# Macbook strangely supposedly breaking displayport to HDMI cables



## krp312 (Oct 3, 2007)

Greetings,

I have a Macbook Air 13" mid-2011. My girlfriend has the same exact issue; she has a Macbook Air 13" mid-2012:

Since getting my Macbook about 3 years ago, I've gone through about 5-6 Thunderbolt to HDMI cables. I connect my Macbooks to my HDTV. The picture is perfect for a long while, we're very careful not to be rough with the port on either end. Then suddenly after a few months, the signal starts to drop out, as in the HDTV simply says "no signal" and the screen is black, then the signal sometimes comes back on (mind you we aren't doing any cable wiggling at this point), then after a week or so we finally get nothing. We get a new cable and voila, it works. Any idea what's going on?

We tried testing this with an external monitor we have, same issues, so we believe the problem is with the Macbook, but that's the best we can come up with. We have nothing else to test such a cable (displayport to HDMI).

Thanks for any help,
krp


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## StalemateBlack (Feb 24, 2015)

Are you using official Apple cables?

Apple's Thunderbolt cables have chips controlling data flow and other things in their connectors. This doesn't make them sturdier, but it does explain compatibility issues and their (over)price.


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## joeten (Dec 4, 2008)

Moved to Mac support.


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## krp312 (Oct 3, 2007)

StalemateBlack said:


> Are you using official Apple cables?
> 
> Apple's Thunderbolt cables have chips controlling data flow and other things in their connectors. This doesn't make them sturdier, but it does explain compatibility issues and their (over)price.


Very interesting! We are not, pretty much because of their (over)price. We'll try one out and see how it goes, thanks!


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## MartyF81 (Jan 23, 2013)

Thunderbolt is not limited to Apple, it is an Intel system. It was only exclusive to Apple for the first year. You can find same port on HP, Dell, Asus, Lenovo, Acer and many others.

So basically there is no need for "Official" Apple cables for Thunderbolt like there is for the 30 PIN or Lightning Cables. Apple doesn't check if they are genuine, only that they are really thunderbolt cables containing the intel chipset. 

There is however a need for "Quality" cables because poor quality (a.k.a "cheap") are not going to hold up. Thunderbolt gets warm when transferring data and if it is transcoding to HDMI in the cable (e.g. not an adapter but 1 single cable) that is gonna also make it worse.

The good news is.. you don't NEED a Thunderbolt cable for what you are doing. Thunderbolt is meant for high-speed data transfer.... you are simply transferring video.

All you need is a Mini-Displayport to HDMI cable which is much more reasonably priced than Thunderbolt. I have been using one of these since 2011 and it has not had an issue or failed once: Mini DisplayPort to HDMI Cables - Monoprice.com


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## krp312 (Oct 3, 2007)

MartyF81 said:


> All you need is a Mini-Displayport to HDMI cable which is much more reasonably priced than Thunderbolt. I have been using one of these since 2011 and it has not had an issue or failed once: Mini DisplayPort to HDMI Cables - Monoprice.com


Thanks for all of that info. I can't confirm if I've been using miniDP to HDMI cables all this time, but I've ordered one for now, and hope that it lasts 4 years like it has for you.


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