MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2011) 2x Cinema Displays

[Luthersnewboots]

Hi There I have a MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2011) and I have access to 2x 24-inch (1920 x 1200) apple Intel HD Graphics 3000 384 MB graphics thunderbolt displays.
Is the ANY way I can daisy chain off the AIR to these. Some sort of software over-ride?
LB

 

[Boyd01]

What is an "apple Intel HD Graphics 3000 384 MB graphics thunderbolt display"?

The Thunderbolt display is something completely different from the 1920x1200 Cinema Display. The MBA can drive two Thunderbolt displays daisy chained. But it can only drive one regular monitor like the Cinema Display (I am using one with my MBA).

The only option I know of for the second screen would be a USB graphics adaptor. I have never used one, but there is probably very noticable latency from what I've read, especially since the 2011 MBA only has USB 2.0. This might be fine for some applications but not for others.

Now Matrox makes a device called (I think) "Dual Head 2go" that plugs into thunderbolt and would allow you to connect both screens. But they are not treated like separate screens, they would behave as one big 3840x1200 monitor. That might work for some applications, but not for others that actually want separate screens (like Final Cut Pro for example).

 

[JTToft]

Your question doesn't make a whole lot of sense...

But Boyd01 is completely correct above.

 

[SmOgER]

Are you sure though that he wouldn't be able to connect 2 monitors as a separated ones? If OS X detects that it has 2 thunderbolt ports when the hub is attached, I don't see why that shouldn't be possible. Especially since Apple is on the mission of ports elimination, ha.

 

[Boyd01]

I spent awhile checking this out for my 2013 MBA since I sometimes use Final Cut Pro and it would be nicer to have two big screens. From what I've read, if you have one Thunderbolt screen and plug a regular monitor into the pass-through port, it will not work. But if you plug a different device, like a hard drive or a dock into the Thunderbolt Display then you can plug a standard monitor into the pass-through port on that device.

But based on everything I've read, if you have a thunderbolt dock directly connected to your MBA, it will only drive one standard screen. There are several long threads here somewhere that go into more detail.

 

[JTToft]

Using Thunderbolt docks you would be able to connect more than one display. But the plural "docks" is important as any one dock will only support one display. By daisy-chaining two docks and using the Thunderbolt port on one dock and the HDMI on the other, you could get two displays.
Or you can use the Thunderbolt Display method described above.

But both of those methods are exceedingly expensive.

Another thing, though, is that the 2011 MacBook Air only has support for one external display according to its specifications. Whether that matches the real world, though, I don't know.

 

[Boyd01]

I think the USB monitor adapter is the only practical solution. Unfortunately, you won't know whether the performance is acceptable until you try though. If you purchase from a reputable vendor with a liberal return/exchange policy there wouldn't be much risk in giving it a try.