I am thinking it is purely a hardware issue at this point, and not related to other display issues with 10.10.2. Update: Restored back to Mavericks and the issue persisted. It is worth noting that I am regrettably on the Yosemite public beta (10.10.2) and I am checking to see if this is the issue with a Time Machine restore in a bit. I have noticed specific log messages that appear whenever I attempt to connect the two, which I will add in an update.

I would suspect that it is probably a hardware detail that I don't understand here, but I have been having issues with other display cables (HDMI to HDMI) recently, too. I read an answer on ' graphics limitations' of the Mac but am still wondering how that may be the issue, considering that this is has both passive and integrated graphics, rated better than the PC I tested. I've tried SMC and PRAM resets, several restarts, and hot plugging both ends of the converter, to no avail. It works perfectly with a Windows PC that I tested, but with my MacBook Pro Retina (early 2013 model), no display is detected.

Recently I purchased an HDMI to VGA adapter that actually converts the digital signal to an analog VGA signal to connect a computer to an external monitor.

Mac vga adapter work on dell