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Which Monitor for an Early 2011 15" MacBook Pro

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Scottie15

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 3, 2020
9
0
San Jose, CA
Hello All,

new to the forum here, but an owner of an Early 2011 15" MacBook Pro. I work in tech, and my work provides me with a laptop (Lenovo ThinkPad T470S), however, I am looking to eventually leave the company, so I upgraded my MacBook to a SSD, 16GB of Ram and converted the optical drive to a 2 TB HDD.

My work is giving employees a $500 allowance to spend on work-from-home accessories. I don't own a large monitor to mount my MacBook and Lenovo Laptop in, so I was looking to purchase one that would work for both laptops. However, my MacBook doesn't have a USB-C port (and it seems most monitors or monitors with hubs require USB-C input). My MacBook only has USB 2.0 ports, a FW800 port, MiniDisplay Port, and a Thunderbolt 1 port.

Does anyone have a recommendation on a nice monitor (24" to 27") that would work for both devices?

Thank you in advance.
 
A 2011 MBP can't do 4k.
IF it can do 1440p (2550x1440), I'd suggest a 32" "QHD" 1440p display.
(but again, not sure if it can do 1440p, you need to research this)
Otherwise, you'd probably do well enough with either a 24" or 27" 1080p display.

It -might- be possible to connect it to a 4k display, but just run it at 1080p.
It might work that way if the only input was 1080p and not 4k.
Not sure about that.

By the way, do you know what "RadeonGate" is?
If not, you'd better research it.
 
Fishrrman said:
A 2011 MBP can't do 4k.
IF it can do 1440p (2550x1440), I'd suggest a 32" "QHD" 1440p display.
(but again, not sure if it can do 1440p, you need to research this)
Otherwise, you'd probably do well enough with either a 24" or 27" 1080p display.

It -might- be possible to connect it to a 4k display, but just run it at 1080p.
It might work that way if the only input was 1080p and not 4k.
Not sure about that.

By the way, do you know what "RadeonGate" is?
If not, you'd better research it.
Click to expand...

Hello, I appreciate the reply. Is there any way to tell whether it can do 1440p? I'm completely novice to monitors and displays so forgive me for my questions.

Would it make sense to get a 4K display should I decide to upgrade in the future? I'm assuming that even if my current device can't run 4K, it would still be able to run the maximum on a 4K monitor, correct?

I have no idea what RadeonGate is. I'll look into it, but if you have anything you can provide in the meantime, that would be helpful.
 
Ok so I did a little research on what RadeonGate was and I think it all makes sense. A few years back (probably longer), my otherwise perfectly working MacBook was constantly rebooting and never loading up to the log-in screen. I took the MacBook over to the Apple store and they repaired it for free. I'm guessing the reason they did that was because this was widespread known issue at the time.

Nonetheless, the computer has been fine since then. Is there any way to check within the system settings that this issue was addressed? Also, how does it correlate with an external monitor?
 
Everymac.com says the 2011 15/17" MBP supports up to 2560x1600 on an external display, so I'm going to guess that a 1440p display will work.

re RadeonGate:
"Nonetheless, the computer has been fine since then. Is there any way to check within the system settings that this issue was addressed?"

All Apple did to "fix" the problem was to replace the old motherboard with a fresh one, but the replacement is the same as the original and can go bad just like the original.

"Also, how does it correlate with an external monitor?"

The GPU (that fails with RadeonGate) is needed to use an external display.
There's just no way to know if it will fail again, but the problem usually seems heat-related.

"Would it make sense to get a 4K display should I decide to upgrade in the future?"

I can't answer as to whether a 4k display will run @ 1080p if connected to a MacBook that can't do 4k.
My guess is that it will, but that question can only be answered with assurance by others who have tried it.
 
Fishrrman said:
Everymac.com says the 2011 15/17" MBP supports up to 2560x1600 on an external display, so I'm going to guess that a 1440p display will work.

re RadeonGate:
"Nonetheless, the computer has been fine since then. Is there any way to check within the system settings that this issue was addressed?"

