Random Black Screens

Just to add another twist...

It kept reporting 1067Mhz when I paired the 8GB OWC DIMM with one of the 2GB Apple DIMM's. No black screens.

I happened to have a 4GB PC3-12800 laying around, so I installed the OWC 8GB DIMM on slot-0 and the 4GB in slot-1.

Both reported at 1600Mhz, and black-screen as soon as I started playing a Flash video.

Soooooooo.....

The 2x 2GB Samsung DIMM's I THOUGHT had originally come out of this Mac Mini, actually didn't. They're PC3-8500.

That's why everything was slowing down to 1067Mhz when I paired them with either of the 8GB OWC DIMM's.

The factory Mini DIMM's are Hynix brand.

I paired a Hynix 4GB PC3-12800 DIMM with each of the OWC 8GB DIMM's. Reported at 1600Mhz and got a consistent black-screen in every combination.

Now I'm back to the original factory 4GB @ 1600Mhz. Working fine.
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No surprise I'm sure, but just for the sake of documenting it....

With the OEM 2GB in Bank 0 and an 8GB OWC in Bank 1, both running at 1600 Mhz -- no black / blank screen issue.
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michael_aos said:

Just to add another twist...

It kept reporting 1067Mhz when I paired the 8GB OWC DIMM with one of the 2GB Apple DIMM's. No black screens.

I happened to have a 4GB PC3-12800 laying around, so I installed the OWC 8GB DIMM on slot-0 and the 4GB in slot-1.

Both reported at 1600Mhz, and black-screen as soon as I started playing a Flash video.

Click to expand...

I am not an expert on the new systems but from my it is my understanding that when the Intel CPU based main board boots up with a pair or pairs of memory sticks it will register the timing and Mhz of the memory installed in first slot (in this case probably slot-0) of the two...OR depending on the board it may read and set itself to the lowest speed of the two.

To maintain memory timing compatibility this would mean that slot-1 should run with the same Mhz and timings as slot-0... OR in the case of some systems... the system will downgrade the speed to the slowest speed and timings it is reading from either slot. I'm not sure about how these Mac Mini boards adjust but I am pretty sure they read the memory slots and adjust one way from slot-0 or the other...setting to the slowest memory installed in either slot.

From your post above it would seem that the memory is posting with the system based on the settings it is getting the memory settings from slot-0 and setting to the speed and timing of the memory installed in that slot which is why the PC-12800 memory would also post as running at 1600Mhz if it is in slot-1. The GPU is probably mapping its required shared memory to the stick installed in slot-0 when both slots are used.

You probably also want to be using a pair of memory sticks that run at the same voltages...either 1.5v or 1.35v. Check the voltages for the stock Apple sticks and the OWC sticks just to see if this is an issue.

If all the memory is working and if it also works in other compatible Intel systems then it has to be either a compatibility issue or there is a chance you could have a defective memory controller that is not allowing the higher speed and timings of the OWC sticks. If you have a late-2012 model Mini with HD4000 graphics then it should be capable of running compatible DDR3 RAM at 1600Mhz.

I need to work through a few more combinations, but I'm feeling better now that the issue is PROBABLY related to this particular RAM itself and not a problem inherent to the Late 2012 Mac Mini.

Hi

I see that some people are still having display issues with their minis despite the firmware fix.

But does it seem to be the case that it has solved the problems for most people?

I am thinking of buying the base model.

spookle said:

Hi

I see that some people are still having display issues with their minis despite the firmware fix.

But does it seem to be the case that it has solved the problems for most people?

I am thinking of buying the base model.

Click to expand...

Yes -- the fix seems to have solved the problem for most people.

I'm pretty sure at this point my issue is related to my 3rd Party RAM.
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Thank you. Hope you get yours sorted out ok.

I no longer get black screens after the update, but the picture still look like ****. Wrong colors, weird whites and blurry text especially when zooming in.

Ive tried the calibration assistant, ive tried changing settings on the screen (I have a 47 inch LED TV)

It still doesnt looks as nice as my old 09 mini with the display port.

