2014 Mac mini (Monterey) – HDMI Display Cuts Off Menu Bar, Resolution Issues Persist

[Jerry®]

Hi all,

I’m having a persistent issue with my 2014 Mac mini running macOS Monterey where my connected 23" HDMI monitor won’t display the screen correctly — the top menu bar is cut off, and I can’t seem to fix it through macOS’s usual tools.

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🧩 The Problem:​

• macOS doesn’t seem to be detecting the monitor correctly.
• No matter what I try, the menu bar is offscreen, and the image is scaled or cropped weirdly.
• It seems like it might be defaulting to a non-native or unsupported resolution (possibly 1600x900 or 30Hz output).

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🛠 What I’ve Tried So Far:​

1. System Preferences > Displays
   • Tried “Default for display” and various “Scaled” options
   • Held Option + Clicked Scaled — no additional resolutions showed
   • No Overscan/Underscan slider appeared
2. Safe Mode and Resets
   • Booted into Safe Mode
   • Reset NVRAM
   • Reset display settings manually:
     bash
     CopyEdit
     sudo rm /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist
3. Used SwitchResX (regrettably)
   • Tried forcing a different resolution with SwitchResX
   • That bricked my display entirely — black screen with “HDMI OUT OF RANGE 30Hz”
   • Even Safe Mode wouldn’t load properly afterward
   • Had to erase the entire internal SSD and reinstall macOS Monterey from scratch using a bootable USB
4. Fresh Monterey Install
   • Clean install via USB stick
   • Erased the disk at the device level using Disk Utility > Show All Devices
   • System works fine now — but display issue still persists

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⚙️ Where I’m At Now:​

• I’m installing Homebrew and plan to use displayplacer to force the correct resolution via Terminal, since nothing else is working.
• Haven’t run the displayplacer command yet — just getting set up.

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📌 What I Suspect:​

• The Mac mini isn’t reading the monitor’s EDID correctly (which I don't really understand that's what chatGPT thinks is happening) over HDMI
• macOS Monterey is being conservative and not surfacing all resolutions..?
• HDMI output defaults to a bad mode (like 30Hz or underscanned)...?
• DisplayPort isn’t an option — this monitor only supports HDMI

P.S. I'm using this as a server for my m2 mini

sorry for the phone pic but it's the only way to show you how cutoff the top menubar and some of the dock are:

 

[PaulD-UK]

This is called 'Overscan' on TVs.
Some monitors have it as well as a legacy feature, where it's controlled by an OSD setting, and is completely independent and unaffected by any computer setting.

Does you monitor have this set to 'Overscan ON'?

 

[Jerry®]

This is called 'Overscan' on TVs.
Some monitors have it as well as a legacy feature, where it's controlled by an OSD setting, and is completely independent and unaffected by any computer setting.

Does you monitor have this set to 'Overscan ON'?

OMG HALLELUJAH!!! Thank you! I dont know why I didnt check this first - would have saved me hours of troubleshooting!! (Im still learning) Thank you it worked!!!!