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I'm a looking at getting a new MacBook or MacBook Pro, but what I'd like to do is have it drive 2 external Dell 24" monitors 1920x1200, and I want to close the lid on the laptop itself
Can the MacBook or MacBook Pro do this?
I'll be running Windows 2008/Vista if that makes a difference.
Thanks
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There is some advice on doing this here:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=214102
I think the consensus is that natively it is not supported, but additional hardware can be purchased to enable it.
Martin
Posted 2008-10-25T10:32:01.777
Reputation: 3 644
Is this still the case in the latest Macbook Pro, which talks about having 2 graphics chips in it? – None – 2008-10-25T10:45:33.793
The tech specs don't indicate that two external devices can be attached : http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs.html.
– Martin – 2008-10-25T10:55:09.4833
http://www.villagetronic.com/vidock/index.html
The ViDock Grfx is $500 list; I believe it's now starting to ship (I had signed up to pre-order and got a mail a few weeks ago saying they had them in limited quantity).
This requires the MacBook Pro--it uses the ExpressCard 34 slot.
(I have no experience with the product other than eagerly awaiting for it to come out--but it took so long I gave up and bought a Mac Pro; plus I really needed more than 4 GB of RAM.)
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I tried the Matrox DualHead2Go but it did not work at maximum resolution with my HP LP2465 screens. Specifically, http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/gxm/dh2go/resolution/digital/resolutions.html indicates the max resolution requires a refresh rate of 58Hz. The GeForce 8600M GT on my MacBook Pro only offers 60Hz on these LP2465s. I'm a little fuzzy on who the guilty party is here, but I do know I could not get a clean image. If anyone from Apple is reading, more and more people use their MacBook Pros as their primary workstations because they are already more than enough power to do most development or even graphics work. But the screen real-estate still suffers. I can think of no more urgently needed feature than support for two simultaneous external monitors. Give me that and I will have the perfect workstation.
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I run a 15" mbp (256 MB) with the lid closed using a Matrox TripleHead2Go. It's should be totally possible.
Jas Panesar
Posted 2008-10-25T10:32:01.777
Reputation: 131
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Matrox sells a product to connect two displays to one output. Their webpage for compatibility indicates their "DualHead2Go Digital Edition" would support both Vista and Mac OS X (after feeding it the model number of the graphics card in the new MacBook Pros).
Without using an external dongle, the only dual display support is one external, one internal.
This question should be in AskDifferent where there are already many questions like it: http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/9087/does-thunderbolt-support-chaining-multiple-monitors-to-a-macbook-pro
– vaughan – 2011-10-28T09:57:34.560