Apple 27" LED Cinema Display

Krycek1, my desk is an Ikea JONAS. Quality wise, its like any Ikea piece, veneer chips and scratches easily.
 
After about 1-2 months of owning this monitor compared to the U3011, I can honestly say i'm much more happier. The glossy screen is still somewhat annoying but it's much better then the AC of the U3011

40b96df2.jpg
 
Can anyone confirm if the new Thunderbolt 27" Cinema display will still work with our Displayport / Mini-Displayport graphic cards for PC? It seems like the Thunderbolt connector is exactly the same as the Displayport connector except with some additional USB features. It looks like since the USB cable is now missing, I would no longer have access to the built in speakers, mic, and HD Camera (which I never used anyway) I use to have a 27" Apple Cinema Display and looking to buy again and would rather get the newest & greatest Thunderbolt monitor (even though the screen itself hasn't changed, I think) but thinking I may have to get the older Cinema display again for compatibility. Thanks!

Note: Before I sold my ACD, I plugged it into my wife’s Thunderbolt MBP and was able to use it without any issues. I'm still thinking Thunderbolt and (Mini)Displayport are completely compatible when it comes to just showing a picture.
 
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Can anyone confirm if the new Thunderbolt 27" Cinema display will still work with our Displayport / Mini-Displayport graphic cards for PC?

No, it is IMPOSSIBLE to use a Thunderbolt ACD27" with a PC. Thunderbolt and DisplayPort are NOT compatible bi-directionally. You can use a DisplayPort device with a Thunderbolt port on a Mac, but you cannot use a Thunderbolt device with a DisplayPort port on a Mac/PC. Your only option is to buy the older miniDisplayPort version of the ACD27".
 
After about 1-2 months of owning this monitor compared to the U3011, I can honestly say i'm much more happier. The glossy screen is still somewhat annoying but it's much better then the AC of the U3011

40b96df2.jpg

Is that a pc you are using with the apple displays? How have you connected them, do you get the full 1440p and how do you control brightness?

Is that an amiga keyboard too?? :)

I bought a hazro a few days ago, basically an apple screen with crap base. Hopefully i wont have any problems with dead pixels, buzzing or any other quality conyrol issues
 
How does the glossiness of the ACD compare, in real world use, to the glossiness of the screen on MBPs?
 
Is it possible to connect two PC's at once on one ACD, if for example both PC's have a Radeon 6950 graphics card or one PC and one laptop by Apple?
 
Is it possible to connect two PC's at once on one ACD, if for example both PC's have a Radeon 6950 graphics card or one PC and one laptop by Apple?

If you're asking if the ACD27" supports a Picture By Picture mode, that isn't possible i.e. you can't display video side by side from two different PCs. Atlona does, however, sell miniDisplayPort KVM switches that support 2560x1440. I have my ACD27" hooked up to both a PC and a Playstation 3, and I toggle between the two with a single button press.
 
If you're asking if the ACD27" supports a Picture By Picture mode, that isn't possible i.e. you can't display video side by side from two different PCs. Atlona does, however, sell miniDisplayPort KVM switches that support 2560x1440. I have my ACD27" hooked up to both a PC and a Playstation 3, and I toggle between the two with a single button press.

Man this monitor is so good looking with a fantastic picture but Apple really made it a painful for PC users. First of the monitor already costs 1000€ and then i have to buy a Radeon 6950 for it which costs me 200€ and i can still connect only one PC on it, that's just crazy :(

I don't want the Atlona adapter, it costs almost the same as a good graphics card and yet it doesn't display the full resolution :S
 
Just letting you guys know that I had a 3 out of 4 dust behind the glass ratio on my Apple Cinema Displays which not only drove me crazy but also cost me a few hundred dollars. If you plan on buying this monitor, you either need to accept the fact that you'll most likely have dust (pretty much looks like dead / stuck pixels you can't get rid of) or you'll have to do a bunch of returns and craigslist hunting to find a dust-free one. I got fooled by my first 2 ACD's because there was no dust at first, return period passes, then a few weeks later dust magically appears because it was most likely sitting in the edge/corners behind the bezel and the static from the screen eventually pushes it up. This monitor is totally worth it though. Even if it does have dust and/or faulty pixels, it’s still the best looking display there is. Good luck.
 
After about 1-2 months of owning this monitor compared to the U3011, I can honestly say i'm much more happier. The glossy screen is still somewhat annoying but it's much better then the AC of the U3011

40b96df2.jpg
Awesome setup btw, keyboard from 80s acompanied by 2011 monitors:D
 
Hey Guys.
I am about to throw this screen in the bin.
I purchased the 27" LED Mini DP screen last week and it works on my macbook.

