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alex_free

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 24, 2020
1,093
2,335
Intel Iris only. Work just had the battery replaced though (I was out five days waiting for it to be fixed) as it was swelling.
Yea being able to unscrew things and do this myself with the new MacBook 7,1 is a huge reason of why I bought it. It’s the most you can ask for in a sealed case laptop…
 
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eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Aug 31, 2011
29,625
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Yea being able to unscrew things and do this myself with the new MacBook 7,1 is a huge reason of why I bought it. It’s the most you can ask for in a sealed case laptop…
Cool…I wouldn't have this laptop myself if it were not for work. But they gave it to me so it's what I've got to use for that. However, I work from home, so it does give me that freedom.

I've got one of my 30" Cinema Displays and one of my 24" Cinema Displays connected to it via a KVM switch and it's always in clamshell mode.

EDIT…

2021-08-11 07.54.58.jpg 2021-08-11 07.55.03.jpg 2021-08-11 07.55.13.jpg
 
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Amethyst1

macrumors G3
Oct 28, 2015
9,804
12,215
I've got one of my 30" Cinema Displays and one of my 24" Cinema Displays connected to it via a KVM switch and it's always in clamshell mode.
If you're willing to suffer teh horrors of DisplayLink, ie attach monitors via USB, then you can inexpensively have more than two externals on that MBP :)
 
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eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Aug 31, 2011
29,625
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If you're willing to suffer teh horrors of DisplayLink, ie attach monitors via USB, then you can inexpensively have more than two externals on that MBP :)
Your comment reminded me that the active adapter I have for the 30" CD has a USB port. I forgot about that. So, just now ran a USB cable extender for the keyboard and mouse to that spare port.

That gives me my second USB port back (the Mac only has two). I'm using two KVMs (both Startech) and the one the 30" display is attached to is a SV231DD2DUA. If I can hook up the second 30" at full res that'd be great as the KVM currently has an empty port. The SV231DD2DUA I got precisely because it will handle the 30" resolution from both ports.

If you tell me that all I can manage is my second 24" CD then I'll probably pick up whatever adapter you mention just to have it, but won't hook it up. That's just because of the workflow I have where the second 30" would be useful, but the second 24" (which is vertical) would simply be there just because.
 

Kung gu

Suspended
Oct 20, 2018
1,379
2,434
sorry to jump in but if you guys want upgradability, stability and great hardware.

Why not just get a Linux PC or a de-bloated Windows PC with no telemetry.
PCs nowadays have great hardware from CPUs, to GPUs and fast NVME drives.
Great displays like a 4k 10 bit HDR OLED displays exist in the PC world too.

An AMD 5950x or an even simple i5 11400 PC would totally destroy any Intel/M1 Mac.
 
sorry to jump in but if you guys want upgradability, stability and great hardware.

Why not just get a Linux PC or a de-bloated Windows PC with no telemetry.
PCs nowadays have great hardware from CPUs, to GPUs and fast NVME drives.
Great displays like a 4k 10 bit HDR OLED displays exist in the PC world too.

An AMD 5950x or an even simple i5 11400 PC would totally destroy any Intel/M1 Mac.

This comment is kind of off-topic for the PowerPC or Early Intel Macs forum.
 

eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Aug 31, 2011
29,625
28,393
sorry to jump in but if you guys want upgradability, stability and great hardware.

Why not just get a Linux PC or a de-bloated Windows PC with no telemetry.
PCs nowadays have great hardware from CPUs, to GPUs and fast NVME drives.
Great displays like a 4k 10 bit HDR OLED displays exist in the PC world too.

An AMD 5950x or an even simple i5 11400 PC would totally destroy any Intel/M1 Mac.
All good suggestions. But you may not have realized that you were replying to a thread inside the PowerPC Mac forums. We are all kind of partial to our PowerPC and early Intel Macs around here.
 

MysticCow

macrumors 68000
May 27, 2013
1,564
1,760
can’t really see myself wanting to purchase a Mac newer then this by maybe a year or two, and I’m not really interested in the apple that exists in 2021

The 2009 white MacBooks are amazingly good. It is my hubs' system and can run 10.13 (modern web).
 
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retta283

Suspended
Jun 8, 2018
3,180
3,482
Officially in the early intel club now! Kind of ironic that chrome doesn’t support Windows 7, but Firefox does. Firefox doesn’t support Mac OS X 10.11, but chrome does. So using chromium for the moment until I reformat the HDD…
Welcome to the club. May early Intel give you many years of enjoyment and adventure as it has for me. Good computer to start with as well - that screen should be much better than some earlier Intel choices and still easy to work on. Seeing this thread has made me want to pull the trigger and finally pick up a plastic unibody MacBook...
 

Amethyst1

macrumors G3
Oct 28, 2015
9,804
12,215
If I can hook up the second 30" at full res that'd be great
To be honest, I think a 30" deserves way better than DisplayLink :) I'd pick up a second MiniDisplayPort to dual-link DVI adapter and dual-link-capable KVM.
 

eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Aug 31, 2011
29,625
28,393
To be honest, I think a 30" deserves way better than DisplayLink :) I'd pick up a second MiniDisplayPort to dual-link DVI adapter and dual-link-capable KVM.
I can't - unless I want to be stuck on WiFi. Currently the second TB/MDP port is for my ethernet cable adapter.

