refresh rate is jittery - no option to change it

[TheNorthWaves]

Just got my mac mini... love it... except I'm trying to figure out how to change the refresh rate. It is currently at 60Hz which I can notice as a slight jitter on the screen sometimes. I have a 6 month old Samsung 22" syncmaster 225bw which has worked wonderfully - I have only noticed the jitter now that I have the mac.

I go to the display properties and it registers that i have a syncmaster display, and it works at 1600x1050, the full resolution... however, the only setting for refresh rate is 60hz. Other higher refresh rates are visible in the menu but "ghosted out", in other words I cannot select them.

Anything I can do here? This computer has the GMA950 chipset...

 

[crazzyeddie]

Almost all LCDs run at 60hz. Unlike a CRT, this doesn't cause jitter problems or eye strain for people (usually). Unless you own an LCD that does 120hz there really isn't a way to increase the refresh rate like a CRT because of the difference in how the LCD works.

 

[ale500]

Does it, this jitter, with lights on or off ? Do you have incandescent or fluorescent lights ?

 

[TheNorthWaves]

i turned off fluorescent lights and my laser printer... however it still does this. I had it hooked up via VGA with my previous computer and it worked fine. I am going to try the VGA adapter and see if it is my monitor...

 

[ale500]

In the swing of the PowerMac 9600, long ago, I remember that the monitor used to have "waves" because a Laser printer (from HP, but the model escapes me... some 17 ppm monster) was connected to the same mains, some 3 m away, an Apple 17" monitor.

 

[TheNorthWaves]

so I just plugged in the same monitor using the VGA adapter supplied with the mini, and now the entire screen is extremely red-biased (so much that when i look away, my vision is green). What the hell? I messed with the display profiles, rebooted, messed with my monitor settings... nothing fixes this. My monitor works fine, I use it with another computer and I know it is not the monitor...

 

[psonice]

Bent pin in one of the connectors? If one of the colour pins is damaged, VGA still works but gets colourised.