TripleHead2Go on MacBook Pro
February 21st, 2008
I’ve always had monitor envy. The bigger the better. While I’d love to drop a ton of scratch on a Cinema Display, I just can’t justify it. Spending a mortgage payment on a monitor would trigger weeks and weeks of guilt and buyer’s remorse.
Luckily for us po’ folk, Matrox has a nifty thingamajig called a TripleHead2Go. Essentially it’s a little box that you hook up to your DVI or VGA connection on your computer. On the back side, you can attach up to three displays. Your computer sees the box as one huge-ass monitor. The device itself splits the output signal into/up to three separate signals that it can direct to each of the attached displays.Sounds cool! And I just happen to have three Samsung 22-inchers, so I figured I’d give it a try.The TH2G (as I’ll refer to it forthwith), arrived via FedEx from PC Connection. $315.00 if I recall. Anyway, the box contains the device itself, a VGA cable, DVI cable, USB cable and a CD. The USB cable is required for power, and for the included software to set the resolution that it should report to your computer. Oddly, the software to manage the device wasn’t on the disk. But I quickly found it on the Matrox site. 
Once I got the cables all squared away, I set up my monitors just so. “Wow”, I’m thinking. “I’m gonna have freakin’ acres of display!”. But as I looked at it, and the distinct lack of space for all the other crap that I need on my desk, I decided three monitors was too much. The TH2G handles just two monitors as well, so I went that route instead. A bit sad really. I was starting to get really excited about the prospect of so many pixels. But I’ve got to have some place to put the mountain of other electronic do-dads that I just can’t seem to live without.
With a new plan in place I hook everything up and start farting around with the TH2G configuration utility. It installs in your System Preferences and is fairly easy to use. It just didn’t work. Well, let me put that into some context: it didn’t work due to the latest Leopard graphics update that came along with 10.5.2. Detect Displays didn’t do shit, so I had to do the unplug/reboot/re-plug/reboot dance before it would finally recognize the TH2G.But once it found it, oh the joy! I now have a 3360×1050 display stretching over 44 glorious diagonal inches, and the MacBook display as well. Nice!
There are a few hiccups though: The Dock. Crap. I didn’t even think about it getting hacked in half by the monitor bevels. Oh well, left-side Dock for me I guess. Same for dialog boxes. While nothing is hidden, the bevels make it feel a bit strange. You’ll notice from the picture that I found a use for the other 22″ Samsung. I just hooked it up to my ThinkPad T60. That gives me four displays on two systems running simultaneously. I should growing a lovely melanoma in no time.Anyway, if you’re into big displays and don’t want to spend a ton of money, you should check out the TH2G. Matrox also makes a DualHead2Go if you’re sure you only want two monitors. But you might as well get the TripleHead2Go. It’ll give you some room for expansion later should you need it.
March 4th, 2008 at 9:33 am
Hmmm…I’ve looked at the TH2G too. But it only outputs VGA, yes? Which is a shame, since I’m one of those losers afflicted with a head that swims when an LCD smears its pixels.
There’s another, more recent option, whereby a small breakout box connects multiple screens over USB. I forget the brand but it looks promising. Again, it only outputs VGA, and only in 4:3 resolutions.
Anyway, that’s a great set up. Good luck with that!
March 4th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Actually, with two monitors, I’m getting 1680×1050 on both with no smeariness. The TH2G won’t drive three monitors that resolution sadly. -Brian
March 22nd, 2008 at 1:14 pm
MonkeySpank:
There is 4 products in the Matrox line up.
2 analog (Dual and triple)
2 digital (Dual and triple)
The two digital has DVI out. But ONLY the TripleHead2Go Digital has DVI in. And it has to be Dual-Link DVI, which my MacBook Pro has
When using a single-link DVI input you will have limited resolution support.
Unfortunately the max resolution if you have 3 monitors is 1280×1024. So I’m going for a TripleHead2Go with 2 monitors running 1920×1200.
Check out there website, which is pretty informative here: http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/gxm/
Thomas
March 22nd, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Thomas - I’m running two monitors on a MacBook Pro also (dual-link DVI). But I can only get 1680×1050 on each monitor. Going to 1920×1200 makes my text all screwy. But I suspect that it’s my monitors (Samsung 226bw, 22″). If you get a good display at that resolution, let me know what kind of monitors you’ve got. - Brian
April 5th, 2008 at 12:06 am
Hi again
I now bought my TripleHead2Go Digital and 2 Dell 24″ 2408WPF (1920×1200).
However it does not work. I get an error “Windows couldn’t properly detect GXM modes.” when starting GXM Setup. Are you running under Windows or Mac OS 10.4 or 10.5?
I’ve contacted Matrox support, but they just say that Bootcamp (running Windows on a Mac) is not supported. They didn’t give me one single hint on what I could do to resolve my problem. I was expecting much better support from a company like Matrox.
Their compatibility tools says everything should work.
At some point I didn’t get this error (after moving on e cabel from DIV out 2 to DVI out 3), and I was able to select 2×1920x1200, but after the required reboot I got the error again.
At no point have I been able to get a picture on both monitors, even whit the laptop display turned of 1024×768 on one monitor is the best I can do.
I’m posting here to let others know (this blog post is high on Google when searching for “TripleHead2Go MacBook pro”), and because I don’t have a single hit when searching for “Windows couldn’t properly detect GXM modes.” or even “”GXM modes”.
If anyone finds a solution to this problem please e-mail me at tje@mentum.dk. Even if you read this in one year from now.
April 5th, 2008 at 5:18 am
Hi again
Sorry for spamming your blog!
I got it working now. Under both Mac OS X 10.4 and Windows Vista.
I downloaded the latest 167.xx driver from http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/drivers/vista (167.45 to be exact).
I now have 2 external 24″ monitors with 1920×1200 and also my MacBook Pro with the build in 17″ 1920×1200.
Wow… that is 5760×1200!!! And this works under both Vista and Mac
The reason your Samsung 226BW 22″ is looking screwy is because it is “only” has a native 1680 x 1050 resolution. Even if you go to a lower resolution like 1440×900 it will look a little bit screwy, because it will then try to split 1440 logical pixels across 1680 physical pixels. It is like that with all flat panels.
BTW: I don’t think that it is possible to find a external 22″ with more than 1680 x 1050.
: Thomas
April 5th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Thomas - Glad you got it working! Nice having all that real estate, eh?
May 27th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Okay i have a MacBookPro 17″, a 30″ apple cinema display and a 20″ Cintiq. Will this work the same as your example above?
May 30th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
I suppose so. Though I’ve never tried it with two different monitor sizes. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. But it might seem a bit strange.