Worst Apple Product Ever? DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter

Seth Weintraub
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September 14, 2009
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Apple makes great products.  That's probably part of why I am writing this and you are reading it.  Apple's MacBook Pros are the best in the business,  their support is second to none.  The Mac Pro workstations are incredible.  Their displays (while overpriced) are the best there is.  Etc etc. 

But Apple has failed so incredibly miserably on one very important piece of Pro equipment.  For anyone who needs to use a 30-inch monitor with any new Mac, you'll need to purchase a certain notoriously horrific Apple part - the DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter.

Here's the timeline of events for this particular piece of .... Apple equipment:

Early-October 2008 - Unibody MacBook Pros released.  Instead of having the built in ability to work on 30-inch monitors like previous DVI MacBooks and G4 Powerbooks, the new products use a new DisplayPort technology.  Apple sells the new solution, DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter, for $100.  It is relatively bulky and requires the use of a USB port to power the device.  People with 30-inch displays who want a new MacBook have no choice to to pay the extra $100 for the spawling mess of wires.  The product is supposed to arrive by the end of the month.

November 2008 - product is delayed for 2 months until after Christmas.  Those who bought new Apple MacBooks anticipating the adapter to be shipped within weeks are now forced to wait almost 3 months without using their $1000+ monitors.

 

Late December 2008 - Apple finally ships the DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter with Firmware 1.01.  Immediately, Apple's message boards are alight with complaints of distortion without a known cause.  The issue goes on for months.  Apple tells people with 3rd party displays that the Displayport adapter doesn't support them.  People with Cinema displays are sent new adapters which still don't work.

March 2009 - Apple isues firmware version 1.2 replacements to affected users alongside new Mac Pro/DisplayPort and Mini/DisplayPort introductions.  Users of 1.2 adapters are still having problems.

Today -  Those with 30-inch displays (often high end customers) are still getting the distortion (though it has been reduced somewhat), almost a full year after the DisplayPort is introduced in Unibody MacBooks.  Apple has never issued a reason why these parts are defective, nor totally fixed the problem, nor issued an official recall. 

Currently on Apple's Store, it is hard to find someone who has had success with the product.  Third party retailers are no different.  It is a dud.  And not just a failure but a failure to Apple's most high end subset of customers.

Those with 1.01 firmware devices can get a 1.02 device exchange from Apple free after spending an hour or so on the phone with Apple support  - who incidentlly claim no knowledge of such issues.  They can also make a reservation at a genius bar at an Apple Store to get an exchange part.

In my 25 years with Apple products, this is by far the worst experience I've ever had. 

 

Comments (24)

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | September 14, 2009 - 9:24pm

Thank God someone is finally talking about this catastrophe. Its like everyone is afraid to talk about this "elephant in the room"

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | September 14, 2009 - 9:26pm

I've had this problem for almost a year. I'm used to just resetting my display every hour.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | September 14, 2009 - 9:28pm

Our After effects guy has one of these setups, he's complaining about it 24/7. He has the 1.02 firmware too. Apple keeps telling him that he can get a replacement but it is the same non-functioning piece of equipment

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | September 14, 2009 - 9:31pm

I don't see what you are bitching about. Just get a 24 inch screen and stop your whining. most people would love to have a 30 inch display and wouldn't whine about it

Warwick Brown (not verified) | September 14, 2009 - 11:35pm

Yeah totally. If I had a 30" screen that didn't work with my Mac Pro because of the shitty DisplayPort adaptor, I wouldn't complain at all. It's totally okay for it to not work properly.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | September 14, 2009 - 9:32pm

there is no problem. the 157 people on Apple's store page are all full of shit.

Wow.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | September 14, 2009 - 9:32pm

It's not just an elephant. It's an white elephant! my god.... it should be given away for free when you spend that type of money. it's like haven pc wires.

admin | September 14, 2009 - 9:35pm

It is a bad sign when 95% of Apple's website customers are pissed off. They moderate those comments like crazy so 95% is probably closer to 99.9%

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | September 14, 2009 - 9:54pm

Its interesting to claim though... As of today, my dad, whom uses a macbook pro 17" at jpl with his 30" at work complains that the display at work flickers almost all the time, yet when he comes home the 30" that we bought way back with the PowerMac G5 Dual 2.5 GHz, that display has no problems at all... other than the noticable dimming that almost all displays have after five years of good solid use.
All in all, i think that what might be a problem is the 30" displays themselves, not the connector (of course we could test this if they were connected directly with a full dual link dvi connector, but that would have to be a mac pro or powermac g5...). I'd go with that...

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | September 14, 2009 - 9:55pm

The whole display-port story is a problem.
Shiny, new 24" Cinema Display-but my Mac Pro has
the evga GeForce GTX upgrade with 2x dvi ports...
Ahhh-and no update for the 30"??? What is going on at Apple?
Years ago, I had a 23" ADC Display and it worked fine, because
of that adc-dvi converter from Apple. Wheres DVI to display port?

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | September 14, 2009 - 10:00pm

i was twittering my frustration with this only a few hours ago:

apple 30" lcd + dvi to displayport adaptor & mbpro = fail. before http://bit.ly/lkZvq , after http://bit.ly/2Ip13n

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | September 14, 2009 - 10:27pm

The rev1 MacBook Airs were also broken, by design. Every single model overheats if the CPU and GPU are exercised simultaneously, but complaints from early adopters, like myself, were ignored.

They fixed it in the rev2 Airs, but we were left with costly (in my case, since I bought it with the SSD, a _very_ costly) mistake.

