Nope but it's a similar issue if you're using a HDMI to DVI adapter. White snow is literally white snow and nothing else on the screen. Static. Let applecare know!
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Random Black Screens
- Thread starter harvester32
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Nope but it's a similar issue if you're using a HDMI to DVI adapter. White snow is literally white snow and nothing else on the screen. Static. Let applecare know!
Yep. As long the "loading" bar moves, it is b/w and then the color comes back to announce the mini is running again.
I am getting this too and my HDMI to HDMI is still not resolved (after firmware update) although I am using mDP to HDMI
Update:
I'm now using an external powered USB hub with the Mini Display Port to Duel Link DVI connector on my Dell 27 Ultra Sharp.
1. I have not seen white snow from monitor sleep.
2. Only had one blank screen from boot. Unplugged the USB from the powered Hub from the adaptor and back in after 1 second - display comes up.
Seems to indicate some kind of power issue with the adaptor and the 'timing' of when the image is meant to be displayed.
I'm now using an external powered USB hub with the Mini Display Port to Duel Link DVI connector on my Dell 27 Ultra Sharp.
1. I have not seen white snow from monitor sleep.
2. Only had one blank screen from boot. Unplugged the USB from the powered Hub from the adaptor and back in after 1 second - display comes up.
Seems to indicate some kind of power issue with the adaptor and the 'timing' of when the image is meant to be displayed.
I have not seen the blank screen thing so far after the firmware update, but today I got a snow screen upon waking from sleep for the first time since the update and unlike previous times I briefly saw snow for a second or two, this one persisted for more like 10 seconds and then suddenly the display came back on. 
I never had any color or edge/dither issues. The picture looks perfect through HDMI-TO-DVI. The problems were simply random blank screens (maybe 0-4 times a day) and the occasional snow on waking from sleep for a second or two. It seems they still have more to fix....
I never had any color or edge/dither issues. The picture looks perfect through HDMI-TO-DVI. The problems were simply random blank screens (maybe 0-4 times a day) and the occasional snow on waking from sleep for a second or two. It seems they still have more to fix....
I've read that the snow thing is HDCP handshaking and has shown up on any number of Macs since HDCP was introduced. In other words, it's not specifically related to the Intel 4000 GPU or the new Mac Mini or even the firmware update, but given its appearance in general in OSX (even on AppleTV Gen2 and 3; I've never seen it happen on Gen1, though), it could be a general OSX system or driver issue.
I'll take the fact I'm not getting the black screen anymore (thus far at least), that the actual HD4000 issue was successfully addressed (at least on my Mac Mini). I set my power saver settings to no longer put my monitor to sleep (I always shut it off by hand when I leave the room anyway since it's just a button push) and so it never has to renegotiate handshaking and should never show snow again as long as I leave that setting that way.
I'll take the fact I'm not getting the black screen anymore (thus far at least), that the actual HD4000 issue was successfully addressed (at least on my Mac Mini). I set my power saver settings to no longer put my monitor to sleep (I always shut it off by hand when I leave the room anyway since it's just a button push) and so it never has to renegotiate handshaking and should never show snow again as long as I leave that setting that way.
Is anybody still affected by the problem? I haven't had ANY black screen or snowy screen issues since the update. I've also since determined my crashing problem was related to bad aftermarket memory. So mine is doing well now except for sometimes not coming out of sleep mode, which I think is a software problem rather than a hardware problem.
Rob
I'm still seeing the issue where my Thunderbolt display will just go black. It seems to happen about once a day.
Occasionally I've been able to just pull the Thunderbolt cable and insert it again and everything will be fine. Probably half the time, this act causes OS X to hang.
Otherwise I wind up having to reboot in order to fix the problem.
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Occasionally I've been able to just pull the Thunderbolt cable and insert it again and everything will be fine. Probably half the time, this act causes OS X to hang.
Otherwise I wind up having to reboot in order to fix the problem.
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It's almost like the Display is going to sleep / screen-saver.
There have been a couple times where I'm moving the mouse and the Thunderbolt Display will go black and then light back up almost instantly as the mouse movement is detected.
I've tried to "catch" it by hitting a key or moving the mouse when the screen goes black, but I haven't been able successful with that.
FYI, I have my Computer sleep set to Never, and Display sleep set to 1hr. Screen saver set to 20 minutes.
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There have been a couple times where I'm moving the mouse and the Thunderbolt Display will go black and then light back up almost instantly as the mouse movement is detected.
I've tried to "catch" it by hitting a key or moving the mouse when the screen goes black, but I haven't been able successful with that.
FYI, I have my Computer sleep set to Never, and Display sleep set to 1hr. Screen saver set to 20 minutes.
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I was starting to think maybe it had something to do with activity on the Thunderbolt buss, but Displayport is supposed to have it's own channel and be unaffected. It does seem like the Thunderbolt display will black-out more often when there is activity disk activity with the Seagate Backup Plus thunderbolt desktop drive.
