multiple monitors with my MBP

[RustProofCorn]

hey! I have been using a single monitor with my mbp for awhile however since I am using sketchup so much I decided to get another monitor. here is my question. I only have one dp cord so I connected the two monitors together then I connected the new monitor via the hdmi cord to the mbp. I can't get the one with the dp to work. am I doing something wrong or can you not go dp to dp to hdmi to hdmi??

 

[Raz0rEdge]

The who, what and where..

What Mac do you have again? In most cases, you want to have separate cords from the computer to the monitor. In a handful of cases you can chain together things, but not all of it.

Depending on the MBP, it might support 1 or more displays, so having that detail is important.

 

[RustProofCorn]

I have a 2019 16" mbp. i9 intel, radeon pro 5500m and the Inge graphics 630, 16 gig, running 14.1.1 the monitors are a Samsung with dp 1.2 and an acer dp 1.4 however I changed the dp to 1.2 incase they needed to be compatible. I have the two monitors daisy chained together and then the first monitor connected via hdmi to my Mac via a hub.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Thanks for the info. HDMI doesn't allow that kind of chaining, and definitely not through the hub.

Your MBP has 4 TB-3 connectors, so you should daisy chain the monitors together and connect to the MBP directly through the USB-C connector. That will get you the chain.

Short of that, you can connect both monitors with their own cables directly to the MBP.

 

[RustProofCorn]

Thanks for the info. HDMI doesn't allow that kind of chaining, and definitely not through the hub.

Your MBP has 4 TB-3 connectors, so you should daisy chain the monitors together and connect to the MBP directly through the USB-C connector. That will get you the chain.

Short of that, you can connect both monitors with their own cables directly to the MBP.

So I need to daisy chain them through dp and then get a dp to usb c to connect to the Mac?

 

[Raz0rEdge]

It's actually Thunderbolt that's doing the chaining.

First, ensure that the monitors you buy have TB pass through support. Otherwise, the daisy chain won't work.

For example, LG UltraFine monitors were specifically designed to support this with the MBP.

A lot of monitors don't offer this, so you might end up using multiple connections to the MBP or using a hub to still use a single cable to the MBP.

 

[RustProofCorn]

what I ended up doing was just connecting one hdmi to my hub and the other hdmi with an adapter to the Mac directly and both monitors work. not ideal because its to many cords. ill eventually get a different hub or something.

one weird thing is my main monitor is pretty dim. the other monitor is the brightness I prefer. I am unable to figure out how come I can't adjust the brightness. I tried doing it on the monitor and that didn't work. and there is no brightness slider in displays. what am I missing.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

The first thing to check is swapping the method of connection and to see if the brightness issues follows the monitor or stays with the connection type.

Depending on what you find, share what connection type has an issue and we can discuss.

However, with brightness/contrast settings, that's unique to the monitor, as long as it isn't following the connection type, you should be able to adjust that on the monitor itself.

 

[ferrarr]

If you "mirror" the displays, do you get the same brightness on both displays, or is the one display still "dim"?

 

[RustProofCorn]

I changed the hdmis back and forth with no change. one display is dim one is bright. I prefer the bright.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

It's good that that the issue doesn't follow the cable. You'll want to adjust the settings on the dim monitor to see if you can brighten it up.