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Any idea what would cause this graphic issue?

S

Shayne

macrumors member
Original poster
May 23, 2007
30
0
Canada
I got one of the new mac minis, did a jump to 4GB and installed a 320GB 7200rpm drive. Every couple days I will return to my mini after some downtime (a couple hours or whatever) to a screen that looks like this...

IMG_0685.jpg

...now it doesnt do it everyday and it seems to be random as to which monitor gets the brokenness. Rebooting the mini (hold down power button) fixes the issue after it reboots.

Any ideas maybe its just fubar? Over heating (which i doubt because it never does it when im using it heavily)? Graphic driver? Hardware issue?
 
How much RAM are you running? I know the 9400m gt card borrow its vram from the RAM so if its not sufficient enough it can go wacky like that.

Try upgrading your RAM to 2Gb or 4GB and try the dual monitor setup again.
 
My mini didn't have THAT exact problem, but I did turn on my screen one morning to be greeted to a totally black screen with nothing but a mouse pointer. OSX was not responding. I had to unplug the unit to get it to work again.
 
I'm getting something similar with my new Mac Mini, but it looks more like colored noise (fine colored speckles). I thought it was my new Acer monitor, not the Mini. It happens once every week or so, usually just before either I or the system puts the display to sleep. It disappears by itself after a few seconds.
 
Jack i get the same error now every once in a while too (the coloured specs) its a pretty rare occurrence (every 3-5 days or so) but having to shut down the machine power button style bothers me a great deal.

I just confirmed that the monitor that is causing the issue is the one thats plugged into the mini-dvi port. the mini-displayport one has never had the issue.

This mini does have 4GB of memory so its not a vram issue. As for the monitor being "fubar" thats not the case. I managed to get the issue to happen on the other monitor by switching their inputs and waiting for it to happen again (which it did).

Seems to me that its an issue with the mini-dvi port.
 
Shayne said:
Jack i get the same error now every once in a while too (the coloured specs) its a pretty rare occurrence (every 3-5 days or so) but having to shut down the machine power button style bothers me a great deal.

I just confirmed that the monitor that is causing the issue is the one thats plugged into the mini-dvi port. the mini-displayport one has never had the issue.

This mini does have 4GB of memory so its not a vram issue. As for the monitor being "fubar" thats not the case. I managed to get the issue to happen on the other monitor by switching their inputs and waiting for it to happen again (which it did).

Seems to me that its an issue with the mini-dvi port.
Click to expand...

Thanks Shayne for the good info. We apparently have the same occasional graphics glitch. I imagine others must too. It's good that we can eliminate the monitor as the source, based on what you saw in swapping monitors. The only difference, it seems, is my screen glitch disappears after a few seconds on its own. And like you, it's only occasional.

One of the rumored reasons Apple took so long for the new Mini to come out was due to problems with the new Nvidia graphics card. I wonder if they never took it through its full paces before releasing the Mini. It may have to do with how the graphics card handles data through the Mini-DVI port. It sounds like a solution is to connect the monitor through the Mini DisplayPort instead.
 
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