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OldSchoolMacGuy

Suspended
Jul 10, 2008
4,197
9,050
please don't attack lacie or any other external drive company without offering a viable inexpensive alternative.

here is the bottom line you are in an industry that only sees failures.

what you don't see are winners.

I can write a 5000 word response to you and others on this site about backups and the like.


I won't but here is what I will say

" think of all externals and internals as A) cassettes or B) video tapes.

They tangle and they break" .

Multiple backups are needed.

The reality is most of us want to chisel and not pay for proper backup. If we did you would have almost no business at all.

proper backup ;


1) tm = 1 big drive and clone it = 2 big drives

2) a cloud solution = for off site think Sandy or an earthquake

3) clone your drive every night = 7 drives or at least 3 and rotate them.


that is a lot of money some would argue that the above is not good enough. Some would say use 2 cloud solutions 1 is not good enough.

so many make a choice to not spend this much.

they come up with lower cost options which is why you are in business.

That's fine. Ignore my warning and continue on. It'll keep the industry in business. I was only trying to save you the nightmare of data loss. The Yugo is a great economical car.
 

jack92029

macrumors member
Oct 23, 2012
30
0
Me Two

I have the i7 2.3 Ghz mac mini which is a big upgrade from my late 2009 iMac.

I have used both a Samsung HDTV (HDMI-HDMI) and a Dell U2412M DVI-HDMI) and experienced a temporary black screen for perhaps 10-15 seconds shortly after turning on the system. I'm sure apple will eventually this issue.

After the initial black screen everything resumes normally and I have not experienced the black screen after the system warms up (been used for a while)

I feel that this is a minor issue.

The combo of the Dell monitor, and the 2.3 Ghz Mini are such a hugh improvement (imho) that having a black screen when I first startup is something I can easily deal with. :D
 

lamerica80

macrumors 6502a
May 22, 2008
679
506
As someone that works in the data recovery industry, LaCie sees the highest failure rate on the market by a large margin (previously Maxtor was up there although they have gotten better in the past several years). Their proprietary firmware is the major cause of these issues. They help keep Kroll, Drive Savers, and others in business.

So what would you recommend then?
 

OldSchoolMacGuy

Suspended
Jul 10, 2008
4,197
9,050
So what would you recommend then?

Seagate, Western Digital. Any of the big names. Samsung too. Since moving away from FireWire, chipset isn't such a big deal (with FW you want to look for a case with Oxford 911 or 912). Most any USB 3.0 case will work fine.

Sadly for Thunderbolt, there aren't many options at this point. The technology hasn't really taken off. We'll have to see if it ever does.
 

costabunny

macrumors 68020
May 15, 2008
2,466
71
Weymouth, UK
I have reported the issue on mine to apple support.

As its a server they put me through to Enterprise support who apparently had not heard of the issue.

They have taken details and given me a couple of apps to run tests and scrape the logs for the relevant bits.

I will dig out the hdmi cables and run these over the weekend and submit a full report for the engineers to go over.

I hope others follow suit and do the same as the more people actually reporting it to Apple; the more information they will have in order to provide a solution.

Would be interesting if there a windows guru about who can get logs from a mini running windows doing the same thing.
 

calvol

macrumors 6502a
Feb 3, 2011
995
4
I have reported the issue on mine to apple support.
As its a server they put me through to Enterprise support who apparently had not heard of the issue.

Good work Costa, glad you reported to Enterprise support, but disheartening to hear Apple hasn't heard of the issue yet! (Or so said by this group). That means it got through the Q&A without a PR, or they decided to ship with the issue. Really bad, because it's been out there since June on Intel forums.
http://communities.intel.com/thread/30096?start=0&tstart=0
 

OldSchoolMacGuy

Suspended
Jul 10, 2008
4,197
9,050
While many of us are told that Apple hasn't heard of the issue, remember that many times this is something support people are told to say. They don't want to give the end-user the idea that this is a big problem and have people go telling all of their friends that there is a bigger problem out there. This is something that is done by all support programs, not just Apple.

It may be true that some of the support staff may not know of the issue. Still, these tickets go into a large support database where common issues build and higher support staff see these. The more people that call in to report this issue, the more it appears to them that it is a widespread issue rather than just a couple people out of millions that are having a problem.
 

sno1man

macrumors regular
Oct 24, 2011
230
6
While many of us are told that Apple hasn't heard of the issue, remember that many times this is something support people are told to say. They don't want to give the end-user the idea that this is a big problem and have people go telling all of their friends that there is a bigger problem out there. This is something that is done by all support programs, not just Apple.

.

Quoted For Truth! I used to do some support for a PC company who shall remain nameless, but a lot of "dudes" bought them.

