Mac DVI and monitor

April 1, 2006 10:39 PM

How do I reset the resolution on a large plasma monitor connected to a Mac Mini via DVI?

I took my G4 Mac Mini over to my neighbor's to try it out on his Phillips 50" plasma monitor. I hooked it up to the DVI connector on the monitor, turned everything on and had no problems. The monitor had a splash screen that said its resolution was 800x600. I wondered what the picture would look like at a higher resolution, so I used the Displays panel to set it higher (1024x768). The monitor went dark and the splash screen said the resolution was unsupported (the manual contradicts that). I used a small LCD monitor to reset the resolution the Mac was using, but now I can't get the picture back on the Phillips monitor. When I boot the Mac, I get pixellation while the gray Apple and the spinner is on the screen, then I get a good display while the progress bar shows the OS being loaded (the monitor splash screen shows 800x600 no matter what I've set the Mac to at this point). As soon as the progress bar is full, however, the screen goes dark again and the splash screen says unsupported once more. I've reset PRAM in the Mac, unplugged the monitor and let it sit, sacrificed a chicken (OK, we ate some chicken while we were trying to figure it out). Any ideas? Anybody have a good reference to a DVI for Dummies guide?

posted by forrest to computers & internet (7 comments total)

You should just hit "detect displays" and it should figure out the max resolution on a 50" plasma (which is likely to be 1366x768).
posted by mathowie at 11:07 PM on April 1, 2006

Try this
posted by cillit bang at 1:29 AM on April 2, 2006

A lot of plasmas only support up to 800x600 - you sure this one can handle anything higher?
posted by ed\26h at 6:26 AM on April 2, 2006

I had serious issues getting my Mac mini to display on my 37" LCD (Toshiba WLT58) - exactly the same symptoms as you've described.
The problem is due to the Mac mini not recognising (or perhaps the TV not sending) the correct mode ID details, so Mac OS picks what it thinks the best display mode from the list of what it thinks is available... which the TV doesn't support.

The hoops I had to jump through were as follows:
1) Connect to a "normal" CRT monitor on which I can get a picture
2) Hunt through the Apple.com discussions for an Applescript that some guy wrote and made available that uses a program called "cscreen" - this cycles through various display modes until it receives input (i.e. you confirm that you can see something!)
3) You must then take great pains to prevent the Mac from ever doing the display detection again - plug the plasma screen in whilst the Mac is on (i.e. after it has booted successfully on the CRT) and don't manually trigger the process!
4) I also dosnloaded and registered DisplayConfigX which enabled me to manually create a 1368x768 screenmode that fits the LCD nicely (the closest I could get to the native resolution of the panel - 1366x768).

All in all, it's a total disgrace - the Mac mini is designed to be a little bit too clever for its own good, and doesn't really allow you to bypass the automatic processes when they go wrong... like this display detection. I'd have hoped that something has been fixed in some of the recent system updates, but I'm too scared to try and see whether it will detect the screen properly, just in case it doesn't! :-)
I had heaps of problems when I first got my Mac mini - some of the stuff amongst the answers to my Mac mini question may be useful and relevant?

Hope that this is of some help - if you get stuck, feel free to mail me and I'll see what else I can dig up...
posted by Chunder at 8:52 AM on April 2, 2006

Matt: I can't see anything on the monitor. It goes blank right after boot, so I can't get into the Displays panel to try the Detect Displays.

cillit bang: I forgot to mention that I tried to boot in Safe Mode, but it wouldn't recognize it. However, I was using a Bluetooth keyboard at the time. I'll try it again with a USB keyboard.

ed/26h: the manual says it can display up to 1300 something. Thanks for the tip, though -- I didn't realize that.

Chunder: I'll try your suggestions (especially the cscreen thing).

Thanks for the suggestions, y'all. I'll let you know of any progress I make.
posted by forrest at 4:29 PM on April 2, 2006

I found the thread I started on the Apple discussions - it may be useful :here

There was another thread somewhere (from back in May 2005 IIRC) where I was soliciting help with my old Digimate 17" monitor - it was doing more or less exactly what you've described (obviously a bit of a common problem)... unfortunately, I can't find it now - perhaps old discussions get nuked? Not very helpful when you're looking for old information!

HTH!
posted by Chunder at 3:34 AM on April 3, 2006

OK, I gathered up a copy of cscreen and a USB keyboard and plunged back into the fray. Booted the Mini and.....everything was fine. The splash screen said the resolution was set at something like 1366x768 (a setting I'd never tried, so the Mini and the monitor negotiated that by themselves). I felt like a knight who arrives on the battlefield only to find the dragon dead of old age.

I don't know what happened here. Before I left the last time, I attached the Mini to the monitor via one of the VGA connectors so my neighbor could play Halo. That may have caused the monitor to reset the DVI connection. The only other thing I can think of is that the monitor was turned off for several hours overnight vs. the 5 minutes I'd tried during my labors. We decided not to futz with it anymore.

So, no definite solution as to how to fix the problem. Thanks for the suggestions. Now, if you could just recommend an easy way to get my Mini back from my neighbor...
posted by forrest at 10:15 AM on April 3, 2006