Hooking a Macbook Pro up to a Projector. Help!

[Groovsonic]

I am a longtime mac user, and I have a problem that is baffling me! I work at a college, and we have daily chapel services, and guest speakers will often bring their laptop to run their powerpoint or videos or whatever through our system. We hook them up through our VGA switcher/splitter. I have noticed that if I hook up a macbook (a regular macbook, such as my blackbook) everything works fine...BUT if I hook up a Macbook pro, it never works.

I figured it was a problem with our switcher/splitter, but I have tried it with two different splitters and the same things happens!

Has anybody else had this problem?

 

[jonbravo77]

I am a longtime mac user, and I have a problem that is baffling me! I work at a college, and we have daily chapel services, and guest speakers will often bring their laptop to run their powerpoint or videos or whatever through our system. We hook them up through our VGA switcher/splitter. I have noticed that if I hook up a macbook (a regular macbook, such as my blackbook) everything works fine...BUT if I hook up a Macbook pro, it never works.

I figured it was a problem with our switcher/splitter, but I have tried it with two different splitters and the same things happens!

Has anybody else had this problem?

I work in the Audio/Visual world and have never had an issue hooking up any Mac to a system. Is the switcher you are using a dumb one, meaning just a bang box? Or is it smart meaning there is some processing that is going on? What kind of Mac are you trying to hook up, is it the Unibody, and are you using the miniDVI to VGA adapter or a miniDVI->DVI adapter?

 

[Groovsonic]

The macbook pro I am hooking up is a full size DVI output, to a VGA dongle. The macbook I am hooking up is a miniDVI output to a VGA dongle.

They are being hooked up to "Dumb" switchers. We have tried multiple dongles and three different switcher/splitters. We are dumbfounded!

 

[jonbravo77]

The macbook pro I am hooking up is a full size DVI output, to a VGA dongle. The macbook I am hooking up is a miniDVI output to a VGA dongle.

They are being hooked up to "Dumb" switchers. We have tried multiple dongles and three different switcher/splitters. We are dumbfounded!

Hmmm. Hook both computers to an external monitor (just in case you have not done so yet) just to make sure you are outputting. I'm going to assume you have hit the "Detect Display" button in the display settings. I can't remember exactly what it is but I have ran into a problem with hooking up a dumb switch to a Mac. there is a protocol that the Mac looks for through the DVI and if it doesn't see it than it won't output. When you hook the cable into the Mac does it look like it is going to output, meaning does the screen black out and then come back?

 

[Groovsonic]

Thanks for the response. Yeah, it does bank out for a second, (tries to go to "output" but then its back to normal.

Like I said, this is all just so weird because it works fine when I hook up any macbook... but a "Pro" (or at least the pre-unibody ones) don't seem to work.