Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

(10.7.1 update: no good) Getting the Dell u2211h to work properly on a 2010 Mac Mini

Thanks for your report. No developments that I'm aware of unfortunately. Stinks to hear that this year's models may be affected as well.

I managed to snap a picture that manages to roughly show what the pinstripes look like. They're a lot more apparent and clean-cut than how they look here though.
 

Attachments

  • pinstripes.png
    pinstripes.png
    251.2 KB · Views: 232
Could someone please confirm what the situation with Lion and NVInject is? I'd quite like to upgrade but am wary of doing so as at the minute I'm enjoying a pinstripe free picture courtesy of NVInject.

Just received a replacement U2311MH for my old U2311H so I will test out at some point if that still exhibits stripes without NVInject, my guess is yes as apparently it's the same monitor with a different case and backlight.
 
dolphin842, are your pinstripes vertical or horizontal (I naturally assume vertical).

This is so annoying, why can't Apple/Nvidia/whoever write a driver for these monitors? It's obviously perfectly possible for the hardware to interact perfectly as Windows 7 work straight away flawlessly on the same machine.

I'm using a Mini Displayport to DVI cable, do you think using a MDP to DP cable would help?

Also, I've started noticing some subtle display flickering now. :(

Is this happening with other non-Apple monitors or is it only these Dells? I hope I can get a refund on this thing.
 
tomd25 said:
Could someone please confirm what the situation with Lion and NVInject is? I'd quite like to upgrade but am wary of doing so as at the minute I'm enjoying a pinstripe free picture courtesy of NVInject.

Just received a replacement U2311MH for my old U2311H so I will test out at some point if that still exhibits stripes without NVInject, my guess is yes as apparently it's the same monitor with a different case and backlight.
Click to expand...

Is your new monitor a U2312MH (with the LED backlighting)? I'm curious to see how that monitors works as well. I'm not using NVInject at the moment (no Hackintosh as of yet), though if I get a bit of free time I may try installing it on a throwaway Lion partition to see what happens.

freshj said:
dolphin842, are your pinstripes vertical or horizontal (I naturally assume vertical).
Click to expand...

Although it's a little hard to see from the picture I provided, the stripes are horizontal. They're similar in size to the old OS X pinstripes of yesteryear.

This is so annoying, why can't Apple/Nvidia/whoever write a driver for these monitors? It's obviously perfectly possible for the hardware to interact perfectly as Windows 7 work straight away flawlessly on the same machine.
Click to expand...

The only thing I can recommend right now is to take your Mac/monitor to the Genius Bar and demonstrate this problem for them. When I did so, they allegedly forwarded the issue to 'engineering;' my guess is that if enough of these trouble reports are generated, the driver folks in Cupertino will start paying attention.

I'm using a Mini Displayport to DVI cable, do you think using a MDP to DP cable would help?

Also, I've started noticing some subtle display flickering now. :(
Click to expand...

Nope, I've used MDP->DP and HDMI->DVI and get the issue (albeit on different colors).

Is the flickering on certain colors or just in general? If it's general, I'd call Dell for a replacement. The mini does produce some flickering on my old Samsung TN panel for certain shades of gray, though color-correcting via ColorSync shifted the grays I see most often outside the range that causes flickering.

Is this happening with other non-Apple monitors or is it only these Dells? I hope I can get a refund on this thing.
Click to expand...

Hard to say... I don't have any spare cash to start experimenting, though a few have reported pinstriping with Apple-brand monitors farther back in the thread. If it's still posing problems, call Dell and see what they say. I wouldn't mind getting a refund on my monitor as well if this doesn't get fixed, though by the time Lion came out and made my workaround useless, the monitor was over a year old...
 
dolphin842 said:
Is your new monitor a U2312MH (with the LED backlighting)? I'm curious to see how that monitors works as well. I'm not using NVInject at the moment (no Hackintosh as of yet), though if I get a bit of free time I may try installing it on a throwaway Lion partition to see what happens.
Click to expand...

Yep, that's the one. I'll test it out sometime, but I imagine it'll have the same issue as I think it's more or less the same display except for the backlight. Scared to update my Mac in case I end up with the bloody pinstripes again - would be tempted to sell the monitor if that's the case. Wish it was easier to get Apple to listen, but seems the wall of silence is the price you pay for such a pleasant OS...!
 
Thanks tomd25.

Do you guys think I'll be safe with a NEC MultiSync EA241WM?
 
freshj said:
Thanks tomd25.

Do you guys think I'll be safe with a NEC MultiSync EA241WM?
Click to expand...

Pretty sure the NEC has been mentioned as working fine with a Mac. Sort of wish I'd paid the extra for that now, although as long as NVInject keeps working, I'm OK. Shame if I get a new laptop and it doesn't work again though - makes me think about selling the Dell while I have a brand new replacement one...

Edit: see ToastyX's post in that thread confirming there is no pinstriping with the EA231WM so I imagine the 24 is the same
 
Has anyone been able to use the NVInject method method that Cloudane mentioned a while back with Lion? It seems there are no affordable IPS displays that are true 8-bit, so I'm going to see if I can make this work.