I also have the NIC in the Thunderbolt display bonded (LACP) with the built-in NIC on the mini. I disconnected it to see if it made any difference. Still get the black screen.
I've finally noticed that I will CONSISTENTLY get a black screen in a short amount of time if I display a video in full-screen on the Thunderbolt Display. It doesn't seem to happen at all if I display the same video in full-screen on the HP Compaq LA2405wg via HDMI <-> DVI.
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I also have the NIC in the Thunderbolt display bonded (LACP) with the built-in NIC on the mini. I disconnected it to see if it made any difference. Still get the black screen.
I've finally noticed that I will CONSISTENTLY get a black screen in a short amount of time if I display a video in full-screen on the Thunderbolt Display. It doesn't seem to happen at all if I display the same video in full-screen on the HP Compaq LA2405wg via HDMI <-> DVI.
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The instant wakeup nature of a mac is not a good combination with hdmi screen because hdmi requires handshaking that causes a delay. Who knows maybe they will update it so you dont get that snow for a brief moment however It has to show "something" since the response is not instant.
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I havent had any black screens since the update but the picture is still bad. Washed out whites and blurry text.
I've now got my Thunderbolt to HDMI adapter and I've tried my Mac Mini out on three different monitors. One thing I've noticed is that display calibration is completely inconsistent between the two outputs. What looked perfect on one looks like crap on the other. Re-calibrating for that output (creating its own preset) solves the problem, but one can't help but wonder what's going on internally in the display hardware that they are so far off from each other.
One one of the monitors I tried, it's also a TV set (Insignia TV/Monitor) and it had default settings in its own menus that were horrible for being used as a computer monitor. I had to turn off the TV's overscan for the HDMI Input #1 (which then forces OSX to use underscan to fit the screen which results in scaling which makes font edges look awful). I had to change the color to "normal" (it was default set to 'warm' which screws with colors) and I had to turn sharpness down to ZERO since anything above that makes bloom (think 'white shadows' around text). Calibrating then in OSX with ADVANCED mode (regular mode still didn't look right at all; too saturated) resulted in a good looking picture from either output, but the calibration had to be done for each separately. My LG monitor needed relatively small calibration (no advanced needed to get a good picture) by comparison and the AOC monitor needed advanced, but not as severe calibration as the Insignia. Needless to say, I'd rate each monitor's quality over the years in that order (LG->AOC->Insignia).
I can't help but wonder if SOME (I can't dismiss other GPU issues on specific machines) of the people getting "bad pictures" but no more blackouts or flickering simply need to recalibrate their displays and perhaps using advanced as well. The difference between flat-screen monitors is HUGE in this regard and as I said, the output is different between the HDMI and Thunderbolt/DP outputs on the Mac Mini. That doesn't mean both can't get the same picture on any given monitor. They simply need their own calibration settings for any given monitor.
Two other things that can wreak havoc on picture quality are not using the native display resolution (forces scaling which as I said above can either create jagged edges or blurry/soft text). In Mountain Lion, the "Best For Display" normally picks the monitor's native resolution (Snow Leopard or earlier needed you to pick the correct resolution manually, I believe). Also, you need to make sure that "Use LCD Font Smoothing When Available" is checked in the GENERAL Preference Pane or fonts won't looks as good on LCD/Flat-screens as they would on older CRT monitors.
The "snow" that appears on waking from sleep or other situations is definitely HDCP hand-shaking. I've seen it on other devices on HDTVs several times now and so it's nothing to do with anything in the Intel 4000 chipset. Some monitors might not lock properly all the time (My LG seems to have more issues than my AOC, which always locks instantly every time). Personally, I've had zero blanking screens (never had the flashing ones) since the firmware update and so as near as I can tell, the GPU is now working correctly and I can verify both outputs produce fine looking displays (although again, they need independent calibration for a given monitor if you're testing both out on one monitor).
Edit: After switching outputs after configuration, it appears the output IS the same, after all on both outputs. I'm not sure why it appeared to be so different when I first swapped outputs. But the calibrated output I did after that point worked well on both outputs for the same monitor. Certainly, trying to get both monitors (of different brands) to look the same (or even very similar) is far more difficult, but this is independent of output. Everything else I mentioned above still applies, however.
One one of the monitors I tried, it's also a TV set (Insignia TV/Monitor) and it had default settings in its own menus that were horrible for being used as a computer monitor. I had to turn off the TV's overscan for the HDMI Input #1 (which then forces OSX to use underscan to fit the screen which results in scaling which makes font edges look awful). I had to change the color to "normal" (it was default set to 'warm' which screws with colors) and I had to turn sharpness down to ZERO since anything above that makes bloom (think 'white shadows' around text). Calibrating then in OSX with ADVANCED mode (regular mode still didn't look right at all; too saturated) resulted in a good looking picture from either output, but the calibration had to be done for each separately. My LG monitor needed relatively small calibration (no advanced needed to get a good picture) by comparison and the AOC monitor needed advanced, but not as severe calibration as the Insignia. Needless to say, I'd rate each monitor's quality over the years in that order (LG->AOC->Insignia).
