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New Mac Mini and the display looks like crap

L

llarson

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 1, 2007
91
0
New Mini
core i5
16 gig ram
AMD Radeon HD 6630M
480 SSD

Two 32" DYNEX HD TV (been using these on old MINI and they have been fantastic)

Connections to New MINI HDMI to HDMI
and the other is Thunderbolt to HDMI

Text is blocky in any resolution i try to set the monitors to and the video looks awful.

Tried all the available settings and they all look bad.

The same monitors looked great on my old MINI using a NVIDIA GeForce 940
VGA Display:
Resolution: 1280 x 768 @ 60 Hz
Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Rotation: Supported
DX-32L221A12:
Resolution: 1360 x 768 @ 60 Hz
Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Rotation: Supported
Television: Yes

Tried to duplicate these resolutions and the text is blocky not smooth and video looks as I said AWFUL.

Any ideas?
 
Hmm ... difficult. On a Mac, you can't update graphic drivers or anything like that to solve the problem, so you probably have to stick with the usual options: resetting the PRAM, trying the "optimal resolution" setting in ML as well as different resolutions and unplugging one of the displays to see if it's a port related problem.

If nothing works, I guess it's a TV setting problem. Did the text look okay on your old Mini? I suspect yes, although the resolution isn't great. If so, try activating anti aliasing or something like that in your TVs settings - this could have changed since you're probably using another HDMI port now.
 
I have a 37" Visio I plan on hooking my '09 MacMini to in the room.... after I get a new (or current) MacMini. I'll comment on it when I do it.
 
I don't understand. Your TV seems to be 1080p. Have you set that resolution on your mini?
Then you compare with how your old mini used to look, but with VGA monitors and so on that are not 1080p.
How does your old mini look on your TV?

Perhaps what you're referring as "awful" is just a very stretched out 1080p resolution (on your TV). That's not going to be great for computer use, it's supposed to be for watching videos.
You're better off installing Xcode, and enabling hiDPI mode, then you can get 540p resolution, and the UI will look better.
 
Going to hook it up to a standard VGA monitor

And see what I get.

I have tried all the possible resolution settings on the Mini with no success.

Text is not smooth and looks pixelated.

I am suspecting it might be a bad HDMI port as video looks crappy as well.

The TV offers few setting adjustments for the HDMI but more if I connect as a VGA.

I'll try connecting both as VGA and see if that helps.

Thanks
 
llarson said:
And see what I get.

I have tried all the possible resolution settings on the Mini with no success.

Text is not smooth and looks pixelated.

I am suspecting it might be a bad HDMI port as video looks crappy as well.

The TV offers few setting adjustments for the HDMI but more if I connect as a VGA.

I'll try connecting both as VGA and see if that helps.

Thanks
Click to expand...

If nothing helps, it sounds like a bad video card. Can you connect the Mini to a other display to check that?
 
llarson said:
New Mini
core i5
16 gig ram
AMD Radeon HD 6630M
480 SSD

Two 32" DYNEX HD TV (been using these on old MINI and they have been fantastic)

Connections to New MINI HDMI to HDMI
and the other is Thunderbolt to HDMI

Text is blocky in any resolution i try to set the monitors to and the video looks awful.

Tried all the available settings and they all look bad.

The same monitors looked great on my old MINI using a NVIDIA GeForce 940
VGA Display:
Resolution: 1280 x 768 @ 60 Hz
Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Rotation: Supported
DX-32L221A12:
Resolution: 1360 x 768 @ 60 Hz
Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Rotation: Supported
Television: Yes

Tried to duplicate these resolutions and the text is blocky not smooth and video looks as I said AWFUL.

Any ideas?
Click to expand...


so you spent all the money in the world on SSD and RAM but you are not willing to spend a bit more to get the Apple Thunderbolt display? i don't understand ppl like you who ruin their mac set up with awful brand Displays....

pff...
 
OP - Llarson

I experienced the EXACT same issue with my old RCA TV - Please see this thread I started

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1390976/

There are also other threads around the intrawebs that point to an HDMI incompatibility with some new and older TV's

The older RCA TV I had worked flawlessly with my old mac mini with the nVidia card - as mentioned in my posting. Once I hooked up the new mac mini, with intel 3000 GMA, text was crap, purple and shifted over.

I went through the gauntlet of trying my other HDMI ports and other cables to get the new mac mini to work properly. Sad reality, but for the better, I ended up buying a new TV and it works fine.

