I honestly can't be completely sure whether the problem with the monitor resided in the monitor itself, in the adapter, or in the HDMI connection through the dock.

I then dug out my one spare Thunderbolt to DVI adapter, and that worked. I first tried a pile of HDMI to DVI adapters and they all failed pretty much the same way. It was also fussy on the Thunderbolt dock.Īs it turns out, we were able to fix the problem. It worked well as a main monitor, but it was a very inexpensive 27-inch monitor. This monitor was one I had tried on my four-monitor iMac project and given up on. At first, we thought our slick plan would be foiled right there. With the DVI-to-HDMI adapter she was using, it flashed and flickered.

The monitor (which has a DVI connection) didn't work properly in the dock's HDMI port. The second issue was more difficult to solve. Even so, that got her down to four connections per connect/disconnect cycle from ten. First, to connect to her computer, she still needs to connect two cables: Thunderbolt and power. She was doing without her laptop when she went out, missing opportunities to get work done away from the home office, because it was just too much of a pain. Sometimes if everything was finally hooked up right, she'd find herself avoiding bringing her Mac with her. The result was that she would sometimes work at her desk without the peripherals that help her do her job most efficiently. It doesn't seem like a big deal, but it added friction to her workday. Cables would sometimes fall off the edge of the desk and get lost on the floor, or attacked by the puppy. She had to set up the MacBook Pro, find all the loose cables, connect the MagSafe 2 adapter, the Thunderbolt-based Ethernet adapter, the monitor, and all the USB devices.Įvery time she had to leave her desk, she had to go through the reverse process, removing the MagSafe plug, the Thunderbolt Ethernet adapter, the monitor, and all the USB devices. Settling into work at her desk was no longer a matter of turning on her monitor and going to work.

The problem was occurring when my wife got back to her desk.

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