Mac Mini 2012 HDMI No Signal Issue

bookspinner · Jan 23, 2013

Hi everyone, I am new to the forum as well as new to the mac world. I have purchased my mini last week, so far everything seems okay until I realize that sometimes my Mac Mini does not produce any images on the screen. (Note that the screen shows no signal from the cable).

I am pretty sure everything is going okay with my HDMI cable and my monitor. The issue occurs when I tried to wake my Mac Mini from sleep. In order to get image from the screen, I need to force shut down my Mini, disconnect every cables attached, and reattached it again. And then after some trials it will start to produce image on my monitor. (I am using a 22" Samsung LCD HDTV anyway)

I also have upgraded my Mac Mini to its latest firmware. Does anyone experience this issue? Should I contact apple and demand for a new machine? Thank you in advance!

cd1234567 · Jan 23, 2013

Me too. I have the same problem. I use a dell monitor.

philipma1957 · Jan 23, 2013

well lets say you both did 10.8.2 and the firmware update.
the vast majority of us that did this have had the problems stop.
So
1) you may have a bad cable
2) a bad mini
3) a bad monitor
4) an unknown

Here is a link for a work around cable

http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10246&cs_id=1024603&p_id=9475&seq=1&format=2

http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10246&cs_id=1024603&p_id=9473&seq=1&format=2

buy 2 you get a discount

below is a link for a discount at monoprice

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2295445

I would also consider buying a low cost hdmi cable from them or a dvi to hdmi .

At least if you spend this money a little under 20 bucks or so. you will know that cabling is not the problem.

bookspinner · Jan 23, 2013

cd1234567 said:
Me too. I have the same problem. I use a dell monitor.

May I know how do you deal with your problem? Have you contacted Apple?

philipma1957 said:
well lets say you both did 10.8.2 and the firmware update.
the vast majority of us that did this have had the problems stop.
So
1) you may have a bad cable
2) a bad mini
3) a bad monitor
4) an unknown

Here is a link for a work around cable

http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10246&cs_id=1024603&p_id=9475&seq=1&format=2

http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10246&cs_id=1024603&p_id=9473&seq=1&format=2

buy 2 you get a discount

below is a link for a discount at monoprice

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2295445

I would also consider buying a low cost hdmi cable from them or a dvi to hdmi .

At least if you spend this money a little under 20 bucks or so. you will know that cabling is not the problem.

I have updated the OSX as well as the EFI firmware and still experienced this issue. I might try that cable, but obviously prefer the HDMI since I do not want to waste the HDMI port in the Mac Mini. I have used this cable with my notebook and PS3 and the cable seems to work just fine. Is it possible that my Mac Mini has a problem with the HDMI port?

Anyway, Although I purchased my Mac Mini from the Apple Store, I am a bit curious about the printing in the base of Mac Mini. I bought the 2012 base model and I found that the year of the printing in the base is 2010. I saw a picture of 2012 Mac Mini in another website and it shows that the printed year is in 2012. Anyone can explain this to me?

paulrbeers · Jan 23, 2013

bookspinner said:
Anyway, Although I purchased my Mac Mini from the Apple Store, I am a bit curious about the printing in the base of Mac Mini. I bought the 2012 base model and I found that the year of the printing in the base is 2010. I saw a picture of 2012 Mac Mini in another website and it shows that the printed year is in 2012. Anyone can explain this to me?

Image

Image

I think you are worried about nothing. All mini's since 2010 have had the moniker of A1347. That is when they released the current flat 7" x 7" mini. If you are really concerned about whether you have a 2010 Mini (I'm sure you don't), you can always go to the "About this Mac" under the Apple icon in the upper left hand corner and check what it tells you. FYI: 2010's were Core2Duo based and not the new i5/7's in the 2011 or 2012.

philipma1957 · Jan 23, 2013

I punched the serial number in it reads the machine is a 2012.

bookspinner · Jan 23, 2013

paulrbeers said:
I think you are worried about nothing. All mini's since 2010 have had the moniker of A1347. That is when they released the current flat 7" x 7" mini. If you are really concerned about whether you have a 2010 Mini (I'm sure you don't), you can always go to the "About this Mac" under the Apple icon in the upper left hand corner and check what it tells you. FYI: 2010's were Core2Duo based and not the new i5/7's in the 2011 or 2012.

I am pretty sure that I bought a 2012 edition of Mac Mini. I was just wondering if Apple used some old 2010 components to make a 2012 edition of this machine.

philipma1957 said:
I punched the serial number in it reads the machine is a 2012.

Did you try to insert the serial number in the second picture? It is not my Mini and it was taken from another website which shows the teardown of their machine.

Anyway, I changed the duration from 15 minutes to 1 hour before my Mini goes to sleep whenever I do not use it. The issue apparently appears whenever I wake up my Mini. I will see how it goes first and if it still exists probably I am going to take it to genius bar.

cd1234567 · Jan 24, 2013

bookspinner said:
May I know how do you deal with your problem? Have you contacted Apple?

I just bought it this week. Maybe I should return it for repair.

SoCalReviews · Jan 24, 2013

bookspinner said:
Anyway, Although I purchased my Mac Mini from the Apple Store, I am a bit curious about the printing in the base of Mac Mini. I bought the 2012 base model and I found that the year of the printing in the base is 2010. I saw a picture of 2012 Mac Mini in another website and it shows that the printed year is in 2012. Anyone can explain this to me?

