn't do much in the way of troubleshooting - it occurred to me that a bad thunderbolt cable might have been the problem, but they were expensive and I didn't want to waste the time and money. It also might have been some problem with the thunderbolt1 port on the MacBook Air vs the thunderbolt2 dock.

In the end, I decided that a Mini would be better suited to what I was trying to do since it had more ports than the MacBook Air. That is when I got my 2012 quad Mini.