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Will a Thunderbolt iMac work as a monitor for a Thunderbolt MBA?

demodave

demodave

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 27, 2010
300
131
Dallas, TX
I figured I'd title this post as clearly as I could relating to my question.

I know I've seen endless discussions of the iMac as a monitor for other Macs (and generally they seem to say, "no, you can't do that"), but I am wondering if the Thunderbolt interface does anything to change that. So, that being said:

Will a Thunderbolt iMac work as a monitor for a Thunderbolt MBA?

(I fully realize that it may not *charge* the MBA, but that's not really an important point to me. I have to admit, though, the synergy between the new Thunderbolt monitors with their included data hookups *and* mag-safe power cord seems really ingenious to me. But I have been to the Mothership, and they may have altered my CPU while I was there.)
 
A more important question imo, will connecting a single thunderbolt from a 2011 iMac to a MB Air/Pro allow you to use the USB, Firewire & Ethernet on the iMac with the laptop, as it does on the new Apple Cinema Displays??
 
Paix247 said:
A more important question imo, will connecting a single thunderbolt from a 2011 iMac to a MB Air/Pro allow you to use the USB, Firewire & Ethernet on the iMac with the laptop, as it does on the new Apple Cinema Displays??
Click to expand...

And to add to that question, does the actual computer have to be running for the monitor to be used? Meaning the fans, hard drive, etc?
 
I didn't look at this ^^ video ^^ but:

Any of the new computers with thunderbolt will work with the iMac's tb port. I would guess you could exchange data over the cable as well. The iMac must be on because the signal is going through the motherboard. In previous iMac's you plug it in then set it to Target Display Mode (or whatever it's called) with a hot key and go from there.
 
It is working. But you should use thunderbolt cable instead of mdp.

The only downside is that you have to turn on iMac while doing it. Energy wise it's bad, and also the fact that iMac is much more powerful than mba. Much better you use mba as target disk mode if you want to copy or edit something from mba.

Or get an ACD thunderbolt to be more effective, it has a built in magsafe too :D
 
iMac as a screen for console

I have new iMac 21.5 i5 with Thunderbolt and would like to know whether it can work as a display for my PS3 and if yes, which adapters and cables do I need to make it work?

Thanks!
 
antonof said:
I have new iMac 21.5 i5 with Thunderbolt and would like to know whether it can work as a display for my PS3 and if yes, which adapters and cables do I need to make it work?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
No dice. Source has to be Thunderbolt, which the PS3 is not. I confirmed it myself (because I didn't want to believe I couldn't do it, since the 2010s supported it) using my PS3 with an HDMI-to-Mini DisplayPort adapter... didn't work.

But, it seems firmware related... so Apple could eventually change that in the future (or maybe a 'hacker' could do something about it). Nonetheless, it sucks.
 
KylePowers said:
No dice. Source has to be Thunderbolt, which the PS3 is not. I confirmed it myself (because I didn't want to believe I couldn't do it, since the 2010s supported it) using my PS3 with an HDMI-to-Mini DisplayPort adapter... didn't work.

But, it seems firmware related... so Apple could eventually change that in the future (or maybe a 'hacker' could do something about it). Nonetheless, it sucks.
Click to expand...

Kanex has said that they are working on an adapter.
 
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