I just looked at the bottom of my mid-2011 model Mac Mini i5 2.3Ghz that I purchased in late spring of 2012 and it also has the same text and 2010 date. It is probably only the general production run stamping for the aluminum shell part. It doesn't mean that they are using old used parts. It's much less expensive for Apple when these identical parts are manufactured in bulk production runs for use in the factories that assemble the new Minis in China. They probably have mass quantities of new shells for the 2011 and 2012 production years on hand. That particular assembly run of late-2012 Minis most likely just happened to use a new stock of 2010-2011 manufactured shells. The internal parts...logic board, HD4000 graphics, CPU, etc.. should be same as any other late-2012 model of Mini. If you are still concerned about it you can call Apple and get a confirmation from them. Hopefully Apple can also help figure out the signal issue you said you are having.

jtara · Jan 25, 2013

Just received my 2012 Mini this morning. It's going to be my software development machine, but for right now I hooked it up to my living room TV for setup, via HDMI.

Did basic setup, updates, and then set it to install XCode, which takes quite some time. It went to sleep or else the video wigged-out.

Cannot wake it from sleep. Is there a secret?

What firmware update? Should it need a firmware update if I received it today? I already did all available updates.

I already had a mini-DP to HDMI adapter, but no display on the mini-DP output either.

Edit: Well, the first problem was that I didn't know how to wake it up from sleep. I called Apple support, and was told I could hit any key on the keyboard or move the mouse. That didn't work. I wound-up waking it up by tapping the power button, as you would on a notebook.

The support guy insisted that any key should work, until I told him I was using a USB keyboard, and he groaned. (What? Only works with Bluetooth?) After some more experiments, found that only the System (OK, "Windows") key will wake it up. Yea, I'm not using an Apple keyboard, so sue me.

I got it woke up, but the the display went bonkers after a bit. Blocks of the UI missing. Sometimes parts would re-paint as I dragged the mouse. Support guy then insists the problem is I had it plugged into my AV receiver and that it wasn't re-negotiating properly because "it's already connected to the TV" (what should that have to do with it?) and I should plug the Mini directly into the TV instead.

I told the rep thank you, but you're not being helpful and hung up. I'd asked him to go through some of the frustrating missing UI features of Mountain Lion vs. Lion and he didn't at all like me diverting him from his script. This is why I don't bother to buy AppleCare.

I've now disabled sleep, and am going to leave it off. It's too hinky to trust.

I've switched to the DP port, using a DP to HDMI adapter. Haven't had a problem since.

The HDMI port is still flawed. Unfortuantely, I need both ports for my work. I need to work with two screens. If it won't work, I'm afraid it will have to go back, and I will build a Hackintosh instead.

Now, what firmware update?

bookspinner · Jan 25, 2013

jtara said:
Just received my 2012 Mini this morning. It's going to be my software development machine, but for right now I hooked it up to my living room TV for setup, via HDMI.

Did basic setup, updates, and then set it to install XCode, which takes quite some time. It went to sleep or else the video wigged-out.

Cannot wake it from sleep. Is there a secret?

What firmware update? Should it need a firmware update if I received it today? I already did all available updates.

I already had a mini-DP to HDMI adapter, but no display on the mini-DP output either.

Edit: Well, the first problem was that I didn't know how to wake it up from sleep. I called Apple support, and was told I could hit any key on the keyboard or move the mouse. That didn't work. I wound-up waking it up by tapping the power button, as you would on a notebook.

The support guy insisted that any key should work, until I told him I was using a USB keyboard, and he groaned. (What? Only works with Bluetooth?) After some more experiments, found that only the System (OK, "Windows") key will wake it up. Yea, I'm not using an Apple keyboard, so sue me.

I got it woke up, but the the display went bonkers after a bit. Blocks of the UI missing. Sometimes parts would re-paint as I dragged the mouse. Support guy then insists the problem is I had it plugged into my AV receiver and that it wasn't re-negotiating properly because "it's already connected to the TV" (what should that have to do with it?) and I should plug the Mini directly into the TV instead.

I told the rep thank you, but you're not being helpful and hung up. I'd asked him to go through some of the frustrating missing UI features of Mountain Lion vs. Lion and he didn't at all like me diverting him from his script. This is why I don't bother to buy AppleCare.

I've now disabled sleep, and am going to leave it off. It's too hinky to trust.

I've switched to the DP port, using a DP to HDMI adapter. Haven't had a problem since.

The HDMI port is still flawed. Unfortuantely, I need both ports for my work. I need to work with two screens. If it won't work, I'm afraid it will have to go back, and I will build a Hackintosh instead.

Now, what firmware update?

i also did all the upgrades available, and now mine is set to 1 hour to sleep from being idle. so far i haven't experience any display related issue for the past three days. maybe you can try to do the same thing and see how it works.

jtara · Jan 26, 2013

bookspinner said:
i also did all the upgrades available, and now mine is set to 1 hour to sleep from being idle. so far i haven't experience any display related issue for the past three days. maybe you can try to do the same thing and see how it works.

I have sleep completely disabled, except for the hard drive.

The problem hasn't recurred, and I've even switched it back to the HDMI port AND switched back to the AV receiver rather than connecting directly to the TV.

I think that the promblem with the improper painting of the screen occured only after it had gone to sleep and woke back up. Since I now have sleep disabled, that condition won't occur.

However, I haven't used it a lot yet. I have it on my living room TV temporarily for set-up and test, and it's a bit of a pain cause I'm using a keyboard with a pointing stick. It's good enough to set it to doing some one-hour download and and setup, etc. I'll move it to my office when I have time next weekend.

On the HDMI port (only) it will quickly sync, then the picture will go black, then it will sync again. The blank-out doesn't occur when using the DP port.

I ran an 8-hour stress test over-night with my 16GB Kingston HyperX LoVo RAM installed, with no errors, and performance in a very tight range, so the CPU never throttled. Happy with that at least.

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Mac Mini 2012 HDMI No Signal Issue

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