My Pc on the other hand.. I have the
Asus GTX580 Direct CUII. Plugged into
> Male Display Port/Male Display Port
> Female Display Port/Male MiniDisplay Port
> Female Mini Display Port/Female Mini Display Port
> ACD Male Mini Display Port.


I have the latest nvidia drivers. I connect the display plug in usb turn on computer.


Nothing.
No change in the display at all.

I connect a secondary display to DVI and in the nvidia control panel it says Apple LED Display.
But i cannot click it or select it.


WHAT IS GOING ON :( i spent 8 hours last night trying to work it out. Is it my cables? or my GPU? it doesnt post Bios AT all.. it must be hardware?


Please support me, anyone... im ready to return the most beautiful display and forget ever using apple again.
 
Hey Guys.
I am about to throw this screen in the bin.
I purchased the 27" LED Mini DP screen last week and it works on my macbook.

My Pc on the other hand.. I have the
Asus GTX580 Direct CUII. Plugged into
> Male Display Port/Male Display Port
> Female Display Port/Male MiniDisplay Port
> Female Mini Display Port/Female Mini Display Port
> ACD Male Mini Display Port.


I have the latest nvidia drivers. I connect the display plug in usb turn on computer.


Nothing.
No change in the display at all.

I connect a secondary display to DVI and in the nvidia control panel it says Apple LED Display.
But i cannot click it or select it.


WHAT IS GOING ON :( i spent 8 hours last night trying to work it out. Is it my cables? or my GPU? it doesnt post Bios AT all.. it must be hardware?


Please support me, anyone... im ready to return the most beautiful display and forget ever using apple again.

It's probably all the displayport converters you have. Just get a simple Displayport Male to MiniDP female. Should work fine.
 
I wouldnt think it could be the cables if they all connect perfectly how is it possible? Unless one is literally broken?
 
Well - if you say your GTX 580 works fine with other monitors, then we know it's not the GPU/computer.

If you say the ACD works fine on a Macbook - you know it's not the ACD.

So - therefore it has something to do with the cabling/power. It's possible there is too much interference with so many adapters. It's a $10 cable. It's worth a try.
 
~yup, thats the correct adapter and that should be all you need to get everything working.

I used that adapter with my Asus Matrix GTX 580 so you should have no issues.,
 
Ok well i guess my only option is to wait till this cable arrives and see if it works :\

Thanks guys ill throw an update asap
 
It's probably all the displayport converters you have. Just get a simple Displayport Male to MiniDP female. Should work fine.

So - therefore it has something to do with the cabling/power. It's possible there is too much interference with so many adapters. It's a $10 cable. It's worth a try.

Told you, brah! :p Why didn't you post the pics of the epic daisy-chain? Haha.
 
haha i would be far too ashamed to post it. But desperate times call for desperate measures. That clearly failed.
 
Got a new cable. from the ACD to female/female mni DP to minidp to DP > GPU.

Still nothing works on the screen.
 
Have you tested the miniDP port with another monitor?

If it works on your macbook @ native res - really - I can't think of how it could be something wrong with the ACD.
 
The ACD works perfectly @1440p on my macbook.

It seems like the only thing it could be is my female to female MDP adapter.

I did a reverse test and tried the macbook connected to the screen through the adapters and exactly like the pc - nothing.

Leaves two options.
The adapter is dead.
Or the screen does not allow the use of more than one cable/adapter.


Anyone have any idea or way to test this for me?
 
Leaves two options.
The adapter is dead.
Or the screen does not allow the use of more than one cable/adapter.

Hi ProficienT,

One question, why do you need 2 cables in your setup? A single "Mini Displayport Female to Displayport Male Adapter Cable" should allow you connect the ACD27" directly to your GTX580, no? And I don't know why the number of adapters would matter. I did a wild daisy chain across DVI and VGA to hook up my ACD27" to my VGA XBOX360 and it worked.
 
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Hi ProficienT,

One question, why do you need 2 cables in your setup? A single "Mini Displayport Female to Displayport Male Adapter Cable" should allow you connect the ACD27" directly to your GTX580, no? And I don't know why the number of adapters would matter. I did a wild daisy chain across DVI and VGA to hook up my ACD27" to my VGA XBOX360 and it worked.

He has ordered the female mini-DP to male DP cable, DVI & VGA are totally different beasts :eek:
 
The screen is working perfect on my mac
and i connected my housemates imac to my case with the direct cable and it worked instantly.

I then tried to connect my macbook to the display with the adapters in the link and the screen did not respond at all.
So the screan works with the direct cable and the computer works connected to the IMac.

The only thing it can be is the cables..