2021-08-12 16.09.14.jpg

Now if DisplayLink does support the 30" I'd run with that still. I'm just not going to do it if it won't support the 30".

As for KVM, I have two separate boxes. The first one supports the 24" Cinema Display because it's got the lower resolution. The second one supports two 30" Displays - which is why I got it. I'm just not using the second port in the back of that KVM because I have no way to attach it to the work MBP.

PS. For the record: Left side of 2015 work MBP> Power, 2xTB, 1 USB. Right side of MBP, 1 USB, 1 HDMI. That's all the ports this Mac has.
 
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eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Aug 31, 2011
29,625
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Yeah, don't think this is going to work (DisplayLink). I'm finding USB devices that support the 30" display, but those aren't DVI. The max USB<>DVI support out there seems to be 2048x1536 and the CD is 2560x1600.

That means I'd have to use an adapter with one of these USB devices to convert from DVI to whatever this device is using and I don't think that's going to work.
 
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alex_free

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 24, 2020
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Officially in the early intel club now! Kind of ironic that chrome doesn’t support Windows 7, but Firefox does. Firefox doesn’t support Mac OS X 10.11, but chrome does. So using chromium for the moment until I reformat the HDD…
Remembering why I switched to FireFox (this was downloaded from the apple developer site)... Richard Stallman was right?

Screen Shot 2021-08-13 at 4.01.19 AM.png
 
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Amethyst1

macrumors G3
Oct 28, 2015
9,804
12,215
Currently the second TB/MDP port is for my ethernet cable adapter.
You can swap that for an USB 3.0 ethernet adapter, that's still more than enough for one gigabit per second - and your second TB/MDP will then be free for the second 30" :D
 

Wowfunhappy

macrumors 68000
Mar 12, 2019
1,747
2,089
Officially in the early intel club now! Kind of ironic that chrome doesn’t support Windows 7, but Firefox does. Firefox doesn’t support Mac OS X 10.11, but chrome does. So using chromium for the moment until I reformat the HDD…
This surprised me! I’m reading around the net that it’s actually supported until 2022? Which I still find kind of nuts given Windows 7’s ~20% marketshare. Maybe it’ll be a boon for Firefox...

In a way, Firefox actually has better legacy macOS support too—Firefox 78 ESR, which gets security updates until October, supports OS X 10.9. (I’ve still migrated to Chromium Legacy though, because it’s required for full functionality in apps I need for work.)
 
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eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Aug 31, 2011
29,625
28,393
You can swap that for an USB 3.0 ethernet adapter, that's still more than enough for one gigabit per second - and your second TB/MDP will then be free for the second 30" :D
It's an either or. The active adapter (Apple A1306) uses a TB/MDP port AND a USB port.

s-l640.jpg


So bothTB/MDP ports and both USB ports would be occupied.

That said, the adapters have USB ports in them so I could probably hook up a USB>Ethernet adapter. I was not aware they made those. I'll have to think about it. Don't know if I want to spend on a gamble this time.
 
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eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Aug 31, 2011
29,625
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Well…we'll see what happens. Ordered another A1306 and a Moshi 3.0 USB to Gigabit Ethernet adapter.

Worst case scenario I have adapters I can use with a different Mac. The Moshi has a passthru USB port so that means I'd still have one USB port remaining if this works.
 

Needleroozer

macrumors regular
Mar 29, 2013
145
208
It's an either or. The active adapter (Apple A1306) uses a TB/MDP port AND a USB port.

View attachment 1818724

So bothTB/MDP ports and both USB ports would be occupied.

That said, the adapters have USB ports in them so I could probably hook up a USB>Ethernet adapter. I was not aware they made those. I'll have to think about it. Don't know if I want to spend on a gamble this time.

I suspect that the USB connector on the A1306 is just to power the DisplayPort->DL-DVI circuitry, which is why they can run the data lines through as a passthrough. If that’s the case, you should be able to plug both A1306’s USB connectors into a USB hub or a USB charger to give them power and keep at least one of your MacBook’s USB 3.0 ports free.
This would let you run your gigabit adapter at full USB 3.0 speeds rather than capping out at 480Mbps.

I’m not certain that this will work, but I figured it was worth mentioning since you have another A1306 on the way.
 

eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Aug 31, 2011
29,625
28,393
I suspect that the USB connector on the A1306 is just to power the DisplayPort->DL-DVI circuitry, which is why they can run the data lines through as a passthrough. If that’s the case, you should be able to plug both A1306’s USB connectors into a USB hub or a USB charger to give them power and keep at least one of your MacBook’s USB 3.0 ports free.
This would let you run your gigabit adapter at full USB 3.0 speeds rather than capping out at 480Mbps.

I’m not certain that this will work, but I figured it was worth mentioning since you have another A1306 on the way.
I have a spare powered USB hub in the garage. Normally it's connected to the Mini, but I pulled the Mini inside the house when things got hot. That's an option I'll try if passthrough doesn't work (work well). I just dropped $60 so I'm going to give it a few tries.
 
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