bad screen! bad!

February 6, 2006 11:21 AM

My mother has an Acer LCD (model AL1715) hooked up to her Mac Mini. The warranty expired 3 days ago, and last night it woke up after being asleep for about 45 minutes with a black line across it - the image divided in such a way that the image has rolled - that is, the bottom is at the top and the top at the bottom, split not quite equal halves. Disconnecting and reconnecting don't work, powering off and back on don't work, changing the display mode on the mac doesn't work, and we can't find a reset button. Acer doesn't answer tech support phone calls (endless holds) or emails. Any ideas?
posted by luriete to computers & internet (6 answers total)

Hmm, I've not seen that problem before. A quick google found a possible solution from Viewsonic:

Q & A: LCD

Split Image

Make sure your graphics card is set to non-interlaced mode.
posted by JigSawMan at 11:34 AM on February 6, 2006

Sounds like a hardware problem to me. Like some little component broke somewhere. It could be the video card too.

I woke up one morning and the image on my monitor was all dim where it should be white, but solid red/green/blue were still at the correct brightness. Very strange, and I assumed it was just the monitor, but when I tried another one, I still had the same problem. I got a new video card, and it was fixed.

I'd try another LCD or try connecting the LCD to another machine. Are you using a DVI connection or an analog one? Try switching to another connection mode if available, and try rebooting the machine.
posted by delmoi at 11:46 AM on February 6, 2006

I wasn't aware you could set the graphics card settings (other than the resolution) in OS X. Any idea on how to switch to non-interlaced mode?
posted by luriete at 11:48 AM on February 6, 2006 [1 favorite]

I will bring my laptop down there this weekend and try connecting it to the LCD. I assume that if it works fine as it should, then I can assume the problem is with the Mac Mini's video card?

I also assume that's something that has to be taken into the apple store to replace, right?
posted by luriete at 11:49 AM on February 6, 2006

You might check out this help doc

I've also found the PMU reset a handy catch-all fix:

1. Turn off mac and disconnect power cord for 10 sec
2. Hold in power button and reinsert power cord
3. Release and re-press power button.
posted by adamrice at 12:12 PM on February 6, 2006

I've had this problem with the LCD on my powerbook once before, to the extent where I was really about to ship it out to Apple for them to replace the LCD or video card or whatever was wrong. Then it just, literally, fixed itself. I rebooted it one last time and everything came up peaches.

I guess this isn't too helpful, but you might want to give it a day or so and keep rebooting once in a while, as well as not necesarily assuming the monitor is the problem... it might be the Mini as well.
posted by Inkoate at 12:15 PM on February 6, 2006