How can I get my Mac Mini to display properly on a 17-inch flatscreen Viewsonic monitor?

February 11, 2005 7:25 AM

I just hooked my Mac Mini up to a new 17-inch flatscreen Viewsonic monitor. At unpredictable intervals, the display fades to blue for a moment and then comes back. What's going on? Are my settings wrong or is something broken?
posted by inksyndicate to computers & internet (9 comments total)

Apple Menu> System Preferences>Energy Saver

Set Put computer to sleep: "never"
and Put display to sleep: "never"

Desktop & screen saver>screen saver: "never"

Still a problem?
posted by planetkyoto at 7:33 AM on February 11, 2005

Tried that, it still does it. It's not fading black like it's resting, it goes blue like some air flight simulator where you pull too many Gs and lose consciousness.

Been trying different display configurations, but it still happens on a lower-res.
posted by inksyndicate at 7:37 AM on February 11, 2005

(maybe the display cable is loose, hmmm)
posted by inksyndicate at 7:45 AM on February 11, 2005

This happens every once in a while to me on Start Up (which I rarely do). I'm on a 1.5 GHz PowerBook with 1.0 GB Ram running OS X 10.3.7, and 128MB graphics card. Not sure of the cause, but it only happens once then normalcy resumes with no apparent lingering effects. Fire up Activity Monitor and see if there are any suspicous spikes.
posted by anathema at 7:46 AM on February 11, 2005

A loose or defective monitor cable can create quite a bit of puzzling havoc. I've been there and I strongly recommend looking into that simple matter *before taking any other steps*.
posted by magullo at 7:56 AM on February 11, 2005

I feel dumb. I think that was the answer.
posted by inksyndicate at 7:59 AM on February 11, 2005

Whoa--I love how new MeFi features (like this best answer thing) just keep sneaking up on us like that! Way to go guys.
posted by josh at 8:01 AM on February 11, 2005

My powerbook will do the exact same thing when adding or removing the dongle to connect it to my TV. That would imply to me it is the device 'recalculating' what to display, implying, that the connections are intermittent (probably as said above a loose or defective cable) and the mac sees it as a change it needs to account for.
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 8:37 AM on February 11, 2005

Yes, happens to me also when connecting devices (i.e., my TV, video projector, other displays). I think it's the video cable losing connection and reconnecting, which causes the video card to go, OK, what's going on, let's recalculate refresh rate, color and size and figure out what's happening.
posted by luriete at 11:17 AM on February 11, 2005