Has anyone with similar issues tried getting a displayport=>HDMI adaptor and running the picture through that - did it help?

lamerica80 said:

I no longer get black screens after the update, but the picture still look like ****. Wrong colors, weird whites and blurry text especially when zooming in.

Ive tried the calibration assistant, ive tried changing settings on the screen (I have a 47 inch LED TV)

It still doesnt looks as nice as my old 09 mini with the display port.

Has anyone with similar issues tried getting a displayport=>HDMI adaptor and running the picture through that - did it help?

Click to expand...

Did you use the advanced calibration? My Insignia monitor looked like crap until I used that mode. My other two monitors (AOC and LG) did much better with the basic calibration. Clearly, some monitors are pretty far off the mark from each other.

In any case, the output from both my ports to all monitors tested is identical and pretty much "perfect" looking.

I just got a mac mini 2012 base model one week ago, using it with hdmi and hdtv, and I am having the random blackout problems, once every 1-2 hours, especially right after waking the computer up. I have updated to the latest firmware, but otherwise made no modifications to the system. Do I just have a faulty system, or am I missing something?

I just wanted to mention how much more pleasant this Late 2012 Mac Mini is to use now that the primary display doesn't randomly black-out!

So much better.

Rebooting multiple times per day to clear the issue was really taking all the fun out of it.
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I've been running steady for a week or so with 10GB of RAM.

I just installed the replacement 16GB from OWC -- and the problem is back!

So now I don't know if the problem is something to do with OWC's RAM, or if this Late 2012 Mini just behaves badly with 16GB of RAM (and 2 displays).

I'm running an Apple display @ 2560 x 1440 & an HP display @ 1920 x 1200.
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michael_aos said:

I've been running steady for a week or so with 10GB of RAM.

I just installed the replacement 16GB from OWC -- and the problem is back!

So now I don't know if the problem is something to do with OWC's RAM, or if this Late 2012 Mini just behaves badly with 16GB of RAM (and 2 displays).

I'm running an Apple display @ 2560 x 1440 & an HP display @ 1920 x 1200.
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Click to expand...

It's not the Mini.. it must be the RAM. I have the exact same setup as you, and I'm running 16 GB of Mushkin RAM and it's fine. My first batch of RAM from them was defective, as I was getting nasty crashes (not just black screens) every other day or so. I RMA'd it and the new memory has been great.

Rob

Rob.G said:

It's not the Mini.. it must be the RAM. I have the exact same setup as you, and I'm running 16 GB of Mushkin RAM and it's fine. My first batch of RAM from them was defective, as I was getting nasty crashes (not just black screens) every other day or so. I RMA'd it and the new memory has been great.

Rob

Click to expand...

Is yours the BTO 2.6Ghz Core i7? I was thinking maybe the memory timing is slightly different?

michael_aos said:

Is yours the BTO 2.6Ghz Core i7? I was thinking maybe the memory timing is slightly different?

Click to expand...

Yep, the 2.6 i7.

Rob

This is just to share my experience with people as this may fix your problem! From what I've been reading, this really is starting to seem like a RAM problem. The weirdest part, is it seems that my STOCK ram was what was causing it. Just upgraded to 8GB from the 4GB of stock ram and the problem seems to be gone. Crazy.

EDIT: False alarm, the blackouts just are more spaced out. BTW, im running the most recent build of 10.8.3...

Hmm, people still seem to be reporting hdmi problems. Maybe not as many as before the fix which is good but it doesn't sound great still.

There's this thread here as well:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1535509/

I may go ahead and buy anyway. I've been holding off for ages. The reason I am attracted to the mini is its small size and very quiet running. Am a windows user curently.

Perhaps I will buy a mini display port to dvi cable as well (but a third party one rather than an expensive apple one) just in case. I have an LG ips225v monitor (which is a cheap one depsite being ips). I certainly don't want to replace it my monitor as I am happy with it.

