lizardfuel55 on 7/3/2009 at 22:11
Hi, hi.
I now have a 20 inch aluminum Apple Cinema Display (now discontinued). Yes, it's Apple, but I got it for less than half the price it would be sold at (for 250$).
Anyway, the thing was purchased in 2005 by its owner, and my laptop was bought in late 2007 (in november). I recaliberated it to match my laptop as closely as it can , even though my laptop seems to be more color accurate and much brighter.
My question is that the 2 USB cables at the back of the display don't seem to work. I have replugged in everything, which is the power cord, the power adapter, the DVI connector, and also the firewire and USB cables to my laptop. I tried using my mouse and my Wacom graphics tablet, but they don't seem to respond when I connect them to the display. But they work when I connect them to my laptop.
Can anyone help me with this? I was thinking of buying an external keyboard to hook up to the display.
P.S. -The owner (also an art student) said that she would connect her Wacom tablet to the back and it would work. The display did not come with a software CD (the box nor the manual said anything about a CD).
P.S. #2 - I just tried this out. I removed all cabling from display and laptop, then shut down the laptop and did a power management reset (taking out the battery and holding down the power button for 5 seconds). Then I reconnected cabling and upon start up on the laptop, I resetted the PRAM. But it still won't work.
Thanks.
Zerker on 8/3/2009 at 12:21
Usually the USB ports on monitors just act like a USB hub, so there's no special drivers or somesuch. The only thing you should need is the USB device cable going from the monitor to the computer. If this wasn't Apple, I would suggest trying a different USB device cable, but Apple bundles them all into the same source, doesn't it? I'd look around the Apple forums to see if this is a common issue.
lizardfuel55 on 8/3/2009 at 18:41
Quote Posted by Zerker
Usually the USB ports on monitors just act like a USB hub, so there's no special drivers or somesuch. The only thing you should need is the USB device cable going from the monitor to the computer. If this wasn't Apple, I would suggest trying a different USB device cable, but Apple bundles them all into the same source, doesn't it? I'd look around the Apple forums to see if this is a common issue.
Sorry, but could you confirm what you mean by "a USB device cable going from the monitor to the computer" That's probably the only other thing I haven't tried. Thanks.
David on 8/3/2009 at 18:53
With the Apple Displays the cable is built into the main one that runs from the rear centre of the panel and splits into display, USB and possibly Firewire further down. The cable could be damaged, I guess.
lizardfuel55 on 8/3/2009 at 20:04
Quote Posted by David
With the Apple Displays the cable is built into the main one that runs from the rear centre of the panel and splits into display, USB and possibly Firewire further down. The cable could be damaged, I guess.
Hmm it's a possibility.
I just tried connecting my USB Wacom graphics tablet, in reverse. I hooked it to the back of the ACD, and then plugged the ACD's USB into the USB port of my laptop. The Wacom LED light lights up briefly before going dead. At first I thought maybe it's the port on my laptop, but it seems to be in working condition (I plugged in my 500 gigs external HD to make sure and it responded). So it could be the USB cable of the ACD. What a shame, since everything else seems to be working wonderfully.
I'm still hesistant to give up on this ACD. The owner said I could have the ACD for 200$ (as opposed to the 250$ she was giving it to me for) if this problem continues to remain unresolved. Do you guys think that if I bought a wireless/bluetooth keyboard, I could get around the issue of not having to rely on the USB ports of the ACD.
I was thinking of this :
Inline Image:
http://www.techfresh.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/apple_wireless_keyboard.jpgor (
http://www.apple.com/keyboard/) http://www.apple.com/keyboard/
But then would this mean that I would not be able to use my laptop in clamshell mode (that is just using the laptop as a console while it's sleeping but everything is projected on the ACD). I've never used any bluetooth devices before so this is unfamiliar tech territory for me.
Thanks for any suggestions! :)
