With only minor hiccups and idiosyncrasies, my ~$2500 M1 MBP has been a wonderful powerhouse to use - until last Sunday. As I'm the computer nerd of the family, I had the job of putting together a slideshow to run continuously at my mom's 80th birthday party. This was a pretty big to-do (about 100 people) so we got a room at a reception hall near her house, which featured a ceiling mounted projector and giant screen.
I called the reception hall and asked about the tech; they assured me their system can accommodate any standard video output, including HDMI. "Perfect!" I thought, as my MBP has an HDMI port. I've had no problems sending a signal to a new big screen TV, a 10+ year old TV, and computer monitors that had HDMI ports, so I happily checked that off my list.
I curated, edited, and assembled a boatload of pictures featuring her, and put together one of my signature "pro level"
slideshows to run in Photos. Just for the heck of it, I copied all the photo files to a flash drive; I don't even know why I decided to do that. Maybe in case Photos mysteriously borked on the day of the party - I don't know. Anyway, we got to the hall in plenty of time to set up. The manager pointed me to the cables running to the projector. Coming out of the wall was an ethernet cable, which ran into a powered converter box that accepted VGA, with a splitter for I think DVI and something else; I didn't see what. But running from the VGA port was a VGA to HDMI cable. Ok, looks a little sketchy but obviously it works, and the manager had no concerns as it "works every time I'm here."
First odd thing I noticed when I plugged in via HDMI was that when I clicked the "Displays" button in "System Preferences," it recognized the projector (I forget what it called it) but the second display icon was hidden behind the main display in that Preferences window, and I couldn't move it out. I couldn't change any of the settings that would help either. The second odd thing was: no output from the projector. Well, it was a blue screen, but it wasn't mirroring the laptop. I wasn't too worried, as I figured there would be some minor hiccup ("It just works! Eventually.") and I would need to tweak settings to get it right. Now I've done this plenty of times with older Macs and I can handle it. Well after at least 30 min of fiddling around in preferences and with the projector settings, I started to sweat; I wasn't handling it. This was my big contribution to the party and there is no way it's not going to work. I got the manager involved, and he got his "tech guy" involved and no one could get this running. I had a bunch of oddball cables and connectors with me, so I swapped out what I could, all to no avail. Ok, now it's getting close to go-time, and I've got no idea what to do. Early arrivers are starting to show up. This is a surprise party, so my parents will be the last to arrive, but I have precious little time. In a desperation move, I jump in the car and race up to the local Best Buy, thankfully only a few miles away, and buy:
- $26 USB C to ethernet converter
- $80 USB C 8-in-1 hub, with HDMI and ethernet
- $110 USB C to every-port-known-to-man-plus-a-couple-new-ones hub with VGA, HDMI, and ethernet
- $329 Lenovo Flex 3I 15 Chromebook (on sale; I see it's $429 now.)
No, I'm not f***ing around. This slideshow is going to happen, come hell or high water.
While this is all going on, I'm also calling everyone I can to see who has a PC laptop or Chromebook that they can bring. Thanks in no small part to me, most of my family and even some friends have converted to Apple, so no PCs available.
Hey good job, me. And you're welcome, Tim.
So I have to make something work here. Assuming the problem was in the conversion somewhere, I minimized the connections and tried the ethernet to USB C converter. Didn't work. I then tried the 8-in-1 converter. Also didn't work, in any capacity. Ok, now I opened up the big "triple display" hub and tried VGA, ethernet, HDMI. Aaaaaaaand...... nada. None of this stuff helped. My last - expensive - option was to open up the Chromebook which I would likely never need again. But, this is my mother's 80th bday, for God's sake. We're going to have a slideshow going back to 1943, no matter what. In the midst of all my attempts, my sister - who had my mom convinced they were going out for a quiet brunch together - calls and says she found this old, chintzy, maybe 12" HP laptop at my parents' house, but it had been unused in no one knows how long, and it wasn't charged.
"Bring it anyway."
I held off opening the Lenovo. So immediately after the big "SURPRISE!" as they all walked in, my sister handed off the "computer." She wasn't kidding about chintzy. It was built like a toy you'd get in a Happy Meal: All plastic, ugly, and flimsy. But desperate times call for desperate measures. I plugged it in to the wall, hit the power button... and prayed. The ultra lo-res screen lit up. In my adrenaline-fueled panic, I didn't notice what the OS was, but it seemed to be something after Win95. I didn't care. All I knew is that it had a VGA port. I swapped the VGA to HDMI cable for a VGA to VGA, plugged it in and closed my eyes.
"It works! It works!" I heard my cousin say as the comically primitive giant icons appeared on the ~20 ft. screen. I then stuck the USB A / USB C thumb drive into the lil HP's USB 2.0 port and watched the icon pop up. Of course unlike apple, Win media player or whatever has a slideshow function built in, so I just clicked "Play" and made my way to the bar, never looking at the screen again, but listening to the laughs, comments, and other sounds of delight as the crowd enjoyed the pictures. Of course, I basked in all that for about 3 minutes, until my dad whispered to me that he had suddenly caught a case of laryngitis, and that I would have to say a prayer, make a speech, and give the toast. All off the cuff, of course. Hey, what's a little more panic-induced stress among family?
Lucky for me, I never actually opened the Lenovo, so that was easy to return. (Although to be honest, I was kind of looking forward to having a new piece of tech around the house to play with. I couldn't return it in good conscience if I had actually used it successfully.) The other opened items needed some explanation, but the good people of BB did agree to refund everything.
So, cheers to you, crappy little HP. You saved the day.
And Tim? I'm so glad I could help contribute to your bonuses. Also, you and your precious, elegant MBP can **** right off.
RANT OVER.