I can't help but wonder if SOME (I can't dismiss other GPU issues on specific machines) of the people getting "bad pictures" but no more blackouts or flickering simply need to recalibrate their displays and perhaps using advanced as well. The difference between flat-screen monitors is HUGE in this regard and as I said, the output is different between the HDMI and Thunderbolt/DP outputs on the Mac Mini. That doesn't mean both can't get the same picture on any given monitor. They simply need their own calibration settings for any given monitor.
Two other things that can wreak havoc on picture quality are not using the native display resolution (forces scaling which as I said above can either create jagged edges or blurry/soft text). In Mountain Lion, the "Best For Display" normally picks the monitor's native resolution (Snow Leopard or earlier needed you to pick the correct resolution manually, I believe). Also, you need to make sure that "Use LCD Font Smoothing When Available" is checked in the GENERAL Preference Pane or fonts won't looks as good on LCD/Flat-screens as they would on older CRT monitors.
The "snow" that appears on waking from sleep or other situations is definitely HDCP hand-shaking. I've seen it on other devices on HDTVs several times now and so it's nothing to do with anything in the Intel 4000 chipset. Some monitors might not lock properly all the time (My LG seems to have more issues than my AOC, which always locks instantly every time). Personally, I've had zero blanking screens (never had the flashing ones) since the firmware update and so as near as I can tell, the GPU is now working correctly and I can verify both outputs produce fine looking displays (although again, they need independent calibration for a given monitor if you're testing both out on one monitor).
Edit: After switching outputs after configuration, it appears the output IS the same, after all on both outputs. I'm not sure why it appeared to be so different when I first swapped outputs. But the calibrated output I did after that point worked well on both outputs for the same monitor. Certainly, trying to get both monitors (of different brands) to look the same (or even very similar) is far more difficult, but this is independent of output. Everything else I mentioned above still applies, however.
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I am getting screen flickering on both displays on my new Mac mini. It came with the new firmware installed. It is very intermittent. I can use the Mac for extended periods without seeing the problem, but once it starts flickering both screens flicker every few seconds. If I restart the Mac it's all ok again. It seems to be more prevalent after the screens or Mac have been asleep.
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I am getting screen flickering on both displays on my new Mac mini. It came with the new firmware installed. It is very intermittent. I can use the Mac for extended periods without seeing the problem, but once it starts flickering both screens flicker every few seconds. If I restart the Mac it's all ok again. It seems to be more prevalent after the screens or Mac have been asleep.
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I am getting screen flickering on both displays on my new Mac mini. It came with the new firmware installed. It is very intermittent. I can use the Mac for extended periods without seeing the problem, but once it starts flickering both screens flicker every few seconds. If I restart the Mac it's all ok again. It seems to be more prevalent after the screens or Mac have been asleep.
Blurry text
Slightly different issue, I have base i5 mini and connected to HP 2311X monitor and I get blurred text. Initially plugged in HDMI>HDMI and screen was bloated so turned Overscan off and that corrected it however text still looks blurry. Tried connection using supplied HDMI>DVI cable and no difference really. My Windows PC is crystal clear when connected but Mac Mini blurry. My first ever Mac and gutted about it. Hope it gets sorted out soon.
Slightly different issue, I have base i5 mini and connected to HP 2311X monitor and I get blurred text. Initially plugged in HDMI>HDMI and screen was bloated so turned Overscan off and that corrected it however text still looks blurry. Tried connection using supplied HDMI>DVI cable and no difference really. My Windows PC is crystal clear when connected but Mac Mini blurry. My first ever Mac and gutted about it. Hope it gets sorted out soon.
Have you made sure that Use LCD Font Smoothing When Available is checkmarked under the General section of System Preferences?
Yes, that's checkmarked and I've also gone through calibration but to no avail. From reading various other threads here and on the Apple Support forum it seems the only fix is to use MDP>DVI cable thus bypassing HDMI completely.
Yes, that's checkmarked and I've also gone through calibration but to no avail. From reading various other threads here and on the Apple Support forum it seems the only fix is to use MDP>DVI cable thus bypassing HDMI completely.
I used HDMI for a few days with my 2012 mini connected to a Vizio HDTV and was not happy with how the color was washed out, but the fonts looked fine. I then switched to MDP>DP on a 27" Dell U2713HM and the font looks fine there as well. (and the color is better)
The interesting thing is I've had one random black screen each on HDMI and MDP, but I've only had the 2012 mini a week.