When I hook up my new CSV-7300 to my 16″ MacBook Pro (either through my CalDigit TS3 dock or my StarTech TB32DP2T) two of my three monitors glitch severely (video).
All three monitors are DisplayPort 1.2 displays; two are Asus MG28Us being driven at 4K/60Hz and one is a Samsung LC32HG70QQNXZA being driven at 2K/144Hz.
Is this the expected behavior of the CSV-7300, or do I have a defective unit? The monitors and MBP work fine when I connect them directly (using both the TS3 and the TB32DP2T).
It’s not recommended to use the CSV-7300 trough a dock. The supported OS is Windows 10.
Do the docks support DSC 1.2? Try to add a display one at the time.
I don’t think you have a faulty unit, I think the other hardware does not support the needs of the CSV-7300.
Both the StarTech and CalDigit are limited to DisplayPort 1.2 which can only do one 4K60 display, definitely not two 4K60 and one 2K144 display (unless you lower the refresh rate or resolution). You would need DisplayPort 1.4 and DSC to connect three 4K60 displays.
Linux and Windows supports multiple displays connected to a MST hub. macOS can only do mirroring between displays connected to an MST Hub. That, at least, should have worked.
The 16″ MBP has a 5300M or a 5500M GPU? Both support DisplayPort 1.4. At least one of them supports DSC (maybe both). I wonder if the Alpine Ridge Thunderbolt chips are getting a non-DisplayPort 1.2 signal? Your video shows video data that doesn’t look like DisplayPort 1.4 or DSC. Maybe the output from the AGDCDiagnose command would show something.
Try connecting the CSV-7300 directly to the MBP using a USB-C to DisplayPort 1.4 adapter such as the CAC-1567.
Per your recommendation @joevt I purchased a CAC-1567 adapter and tried it with the CSV-7300 with the CAC-1567 plugged directly into the 16″ MBP.
With two monitors this arrangement worked fine, but when I plugged in the third it caused the Macbook to hard reset. This failure mode is reproducible and happens whenever the system gets in a state such that all three monitors should be driven by the CAC-1567/CSV-7300 combination (whether that’s by plugging in the third monitor, connecting power to the CSV-7300, or pressing the reset button on the CSV-7300). When the system comes back up from the crash no monitors are registered until I power cycle or reset the CSV-7300.
The closest thing I had to “success” was when I connected the CAC-1567/CSV-7300 chain to the Thunderbolt-out port on the Caldigit TS3, during which two of the monitors worked normally and one displayed a glitched mess.
Is this the expected behavior of the system? Is there anything else to try at this point before requesting an RMA of the CSV-7300?
What version of macOS are you using? Which GPU do you have?
I tried Catalina and Big Sur with a 3 port DisplayPort 1.4 MST Hub that should be similar to the CSV-7300. The MST Hub is connected to a W5700 that is connected to my Mac mini 2018. I connected 3 4K60 displays and they all worked as expected (they are all mirrored because macOS doesn’t support MST for multiple separate displays).
The AGDCDiagnose output says DSC is not enabled. I suppose this is expected since the displays are mirrored by the MST Hub and not by macOS (only one of the displays appears in macOS since macOS doesn’t support MST for multiple separate displays). Only one 4K60Hz stream is sent and the MST Hub transports that to all three displays.
I suppose one thing to try is to check the firmware of the CSV-7300. Send an e-mail to [email protected] to see if they have a firmware updater.
You’ll need Windows to upgrade the firmware of the CSV-7300.
There’s a firmware utility at https://kb.cablematters.com/index.php?View=entry&EntryID=147 which will tell you what your current firmware version is.
Maybe the issue is with your GPU – it is probably similar to the W5700 but not as powerful.
I’m running macOS 11.6 with a Radeon Pro 5300M
I’ll take a look at the firmware updater, but if I’m going to be stuck in mirrored mode when/if I finally get it working this whole endeavor looks like a dead end :/
Yes, an MST Hub will not get you separate displays in macOS. You can use the MST Hub in Linux and Windows for multiple (non-mirrored) displays though.
For macOS, you need a Thunderbolt dock or hub or Thunderbolt to Dual DisplayPort adapter to connect two displays to a Thunderbolt port. A max of two displays can be connected per side of the MacBook Pro (each side has a Thunderbolt controller that supports two displays – either one per Thunderbolt port or two to a single Thunderbolt port using a Thunderbolt device).
An MST Hub can be used in macOS to convert two lanes of HBR3 with DSC to four lanes of HBR2 or HBR3 which may be useful if you use a USB-C (not Thunderbolt) dock that supports USB 3.x and has a DisplayPort output without its own MST Hub. This is because a USB-C dock that supports USB 3.x only reeives two lanes of DisplayPort for the DisplayPort output. Basically, the MST Hub helps because it can convert a fast & narrow DisplayPort connection to a slow & wide DisplayPort connection for displays that cannot accept the fast & narrow signal.
