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My MacBook Pro have only two thunderbolt ports.

My new external monitors are Dell U2414H connected to MacBook Pro using Display Port to Mini Display Port cable each one. In this situation I'm unable to connect Apple Thunderbolt Ethernet adapter cause of no free ports.

Next step I tried to connect monitors using Daisy Chain function this way: On first monitor I enabled "Daisy Chain" function. On second (and the last one) I didn't change anything and left it disabled. Now I connected supplied cable (DP to MiniDP) to first monitor to DisplayPort and the other side (Mini DP) two second monitors MDP input. Than I connected only one cable (from first monitor) to first thunderbolt port of my MacBook Pro. Only thing I got was display mirroring. Two of My Dell's was mirrored.

My question is - Any chance two run it using Daisy Chain functionality? As far as I know MacBook thunderbolt ports compatible with MiniDP but...

Any chance to solve it?

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5 Answers 5

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Any Mac that supports DP 1.2 technically supports daisy chaining. However, OS X does not yet support it. If you boot Windows on your Mac you will be able to daisy chain.

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  • Did you try that out?
    – dersimn
    May 7, 2015 at 10:39
  • @SimonD.Seim I tried it, and yes it works. Bootcamp into windows 10 and start using both displays (in my case two Dell U2515H) with just one display port cable. So my hardware is able to support it (I'm on a late 2013 15" macbook pro).
    – DelGurth
    Mar 16, 2016 at 16:36
  • True. apple.stackexchange.com/questions/205191/…
    – Albert T. Wong
    May 14, 2016 at 2:52
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Modern Mac's (the hardware) properly support DisplayPort MST daisy-chaining but Mac OS X (the OS) does not support it. This has been proven via BootCamp with Windows. So theoretically Apple could chose to issue a patch to fix the OS and make it DisplayPort 1.2 compliant but they've chosen not to.

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Is your MacBook a late 2013 or mid 2014 (Thunderbolt 2)? If not, there is no chance to support DisplayPort MST (Multi Stream) which allows you to daisy-chain two of the Dells. The late 2013 and mid 2014 macbook pros have thunderbolt 2 with DisplayPort 1.2 (Thunderbolt 2), all the other macbook pros with retina just have DP 1.1 (Thunderbolt 1) which does not support MST.

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  • could you possibly provide a source?
    – cnst
    Apr 21, 2015 at 2:36
  • support.apple.com/en-au/HT202856: "Multi-Stream Transport (MST) Displays -- These computers also support multi-stream transport (MST) displays at 60 Hz: MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013 and later), MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015), Mac Pro (Late 2013), iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014 and later)" But: "If you use a 60Hz MST display with the MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013) or iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014), only one additional Thunderbolt display can be supported." Time to get a Mac Pro?
    – sj26
    Jul 23, 2015 at 4:59
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Just FYI: I got same setup, and while being totally inconvenient, it actually works if you plug in both screens via the DisplayPort connector.

screenshot showing two arranged dell u2414h

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Thunderbolt is an active technology, Display Port is passive.

To daisy-chain, you must use Thunderbolt to Thunderbolt. You cannot daisy-chain Display Port.

Your solution may be to find a 3rd party Thunderbolt -> dual Display Port box, but it's not something I've investigated, personally. Google gives this for starters.

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    this answer is incorrect; DisplayPort supports daisy chaining
    – cnst
    Apr 21, 2015 at 2:37
  • it may indeed do, in recent times - but Macs with display port don't.
    – Tetsujin
    Apr 21, 2015 at 16:22

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