MacBook Pro M4 with thunderbolt 5 and portable monitor

ToddGeorgeKelly wrote:

every single one of my cables works with thunderbolt four on the M4 Mac mini. But again, as has been said, not a single of my 27 cables works when using the thunderbolt five ports on the M4 Pro Mac mini.

The M4 Pro Mac mini is a different machine than the "MacBook Pro M4 with Thunderbolt 5" that the OP has. (Assuming that the OP is correct about having TB 5, that implies that the MBP has a M4 Pro or Max chip; one which had a plain M4 chip would only have TB 4.)

In the OP's case, it looks like the portable monitor works fine with the new MBP – as long as it is given its own separate power source, as the monitor manual recommends. The last set of power measurements show that monitor drawing an enormous amount of power (50W) from an external power bank, relative to specifications claiming that it uses 17W, and a manual saying that a 15W power source would be sufficient.

I don't know what monitor you are using, or what its manuals say, but I suspect that the M4 Pro Mac mini is not designed to offer huge amounts of power to external devices.

For that matter, I doubt if the plain M4 Mac mini is intended to supply 50W of power to external devices. Maybe the two have the same power supply, and you just got lucky with the plain M4 Mac mini because it did not need quite as much of the power from its own supply to run its own internal circuits.

I just had a web chat with apple and I asked the question, why does my portable monitor and cable work with M2 pro and not M4 pro, and this is what they said:

Apple

Okay, can you check if the cables that you are using support thunderbolt 5 connection?

Me

I very much doubt it. Both came with the monitor. Do I need specific thunderbolt 5 cables

Apple

Yes, can you try checking on the website for the manufacturer for the displays to check the type of connection the cables support.

Me

Could I just confirm something please. Are you saying that because I am trying to connect to the thunderbolt 5 port on the M4 Pro, I need to upgrade my cables

Can I rephrase

Does the thunderbolt  5 port require different cables to the M4 and M2 pro Mac minis

Apple

Yes, I am asking you to check the compatibility of the displays and the cables that you are using.

There are different type of thunderbolt connections used on old and new Mac mini computers

Me

So the new thunderbolt 5 port is not backwards compatible with my old cables

Apple

First you need to check if the displays that you are using support thunderbolt 5 cables

If they do, then you need to get thunderbolt 5 cable to connect the displays

The new type of cables with thunderbolt 5 will also support the old type of thunderbolt connections

I will say though USB4 =/= Thunderbolt 4.

Speed for the USB ports should read 120Gbps. That's confirmation it is TB5; TB4 is only 40Gbps

Edited: Marked out device ids just in case.

Thunderbolt cables and USB-C cables should not be confused. They may look alike, but thunderbolt has more bandwidth and support for video than straight USB-C.

From your description, those should be TB5. Sure you didn't actually look at the M3 models?

Positive. The Apple Store staff was baffled. They had no answer. We looked at all of their M4 Pro and Max machines. All hardware profiles said Thunderbolt 4.

.