So i guess ill have to wait for my order.
I guess you cant daisy any cables at all to work over mDP to DP.
 
This link seems to have a working download of the 64bit version of the brightness exe from bootcamp that is for 64bit windows. The 32 bit download is missing.

http://www.facingblend.com/blog/?p=925

The old links on this actual [H] thread we are on are all dead too I think.
 
So is there 100% certainty that the Thunderbolt display will work only with Thunderbolt ports and not existing mini-display ports?

There is so much uncertainty online and I am even getting conflicting info from Apple reps. Some say that the "video channel" of the thunderbolt connection will work but the peripheral channel obviously won't.

If it just doesn't work at all, best to quickly pickup the existing 27 Cinema Display from B&H while it is still around!
 
I can confirmed the AMD 5850 will not work on ACD with the port gender adapter.
The adapter works on my Elitebook, FirePro M5950.
 
So is there 100% certainty that the Thunderbolt display will work only with Thunderbolt ports and not existing mini-display ports?

Yeah... a lot of guys over at MacRumors have gotten their Thunderbolt displays and it's 100% confirmed. Right now, Thunderbolt display + anything that doesn't have a Thunderbolt port = Not possible.
 
Yeah... a lot of guys over at MacRumors have gotten their Thunderbolt displays and it's 100% confirmed. Right now, Thunderbolt display + anything that doesn't have a Thunderbolt port = Not possible.

What difference does it make? The ACD and the Thunderbolt display are the exact same display minus the port type. Why wouldn't one just order the ACD if they have a Mini Display port?
 
Just wanted to add something for those using the Apple ControlPanel with AHCI setups. I found a fix that doesn't involve having a boot disk in your drive, which didn't work for me since my Bluray drive is setup as AHCI as well.

I have a Gigabyte motherboard, so it has 2 gsata ports that I have never used. The gigabyte bios lets me set the gsata ports to IDE mode while keeping the normal intel sata ports as AHCI (I think you can see where this is going ;)). I have 4 hardrives, one SSD and 3 storage drives. I simply plugged my least used storage drive into the gsata port and let it run as an IDE drive. Apple ControlPanel now starts up fine, no boot disk needed! :)
 
mine works fine with ahci and using the exe in administrator mode. There is another method posted in this thread too

I actually found a better way to get the AppleControlPanel for Brightness to work in Windows 7.
#1) Right Click on "Computer" -> Select "Manage" and in the users area create a user account called: Test (with password: Test) -> Not an admin account!

#2) You have to create a shortcut to the EXE itself, and in the shortcut box change the part that points to the EXE itself (Not the 'Start In" area) Change to: "C:\Windows\System32\runas.exe /user:test C:\AppleControlPanel.exe" (Or whatever/whereever your ControlPanel filename is...If shortcut is in the same folder as Exe you do not need to enter a harddisk or filepath before AppleControlPanel.exe)

Before creating shortcut like this I was getting the Startup Error every time I tried to control brightness, And there was no way I was going to depreciate my Win7 install with unneeded bootcamp pollution. BTW: My disk drives run in AHCI mode and theres no chance I'll be changing that to IDE to make something run right :)
 
Wait, so you can't get the full resolution of this thing unless your graphics card has display port? What if you use a dp to dvi converter?
 
It depends on the adapter. Most max out at 1080p, and since the ACD cant accept 1080p you end up with 720p.

The only adapter that works at full resolution is the Atlona AT-DP400. They also make a higher end model that does HDMI as well. But IMO if your gonna spend a hundred bucks on an adapter just throw out a little more cash and get a proper video card that can support it out of the box.
 
Beware what brand you buy. Powercolor 6970s wouldn't work with my ACD whereas XFX did.

since powercolor 6970 didn't work with the 27 inch ACD, do you think this will have the same issue with a powercolor 6990? anybody tried this?
 
since powercolor 6970 didn't work with the 27 inch ACD, do you think this will have the same issue with a powercolor 6990? anybody tried this?

Wow, that sucks. I was under the impression that all Radeon 6xxx cards were ACD27" compatible. Wouldn't the miniDP inputs be electrically identical regardless of the vendor? Anyone else have any insight on this?
 
Wow, that sucks. I was under the impression that all Radeon 6xxx cards were ACD27" compatible. Wouldn't the miniDP inputs be electrically identical regardless of the vendor? Anyone else have any insight on this?

Maybe it's a weird powercolor thing.. my MSI 6970 works fine with my 27" ACD..
 
Maybe it's a weird powercolor thing.. my MSI 6970 works fine with my 27" ACD..

According to powercolor's support it is their firmware and they didn't seem to care one bit. I'd avoid them if you are looking to use it with the ACD unless you want to risk dealing with returning it.
 
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