Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

dMajor

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 17, 2016
72
49
Melbourne, Australia
Hi guys,

The displayport on my MBP crapped out ages ago. I read somewher that with the right adapters I could run an external display via the USB ports. Is this correct? Today I grabbed a cheap USB-C to HDMI adapter, and a USB-A to USB-C, hooked them all together from my MBP to my monitor but no response. Don't see the monitor showing up in any of my display options on the MBP. Monitor screen just sits there blank.
Should I start troubleshooting this gear, or am I trying to do something that is impossible anyway?
Looked at the Apple spec page for my MBP and it doesn't mention any external display options except via displayport connection.

Cheers!
:)
 

FreakinEurekan

macrumors 603
Sep 8, 2011
5,614
2,679
DisplayLink adapter will let you run a display via USB. Response time isn’t fantastic- don’t expect to be able to play games on it for example- but otherwise it works fine.
 
  • Like
Reactions: dMajor

iMacDragon

macrumors 68020
Oct 18, 2008
2,362
707
UK
Only usb c supports 'proper' video output via usb ports, anything earlier needs some kind of OS supported driver interface that sends a compressed encoded video to be displayed by external video driver of some sort, like displaylink, so standard cheap adapters will certainly not work.
 
  • Like
Reactions: dMajor
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.