I had to take the damn new i5 mac mini to a couple of stores to test. Sharp and samsung didn't fare well with the new i5. LG and Panasonic were the winners for my budget. I ended up with an LG, but soon returned it for the new Panasonic E5 42" LED IPS screen.

But summing up with your older Dynex screens, just like my old RCA 42" LCD - it was an incompatibility between the new I5 mac mini with the Intel 3000 ( I did try the ATI I5 mac mini, same issue) and the HDMI of the TV. Sucks.... TV was good, was really happy with it. But after selling it and selling my old mac mini, I had enough to by the new TV.

Not the solution for everyone....

Oh as for animatedude - Its OP prerogative one what he wants to spend his money on. I am sure we could chastise you for dumb things we feel you've done so p!ss off.
 
Have you tried adjusting the font smoothing? I had problems with Lion and previous versions but there is a command you can run in terminal that will set the font smoothing. Do a search in the forums and you will find it.
 
llarson said:
Text is blocky in any resolution i try to set the monitors to and the video looks awful.
Click to expand...

Hmm - this sounds similar to the problem I have with my HP LP2475w monitor when trying to use a DisplayPort cable:

Problem only appears with 2011 or later Mac - Check.
Apparently using the correct resolution but looks awful - Check.
Blocky text (looks like the text smoothing has gone wrong) - Check.

It's some sort of color-mapping problem caused by the computer mis-detecting the monitor type. Its specific to particular models of monitors (e.g. even other HPs work fine with my set up). No idea whether its the Mac or the display doing it wrong, but don't hold your breath for a fix.

In my case, the work-around was to use a MiniDisplayPort to DVI adapter and a DVI cable rather than try and use DisplayPort. Fine for me, since the monitor also had 2 DVI-ins, but not so sensible for your TVs!

You could try:

Thunderbolt --> MDP-to-DVi dongle --> DVI-to-HDMI cable (passive) --> TV

If you can find or borrow the bits, its worth a try, but don't go buying expensive cables and dongles!

The other long shot - my Samsung TV has several HDMI inputs, but only one of them is designated as "DVI compatible" - if your TV is similar, you could try plugging your existing HDMI cable into that. However, I suspect that the only difference on my TV is that the DVI input is paired with a mini-jack audio input (since DVI doesn't carry sound).
 
animatedude said:
so you spent all the money in the world on SSD and RAM but you are not willing to spend a bit more to get the Apple Thunderbolt display? i don't understand ppl like you who ruin their mac set up with awful brand Displays....

pff...
Click to expand...

My Mac Mini with the extra ram and larger SSD and an i7 was $1,400 which i was told was a good deal.

I had the displays for my old Mac Mini so why would I pop for Thunderbolt displays?

----------
pismobrat said:
OP - Llarson

I experienced the EXACT same issue with my old RCA TV - Please see this thread I started

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1390976/

There are also other threads around the intrawebs that point to an HDMI incompatibility with some new and older TV's

The older RCA TV I had worked flawlessly with my old mac mini with the nVidia card - as mentioned in my posting. Once I hooked up the new mac mini, with intel 3000 GMA, text was crap, purple and shifted over.

I went through the gauntlet of trying my other HDMI ports and other cables to get the new mac mini to work properly. Sad reality, but for the better, I ended up buying a new TV and it works fine.

I had to take the damn new i5 mac mini to a couple of stores to test. Sharp and samsung didn't fare well with the new i5. LG and Panasonic were the winners for my budget. I ended up with an LG, but soon returned it for the new Panasonic E5 42" LED IPS screen.

But summing up with your older Dynex screens, just like my old RCA 42" LCD - it was an incompatibility between the new I5 mac mini with the Intel 3000 ( I did try the ATI I5 mac mini, same issue) and the HDMI of the TV. Sucks.... TV was good, was really happy with it. But after selling it and selling my old mac mini, I had enough to by the new TV.

Not the solution for everyone....

Oh as for animatedude - Its OP prerogative one what he wants to spend his money on. I am sure we could chastise you for dumb things we feel you've done so p!ss off.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the input!
 
bf2008 said:
I don't understand. Your TV seems to be 1080p. Have you set that resolution on your mini?
Then you compare with how your old mini used to look, but with VGA monitors and so on that are not 1080p.
How does your old mini look on your TV?
Click to expand...

OP stated his TV resolution is 1360 x 768 which is considered a 720, not 1080p.
 
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