The only time we were allowed to acknowledge a problem was when the company already had a release solution for it, I.E. here is the link to the KB article and the downloadable patch.
 

OldSchoolMacGuy

Suspended
Jul 10, 2008
4,197
9,050
Quoted For Truth! I used to do some support for a PC company who shall remain nameless, but a lot of "dudes" bought them.

The only time we were allowed to acknowledge a problem was when the company already had a release solution for it, I.E. here is the link to the KB article and the downloadable patch.

Exactly. Telling the customer that you're aware of the issue but don't have a solution makes you look incompetent. So you make them feel like it's the first case you've heard of it and work to solve things until a real fix can be had.
 

Armeniandave

macrumors 6502
Jun 12, 2010
293
79
San Diego
I was just contacted by an engineer at Apple about my Mac Mini and the black/snowy screen issue. They are sending me a new HDMI adapter to see if that will solve the problem however he said if that does not work they want to give me a new machine and run tests on my old one to try and find the problem.

So far Apple support has been pretty good about following through and trying to solve this problem with me. Hopefully they capture enough Mini's to find out whats going on.
 

calvol

macrumors 6502a
Feb 3, 2011
995
4
Exactly. Telling the customer that you're aware of the issue but don't have a solution makes you look incompetent.

Not having a solution for an issue known for five months and shipping product with that issue makes you look incompetent too (Intel, but Apple had to know about it too from internal testing).
 

propower

macrumors 6502a
Jul 23, 2010
731
126
FWIW...

MacMini 2012, 2.6, apple 256SSD, 16G ram,

Apple thunderbolt display and two monitors on HDMI with HDMI amplified splitter (monoprice $40 model) - HP2311, Samsung 2443BWX... no intermittent black screens anywhere.

FWIW-2... suffered for 6 months with weird screen anomalies on 2011MBP and 24" Apple LED Display. Finally a firmware fix to the display + new driver solved this (1 second blackouts at random intervals -- now that I think of it... sounds familiar!)... there was a like 50 page complaint thread though :-(
 

sean barry

macrumors regular
Oct 3, 2012
152
9
Belding, MI
I talked to an Apple Rep today. As always they are prompt and very helpful.
He didn't know about HDMI issues (or did he and couldn't mention it?)
I am using a 60 hz 32" TV HDMI to HDMI. The 60 HZ refresh is a problem, cheap HDMI cable is a problem (yes I did buy the cheapest HDMI cable on Amazon), no known problem with the Mini.
So I asked him what would be a good HDMI cable and he couldn't tell me, not because he didn't know....Company policy... So I asked, Theoretically........What he would use on his own rig. He mumbled something about Monsters under his bed? 4' Monster $35 marked down from $60 vs the $6 cheapy I have? Then again, if you are connecting a $1000 Mini to a $400 or more mon, maybe $35 isn't too much. Weakest link in the chain deal. $.02
 

Snowcake

macrumors regular
May 18, 2010
187
0
I talked to an Apple Rep today. As always they are prompt and very helpful.
He didn't know about HDMI issues (or did he and couldn't mention it?)
I am using a 60 hz 32" TV HDMI to HDMI. The 60 HZ refresh is a problem, cheap HDMI cable is a problem (yes I did buy the cheapest HDMI cable on Amazon), no known problem with the Mini.
So I asked him what would be a good HDMI cable and he couldn't tell me, not because he didn't know....Company policy... So I asked, Theoretically........What he would use on his own rig. He mumbled something about Monsters under his bed? 4' Monster $35 marked down from $60 vs the $6 cheapy I have? Then again, if you are connecting a $1000 Mini to a $400 or more mon, maybe $35 isn't too much. Weakest link in the chain deal. $.02


********,

A more expensive ANALOG vga cable can make a difference since it is analog.
But the price doesn't matter with a digital cable like hdmi or dvi, since all they do is transfer one's an zero's digitally.

It works or it not works. Explanation in the links below:

http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/home-entertainment/1292371/expensive-hdmi-cables-make-no-difference-the-absolute-proof/3

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20056502-1/why-all-hdmi-cables-are-the-same/

Summary: A cheap hdmi/dvi cable has the same quality as a $10.000 one. It is marketing ********.
 
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sean barry

macrumors regular
Oct 3, 2012
152
9
Belding, MI
Eloquently put Sir SnowCake. One of my housemates stated the same thing.
So, this leaves me with the 60 HZ TV/monitor issue?
Buy the way, I did live and work a long life of live analog sound reinforcement and cabling was a major concern. I like the "digital works or doesn't" concept. Not so in analog world, a plethora of bad and sometimes weird things can happen there.
 

ofmyeye

macrumors newbie
Nov 7, 2012
10
0
Exactly. Telling the customer that you're aware of the issue but don't have a solution makes you look incompetent. So you make them feel like it's the first case you've heard of it and work to solve things until a real fix can be had.