Very disappointing to see that this pattern is continuing.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | September 14, 2009 - 10:59pm

I have bought this device early 2009. From the beginning problems with my Dell 30" and my iMac. After working correct for a while the Dell monitor starts to give a terrible noise. When it is working correct (40% of the time) is blinks ecery few minutes.
Switched over to Apple 24" led cinema display.
Anyone want to buy a 30" dell ;-)

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | September 14, 2009 - 11:07pm

Well i still don't see why Apple had to introduce the Mini Display Port-thing to it's Macs. DVI did just fine and there was absolutely no problem with, was there?

Now you have these bulky adapter things which are obviously quite retarded.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | September 14, 2009 - 11:25pm

I'm sitting here using a 30" Dell with a MBP C2D connected via DVI and it works fine. I've wanted to upgrade to the new MBP but given all the complaints I actually hauled my Dell into the genus bar to test it out--failed with scrambled colors then flashing every 3-4 min and very poor resolution. This was on a maxed out (high end) unibody 15" MBP. The Apple forum has a long thread on this with the only folks that seem satisfied are those that have bought a new 30" with a direct mini-display port connector on the new monitor and then using a direct connection.

No new machine for me until Apple comes out with a better machine that does not need an adapter.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | September 14, 2009 - 11:37pm

This has been a huge failure on Apple's part, but I finally have the adaptor working correctly with my 30" Dell monitor (3007 model). After buying 2 adaptors that didn't work, I went to my local Apple store and insisted that they find me a 1.02 adaptor. We had to open several boxes, but we found the right one. The genius also wrote out a list of additional things (removing certain preferences, zapping PRAM, etc.) to do to get the adaptor to work correctly. For the past 3 weeks, the adaptor has been working with my new Mac mini (and even through a Belkin Dual-link DVI KVM switch).

Just Cause (not verified) | September 15, 2009 - 12:13am

There's been plenty of bad products, Performa 52xx Series ??

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | September 15, 2009 - 2:02am

I couldn't believe my eyes when Apple introduced new MacBook Pros with MiniDisplayPort _without_ updating their 30" monitor.
I understand that they can't go LED yet, nor drop the DVI port. But hey, many third party monitors manage a DVI and DisplayPort; I'm sure Apple could have updated at least the ports on their 30" monitor. This wouldn't help old customers, but at least new customers would have a chance.
.
I really needed a new MacBook Pro as my trusty PowerBook was getting quite old. And I wanted a 30" display at home - for maximum screen real estate.
I was waiting for that update.
.
And then Apple screwed up.
.
Still selling the old DVI 30" monitor while _none_ of their new laptops have a DVI out port was a disaster waiting to happen. And why bother with the 24" Apple LED display if the 17" MacBook Pro has the same resolution? Only the higher resolution of the 30" ACD makes sense.
Alas DisplayPort is not fully compatible and the 'adapter' is actually a signal converter. Not a good idea.
.
So I didn't by that 30" ACD and I didn't by a MacBook Pro.
Lucky me!
Apple's loss.

pichu912 (not verified) | September 15, 2009 - 4:39am

I need to use this horrific product with my 30" Samsung 305T LCD on my 17" MacBook Pro. I have been through 3 so far, and they are all terrible. No improvement has been made over time, and if i plug it in while the laptop is shut and then open the laptop, I get an endless Flashing of the 30" LCD fast enough to give someone an epileptic attack. I Spent over $5,000 on my Pro setup, and I would want it to work perfectly. It works like a pile of SH**. It randomly flashes and goes into a distorted unreadable picture. And It does this frequently at that. Overall I am very unhappy with apple over this product, and I really hope to see a recall / product elimination and maybe make a product that doesn't fail so often. And for those who are going to say its because I'm using a Samsung Monitor, no.. just no.. Its with any monitor...

pichu912 (not verified) | September 15, 2009 - 4:39am

I need to use this horrific product with my 30" Samsung 305T LCD on my 17" MacBook Pro. I have been through 3 so far, and they are all terrible. No improvement has been made over time, and if i plug it in while the laptop is shut and then open the laptop, I get an endless Flashing of the 30" LCD fast enough to give someone an epileptic attack. I Spent over $5,000 on my Pro setup, and I would want it to work perfectly. It works like a pile of SH**. It randomly flashes and goes into a distorted unreadable picture. And It does this frequently at that. Overall I am very unhappy with apple over this product, and I really hope to see a recall / product elimination and maybe make a product that doesn't fail so often. And for those who are going to say its because I'm using a Samsung Monitor, no.. just no.. Its with any monitor...

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | September 15, 2009 - 5:18am

Is this a macbook pro problem? I have two 30" displays, one at work and one at home, and my unibody macbook works as advertised with both of them using the dual link DVI adaptor.

Could this be an issue with the MBP rather than the adaptor?

Geezy (not verified) | September 15, 2009 - 5:45am

I noticed that my MBP flickers as well when in OSX however when I boot into my Bootcamp partition running Windows 7 which I have been using for about 2 solid weeks now has never flickered once. How's that for a kick in the you know what.

Geezy.

the Cappy (not verified) | September 15, 2009 - 8:32am

Strange. I use this with my 15" unibody MBP on a 30" monitor. Granted, the monitor spends more time attached to a Power Mac. But I've spent a bunch of time using it through the adapter, and I've never experienced these problems.

Must be all the clean living'. :)

Negerjoe (not verified) | September 16, 2009 - 2:06pm

I bought this overprice piece of junk adapter since there was no other option at the time. I found out HP now makes a similar adapter and I hope soon others can make the same kind of adapters dirt cheap, it's not really any special technology so for a fucking 100 usd device they should at least RMA the thing. I called apple for hours, Nobody wants to help. They say I should dl the software update which you can't. What a fucking rip off this is. Selling pure crap and then turn their backs when you want to RMA. SCREW APPLE, no matter if their products look good I will never deal with them again. Complete garbage!!!