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MacBook Pro with 3 monitors

J

jochemke

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Hey all,

I've been using my macbook pro 13 inch (without hdmi port) with 2 external monitors now. And it's working fine. 1 through minidisplay --> hdmi and the other one from a special usb to hdmi adapter and the display of my macbook itself (total of 3 screens).

Now my question is: is it possible to use 3 external monitors and not use my macbook screen? It would be easier for me to work that way.

So that I have screen A, screen B and screen C instead of screen A, macbook screen, screen C
 
If you have Thunderbolt, I dont think you can have more than 2 displays.
And that should go with miniD as well.
 
yusukeaoki said:
If you have Thunderbolt, I dont think you can have more than 2 displays.
And that should go with miniD as well.
Click to expand...

Well I have 3 screens running at the moment. 2 external and the mbp screen. But I was wondering if it's possible to not use the mbp it's screen and to use a 3rd external monitor in it's place.
 
jochemke said:
Well I have 3 screens running at the moment. 2 external and the mbp screen. But I was wondering if it's possible to not use the mbp it's screen and to use a 3rd external monitor in it's place.
Click to expand...

Yes, but you would have to use 2 thunderbolt displays, and 1 using your USB Video card. It's not an adapter, by the way - it's a video card.

Your system performance will not be good pushing all of those pixels.
 
spyguy10709 said:
Yes, but you would have to use 2 thunderbolt displays, and 1 using your USB Video card. It's not an adapter, by the way - it's a video card.

Your system performance will not be good pushing all of those pixels.
Click to expand...

Sorry didn't know it was actually a video card. And can't i use 2 of those usb video cards instead of thunderbolt?
 
jochemke said:
Sorry didn't know it was actually a video card. And can't i use 2 of those usb video cards instead of thunderbolt?
Click to expand...

Nope. The USB bus on your MacBook is ultimately too slow.

I mean it will WORK. But not well. Think this - dragging around a finder window will drop frames. (IE -- get choppy)
 
spyguy10709 said:
Nope. The USB bus on your MacBook is ultimately too slow.

I mean it will WORK. But not well. Think this - dragging around a finder window will drop frames. (IE -- get choppy)
Click to expand...

Ah oke, then i will just stick to my current setup. Thanks for the help though
 
I hate to hijack this thread.... I have a MPB 15" June 2012. I'm looking to do the same exact thing. Run 3 separate monitors. 2 22" and 1 28".

NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 512MB of GDDR5 memory

Is this possible without a huge performance drop? I don't even know how to set this up.
 
marker227 said:
I hate to hijack this thread.... I have a MPB 15" June 2012. I'm looking to do the same exact thing. Run 3 separate monitors. 2 22" and 1 28".

NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 512MB of GDDR5 memory

Is this possible without a huge performance drop? I don't even know how to set this up.
Click to expand...

I have the newer one with a 750M, and it works without any issue. I'm using 2 24" (2x mini-dp) and 1 19" (1x hdmi).
 
How is the refresh rate?

What adapters did you use? I have two DVI monitors and 1 HDMI.

I have a USB Monitor and it's really slow...
 
Can you daisy chain non Apple monitors via Thunder Bolt?

I only have 1 Thunder Bolt port on my MBP.

I'm guessing you used USB to HDMI for the third monitor?
 
Here's my problem. I want to use 2 computers with 3 monitors in total and be able to switch between them.

I'm not sure what adapters I need for the MBP to do this.
 
This is exactly what I'm trying to do.

I have 2 22" inch monitors that are VGA and DVI. My third monitor is HDMI and VGA.

What I would like to do is be able to switch all the displays from my desktop tower to my Macbook Pro via a "switch hub" when I want to work on my Mac.

I don't know if this is possible, but I thought I'd try and ask.
 
Last edited:
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