Integrity. That's what I like in a tech support agent and Corporation as a whole. Just tell us what we want to hear and feign ignorance? Sounds like we've all been had pretty bad.
I'm glad I returned my 2.3/256ssd tonight. Full refund, no fuss, no muss. No more worries about being lied to by scripted techs that are slaves to their corporate overlords.
 

dasx

macrumors 65816
Jun 18, 2012
1,107
18
Barcelona
********,

A more expensive ANALOG vga cable can make a difference since it is analog.
But the price doesn't matter with a digital cable like hdmi or dvi, since all they do is transfer one's an zero's digitally.

It works or it not works. Explanation in the links below:

http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/home-entertainment/1292371/expensive-hdmi-cables-make-no-difference-the-absolute-proof/3

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20056502-1/why-all-hdmi-cables-are-the-same/

Summary: A cheap hdmi/dvi cable has the same quality as a $10.000 one. It is marketing ********.

Well… I think something matters. Not as much as with analog, but a good isolation might help. I can recall one HDMI cable not being able to throughput good video due to a lot of interferences coming from power supply cables. (This all was inside the wall). Bought a better (and pretty more expensive) one and worked like a charm.

I agree though, on most cases the HDMI cable shouldn't matter much.
 
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philipma1957

macrumors 603
Apr 13, 2010
6,362
248
Howell, New Jersey
********,

A more expensive ANALOG vga cable can make a difference since it is analog.
But the price doesn't matter with a digital cable like hdmi or dvi, since all they do is transfer one's an zero's digitally.

It works or it not works. Explanation in the links below:

http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/home-entertainment/1292371/expensive-hdmi-cables-make-no-difference-the-absolute-proof/3

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20056502-1/why-all-hdmi-cables-are-the-same/

Summary: A cheap hdmi/dvi cable has the same quality as a $10.000 one. It is marketing ********.


I agree in principle.

I will alter just a bit to;

a properly built hdmi cable will work perfectly a badly built hdmi cable will work badly.

A properly built Hmdi cable can be found for under 10 usd. I have a house full of them.




Well… I think something matters. Not as much as with analog, but a good isolation might help. I can recall one HDMI cable not being able to throughput good video due to a lot of interferences coming from power supply cables. (This all was inside the wall). Bought a better (and pretty more expensive) one and worked like a charm.

I agree though, on most cases the HDMI cable shouldn't matter much.


Proper shielding and grounding can be found under 10 usd ,but so can bad shielding and grounding.

On the other hand I have seen 100 USD cables be built wrong and a screen of tears or snow or green or nothing.

The worst problem with hi end cables they can be very heavy and damage the socket they are plugged into.
 
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ciccilleju

macrumors newbie
Oct 30, 2012
7
0
I was the happiest Mac mini 2011 user in the world. Now that i swapped it with a 2012 one my life became an hell! My mini has the HDMI issue that others have reported here. I use 2 Samsung 24" lcds, one connected to thunderbolt and one to the hdmi port: i got the blank screen/snow issue ONLY when the HDMI port is used. This happens with HDMI->DVI adapter and also with pure HDMI cabling.
With the same screen, mini conneceted to the Thunderbolt port, this doesn't happen.

I got those annoying random black screens and 2-3 times every day the snowing black/grey/white screen.

REALLY ANNOYING.

I hope they will fix this soon.
 

Jig3n

macrumors member
Oct 24, 2012
33
0
I got a call from apple the CPU Senior Advisor a minute ago to follow up with me.

He's had his engineers working on the problem since last weekend I guess.

I told him I ended up replacing the mac mini for a new one and that I'm still getting the intermittent screen issues with the HDMI port.

(They also know I bought a TB to DVI adapter a while back and it has never had any issues on either machine)

They've been able to reproduce the same problem we're experiencing.

So far a dozen or so logs that they've reviewed point to a conflict with VLC player.

I'm not sure though b/c it's happened to me without vlc even installed.

So they're still working on it. He sent me a data capture app last weekend that produces a file with logs that I'll continue to send.
 

bluewooster

macrumors member
Jul 18, 2007
88
27
It's encouraging that others have the issue and Apple seems to be aware of it. I guess one concern I have at this point is what if it's not correctable? I imagine if a firmware/driver update couldn't resolve this, it would be a recall situation? Either way, we would never be "stuck" with a computer and a nonfunctioning HDMI port, would we?

(My underlying question is should I return this thing pronto or hang on with the faith that it will be resolved somehow - I suppose no one really knows the answer to that)
 
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