Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Dex-Jay

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 26, 2018
2
0
Hello there, my first post here. I've a couple of 1st Generation Mac Pro's and while I've been stuck in the dark ages with an ancient monitor I thought I'd upgrade to a 24" ISP Dell monitor. I ordered it, it arrived but I had to return it as I was unable to get any output to the display. My Mac has 2 NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256 MB cards. I used a DVI-D Cable 20 Pin DVI - DP Monitor Lead Adapter. Did I just pick a "Mac unfriendly" brand of monitor? Should I be looking for a monitor with VGA input?

Any help would be much appreciated!
 

mzeb

macrumors 6502
Jan 30, 2007
362
621
Display Port can be finicky on it’s own and using an adaptor can make it even more so. In my experience it is actually the cable and connections that cause issues when using DP. At work we got a number of the same brand of mDP to DP cables all running to the same Dell monitors from MBP 2015s. Half of them worked and half of them didn’t.

It’s worth noting that those machines and their graphics cards are from 2006. It may be worth grabbing some of the more modern graphics cards off of eBay. The Radeon 5770s from 2012 Mac Pros will work in those 1st gen boxes and will be more compatible with modern displays.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dex-Jay

Dex-Jay

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 26, 2018
2
0
Thanks for the reply. I really had no idea it was going to be that much of an issue if I'm honest! I can't believe the things are that picky

"At work we got a number of the same brand of mDP to DP cables all running to the same Dell monitors from MBP 2015s. Half of them worked and half of them didn’t."

Wow.
Is there any brand of monitor I should avoid or is it really just down to my graphics card and me needing to upgrade?
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.