Ongoing issues reported here as well

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4490924?start=285&tstart=0

and on other apple support threads.

So think I might hold off spending £500 on a mini. Which is a shame because if it worked properly I think I'd really like it.

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pnewelljr said:

This is just to share my experience with people as this may fix your problem! From what I've been reading, this really is starting to seem like a RAM problem. The weirdest part, is it seems that my STOCK ram was what was causing it. Just upgraded to 8GB from the 4GB of stock ram and the problem seems to be gone. Crazy.

EDIT: False alarm, the blackouts just are more spaced out. BTW, im running the most recent build of 10.8.3...

Click to expand...

That doesn't sound hopeful! A poster on the Apple support communities thread seemed to think the latest version of 10.8.3 would fix it once and for all!

prnoct90 said:

I just got a mac mini 2012 base model one week ago, using it with hdmi and hdtv, and I am having the random blackout problems, once every 1-2 hours, especially right after waking the computer up. I have updated to the latest firmware, but otherwise made no modifications to the system. Do I just have a faulty system, or am I missing something?

Click to expand...

Back in December, before the firmware update, this is exactly what was happening with my 2012 2.6 Mini with stock memory, plus washout screen using HDMI. I eventually returned it and bought a 2011 2.5/Radeon3360mGPU-- no problems so far with the 2011.

I quit following the Intel threads, but lately I think I heard there was a HW fault with a memory register in the HD4000 GPU. Can anyone confirm?

Just got off the phone with OWC. They're going to RMA their 16GB RAM upgrade kit -- with a 15% restocking fee.

Any suggestions on a good brand / place to order a replacement from?

I'm normally a big fan of OWC RAM. I haven't purchased much for Mac's elsewhere.
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Just received HyperX Plug n Play 16GB (2x8GB) Kit of 2 1600MHz PC3-12800 DDR3 Non-ECC CL9 SODIMM Notebook Memory KHX16S9P1K2/16.

So far, so good. I've run through the tests that have historically caused the black-screen and haven't had any problems yet.

I need to let it run a little longer to be certain, but definitely looking good.

I'm still annoyed that the OWC RAM wasn't compatible and they're charging me a 15% restocking fee.
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I've been TRYING to make this Late 2012 Mac Mini do the "black screen" thing for about an hour. It's just rock solid.

I can't believe everything FINALLY works now that I've replaced the OWC RAM with the HyperX Plug n Play 16GB (2x8GB) Kit of 2 1600MHz PC3-12800 DDR3 Non-ECC CL9 SODIMM Notebook Memory KHX16S9P1K2/16.

I've been fighting with this thing since 11/28/2012!

It really had me missing my 2006 Mac Pro 1,1.

I'm thinking maybe my particular 2.6Ghz Core i7 prefers the CL9 RAM -vs- the CL11 RAM from OWC? I don't really know what the deal is / was, but OWC had sent me a 2nd 16GB RAM kit to try and I had the exact same issue with it.
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It's been 24hrs now. NO ISSUES!!!

After fighting with that bad OWC RAM for so long, it's just cool to have this thing actually work.
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michael_aos said:

It's been 24hrs now. NO ISSUES!!!

After fighting with that bad OWC RAM for so long, it's just cool to have this thing actually work.
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Click to expand...

It's great to hear you are having success with the new memory. Keep us updated so we know if your problem is solved for good. Top quality PC12800 RAM like that HyperX you used might be a solution for some problems with the Intel HD4000 graphics. There is a strong possibility that many of the late-2012 Mac Mini display problems are related to DDR3 memory timing issues. This would explain the random nature of many of these display problems with the late-2012 model Minis.

Almost all of the reported video problems are probably a combination of issues with the Intel HD4000 drivers that need updating, types of monitors used and resolutions they can display, the type and quality of display cables used, and/or timing issues with the shared system memory. I also noticed that those HyperX modules you purchased are 1.5v and have heat sinks/shields covering the sides of the sticks. I wonder if that is helping make a difference.