Mini DisplayPort and DVI cables not working?
There's no reason it should work with a single-link DVI cable, but not a dual-link one. The second link is only needed for resolutions higher than 1920x1200x60Hz, and the second set of wires will otherwise be unused. In fact, a standard passive Mini Displayport -> DVI adapter can't use (or see) the second link.

You could check if a lower resolution works - if it does, this would indicate that the cables suffer from too much interference to carry high resolutions. This would be the case if they had cheap/bad shielding. If both your adapter and the DVI cable are very close to the minimum required shielding, it could cause problems in combination but work OK when combined with higher quality cables or used on their own.