All Apple did to "fix" the problem was to replace the old motherboard with a fresh one, but the replacement is the same as the original and can go bad just like the original.

"Also, how does it correlate with an external monitor?"

The GPU (that fails with RadeonGate) is needed to use an external display.
There's just no way to know if it will fail again, but the problem usually seems heat-related.

"Would it make sense to get a 4K display should I decide to upgrade in the future?"

I can't answer as to whether a 4k display will run @ 1080p if connected to a MacBook that can't do 4k.
My guess is that it will, but that question can only be answered with assurance by others who have tried it.
Click to expand...

Ok got it. I know that my MacBook was fixed as part of that program, but they never actually reach out to me about it. I had to let them know my MacBook was failing first.

I'm curious about the probability my new MacBook will crash again despite a new motherboard. It's been several years and so far so good. I just recently upgraded the HDD to a SDD and added 16gb of Ram. So far so good.

Is there any way to tell whether my GPU is functioning to be able to use an external monitor?
 
"Is there any way to tell whether my GPU is functioning to be able to use an external monitor?"

If it wasn't, you'd know about it already, I reckon... ;)
 
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The GPU will probably go bad eventually. It’s an unfortunate but unavoidable fact. The only permanent fix is to put a 2012 15” logic board in the machine.

If yours is working fine, enjoy it. Hopefully it will last a long time.

There are pretty effective software mods to bypass the GPU if it fails, and even more effective hardware mods, but they will disable the ability to use an external monitor.
 
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ScreenSavers said:
The GPU will probably go bad eventually. It’s an unfortunate but unavoidable fact. The only permanent fix is to put a 2012 15” logic board in the machine.

If yours is working fine, enjoy it. Hopefully it will last a long time.

There are pretty effective software mods to bypass the GPU if it fails, and even more effective hardware mods, but they will disable the ability to use an external monitor.
Click to expand...


Yea I'm going to need something to be able to utilize an external monitor for music editing/mixing.

It's been 4 years, albeit, with out very heavy use in those 4 years since I've been using a work issued laptop in those years. Nonetheless, I'll get a monitor and see how this plays out for now and keep you guys posted. Interestingly enough, I see that the AMD Radeon HD 6490M is still the GPU listed in my MB Pro right now, so it looks like the Apple Store just replaced the logic board with another logic board when I took it in nearly 4 years ago.

With Apple soldering everything to the motherboard on their newer devices, I have no plans to dish out another $3K for a laptop.
 
I'm partial to my 27" Apple Thunderbolt display.
I have 2 - one for my 16" MBP w/ TB3-TB2 adapter and the other for my wife's 21" iMac which connects directly and we both have each: Magsafe 1 charger plugs that come with the display.

It looks so good with any Mac from 2011 up to 2019 !
 
Can anyone identify specific monitors available today that work with an early 2011 MBP? I'm partial to Samsung monitors.

specs for early 2011 MBP show it clearly supports HDMI:

I bought a 24 inch Samsung S24A310NHN monitor with 1920 x 1080 resolution and HDMI port this week.

link to specs for Samsung S24A310NHN:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1653037-REG/samsung_s24a310nhn_24_full_hd.html/specs

This is same resolution as 24in Samsung monitor I used with this laptop for the past ten years. Yet with new 24in monitor I immediately get an error "you need to restart your computer" in dark gray dialog box with several languages. And I get this error message again during the startup process if I do the restart a second with the monitor already hooked up. An early 2015 MacBook Pro has NO problems running this monitor with the exact same HDMI cable (provided by Samsung) and new Plugable mini-DisplayPort-to-HDMI adapter. I ran the old monitor with miniDisplayPort to DVI, however specs say it supports HDMI.


Thunderbolt digital video output

  • Native Mini DisplayPort output
  • DVI output using Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter (optional)
  • VGA output using Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter (optional)
  • Dual-link DVI output using Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter supports 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display (optional)
  • HDMI audio and video output using a third-party Mini DisplayPort to HDMI Adapter
 
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