EDIT: Nevermind.... looks like the unplug/replug method works again as of 10.7.2!
 
Last edited:
dolphin842 are you saying your Dell works okay with 10.7.2? i.e no pinstriping on some colours?
 
Yeah just tested the u2211h this afternoon with 10.7.2. I get pinstripes on boot, but unplugging/replugging the displayport cable makes it go away, like with snow leopard.

EDIT: Anyone know how to change the subject line of the thread itself? Apparently I managed to do it previously, but all I can do now is change the subtitle of the OP....
 
Hmm. I've got lines in 10.6.7, 10.6.8 and 10.7.0 on a MacBook Pro 15", Macbook Pro 17", MacBook 13" and iMac 22". Unplugging/replugging does nothing. Just vertical lines on some colours and a bit of flickering on some greys. Any suggestions?

EDIT: That's on a Dell U2412M by the way.
 
Last edited:
Given that your model is a 6-bit+A-FRC panel as well, I can't say I'm surprised. So the stripes are vertical? That's the opposite of how they are on the u2211h. Perhaps it's something specific to this year's panel, or maybe there is variation between otherwise identical panels? Frustrating to hear that you still have problems. What GPUs are involved with your Macs? Also, how are you hooking up to the Dell: miniDP->DP or via DVI/hdmi? The unplug/replug trick has only worked for me using DisplayPort if I recall.

This also makes me think that my own progress may be transient or otherwise short-lived.

If you have an Apple Store nearby, make an appointment and raise the issue with Genius. Make sure they submit the issue to engineering. It may also help if we can get the ear of someone in the Mac Developer program who could file an rdar:// report for us.

There are now many 6-bit/A-FRC IPS panels on the market. The segment isn't going away any time soon: Apple should get on top of this before they start getting a reputation for incompatibility again.
 
Yeah the stripes are vertical. The GPUs I've used are mostly Nvidia I believe. GeForce 330M in the MacBook Pro 15". I can look up the others tomorrow. The white MacBook might be an Intel integrated GPU?

I'm hooking up with a MDP > DVI cable.

Thanks for your helpful discussion dolphin842.
 
Anytime :). Yeah, I'd try a cheap mDP->DP cable before chucking everything (or at least the monitor) out the window :p.

I may try to get the ear of a mod to move this thread to the general peripheral forum, now that we're getting more reports of issues from Macs other than minis. Might give it better visibility too.
 
Might not have time to try that MDP > DP cable if I want to exchange/return the monitor. :(

Just to reiterate, under Windows 7 and the same hardware (including same cable) there is no pinstriping at all. Using a VGA there was no pinstriping in OS X but it just looked terrible in a VGA way.

EDIT: I think I'm going to go for an NEC EA241WM, unless anyone else can suggest an alternative? I know it's a TN panel but it should be okay and I can't be dealing with worrying about pinstripes any more.
 
Last edited:
This thread on HardForum is accumulating some suggestions for 8-bit IPS monitors. The cheapest is the Asus PA238Q for about $275 at B&H (when it's in stock).

I hear you about grabbing a TN panel just to make the problem go away, but memories of the TN panel in my 17" iMac are still fresh enough to keep me from doing that :p.
 
Is this problem likely to affect any 6 bit + FRC display? Surely not?

I know it's not ideal to resign to going back to a TN display but if I hold on to this Dell and Apple never fix the driver I'll be very sad.

I think the NEC EA241WM is 6-bit + FRC, does that mean the same problem will happen!?
 
I have a feeling it's limited to these LG-based IPS displays, but who knows. I'd make sure that wherever you get your new monitor from has a good return policy. For what it's worth, I have an old TN Samsung display as my second monitor, and I get flickering on some grays (no pinstripes though).
 
I hope so. I've seen a lot of NECs used with Macs before so I hope this "just works".
 
The Dell has gone back to the supplier. I now need to buy a new monitor so if anyone has any suggestions that would be great. I'm a designer so it needs to be okay for working and colour accuracy.
 
The HardForum thread I mentioned above is probably your best bet for monitors with good color. They are usually more expensive though that the Dell e-IPS models.

So, were you able to just call up Dell Customer Support and return the display? How long did you have the monitor? Just curious how you did it in case mine starts misbehaving again.
 
So, those who are following this issue will be amused to find out that our Intel GMA 950-based Macbook (the GPU without temporal dithering, the alleged source of our problem here) is now experiencing dithering and pinstriping issues on its built-in display as of 10.7.2. The pinstriping appears 'thinner' than on the Dell, and there is very noticeable blockiness/grain to title bar gradients in Safari and other apps. As this MacBook is one of the lowest-end hardware platforms supported by Lion, I can't say I'm surprised, but I'm not thrilled either.

In any event, I doubt this latest anecdote is related to the specific driver problems described here, but wanted to pass it along anyway.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back