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My external monitor looks awful with the rMBP. What's wrong?

leekohler

leekohler

macrumors G5
Original poster
Dec 22, 2004
14,164
26
Chicago, Illinois
What's wrong? Do I need some sort of driver or something? This is a Westinghouse monitor set at 1920x1200. I'm connecting with HDMI.
 

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  • Screen Shot 2012-10-02 at 8.58.59 PM.png
    Screen Shot 2012-10-02 at 8.58.59 PM.png
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Screenshots rarely if ever capture display issues. Your screenshot looks fine to me.

Visually, what are you experiencing?
 
calderone said:
Screenshots rarely if ever capture display issues. Your screenshot looks fine to me.

Visually, what are you experiencing?
Click to expand...

Pixellation, white halos around type, things like that. This display looked perfect hooked up to my last Rev G5. Now it looks like garbage. It hurts my eyes.
 
leekohler said:
Yeah, if I look at the screen shot on the rMBP's screen it looks fine too. Trust me when I tell you guys, it looks awful. There's ghosting all over the place. Maybe the cable is bad?
Click to expand...

I would definitely start with the cable.
 
calderone said:
I would definitely start with the cable.
Click to expand...

I tried another cable. That's not it. I just hooked the G5 back up to the monitor and it looks fine now at the exact same resolution. This is a bummer as this machine is meant to be my desktop replacement, but the way it looks hooked up to the monitor is not useable. :(
 
leekohler said:
I tried another cable. That's not it. I just hooked the G5 back up to the monitor and it looks fine now at the exact same resolution. This is a bummer as this machine is meant to be my desktop replacement, but the way it looks hooked up to the monitor is not useable. :(
Click to expand...

I just hooked the computer up to my HDTV, same problem. Maybe I got a bad HDMI port. Ugh, this is not fun.
 
leekohler said:
Yeah, if I look at the screen shot on the rMBP's screen it looks fine too. Trust me when I tell you guys, it looks awful. There's ghosting all over the place. Maybe the cable is bad?
Click to expand...

I think what you are seeing on your external monitor is the retina display effect. I have a 1080P PC desktop. After spending a week on my rMBP I went back to the desktop to transfer files. The difference between the two is clearly apparent. Other posters on this forum have reported the same. Don't expect your external monitor to look the same as the retina - it won't.

I am holding out waiting for the new Mac cinema display. I am hoping it will be retina. Your screenshot, absent retina, is otherwise normal.
 
ivan98 said:
This issue is duplicated at:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4080525 shows even the 2012 MacBook Airs are affected.

Current workaround:
  • Any connection to external display made via mDP & HDMI is affected.
  • Any connection to external display made via DVI & VGA is not affected.
Click to expand...

So I guess I'm not alone with this. WTF is the problem?
 
i dont think hdmi cable or even the interface support anything over 1080p resolution. i know you are using a monitor. but the hdmi might be your culprit. if you want to do 1200 vertical then perhaps you want to use the display port interface since it can support higher resolution. like display port to dvi, but not display port to hdmi. just stay away from hdmi if you want more than 1080 resolution.

or if the hdmi is your prefer method since it carry audio in the same cable then you just have to deal with 1080p resolution.
 
xxcysxx said:
i dont think hdmi cable or even the interface support anything over 1080p resolution. i know you are using a monitor. but the hdmi might be your culprit. if you want to do 1200 vertical then perhaps you want to use the display port interface since it can support higher resolution. like display port to dvi, but not display port to hdmi. just stay away from hdmi if you want more than 1080 resolution.

or if the hdmi is your prefer method since it carry audio in the same cable then you just have to deal with 1080p resolution.
Click to expand...

I guess I'll have to try DVI.
 
xxcysxx said:
i dont think hdmi cable or even the interface support anything over 1080p resolution. i know you are using a monitor. but the hdmi might be your culprit. if you want to do 1200 vertical then perhaps you want to use the display port interface since it can support higher resolution. like display port to dvi, but not display port to hdmi. just stay away from hdmi if you want more than 1080 resolution.

or if the hdmi is your prefer method since it carry audio in the same cable then you just have to deal with 1080p resolution.
Click to expand...

False. I'm typing this on a 1900x1200 monitor over HDMI with my rMBP. The HDMI port on this can actually drive a 2560x1440 monitor as well - I've done it (admittedly, that only worked in Windows. OSX seems to artificially limit the port to 165MHz).

The picture is identical to what I got over displayport in both cases.
 
leekohler said:
Thunderbolt to DVI did the trick! Thanks everybody! It looks perfect now!
Click to expand...

I'd still be concerned that there is an issue with your HDMI port. Prior to getting the TB Display I did HDMI to HDMI and HDMI to DVI on several monitors (some 1920x1200 and 1920x1080) and all the monitors looked fine and not as you described.
 
jedolley said:
I'd still be concerned that there is an issue with your HDMI port. Prior to getting the TB Display I did HDMI to HDMI and HDMI to DVI on several monitors (some 1920x1200 and 1920x1080) and all the monitors looked fine and not as you described.
Click to expand...

I'm not worried about it. I won't use it. If I need to, I can just go DVI to HDMI.
 
xxcysxx said:
i dont think hdmi cable or even the interface support anything over 1080p resolution. i know you are using a monitor. but the hdmi might be your culprit. if you want to do 1200 vertical then perhaps you want to use the display port interface since it can support higher resolution. like display port to dvi, but not display port to hdmi. just stay away from hdmi if you want more than 1080 resolution.

or if the hdmi is your prefer method since it carry audio in the same cable then you just have to deal with 1080p resolution.
Click to expand...

Um dude, maybe I am misunderstanding what you're saying. But this is one of the worts technical posts I have ever read. HDMI can support much higher than 1080p. HDMI and DVI-D is actually the same on the video side.
 
leekohler said:
I'm not worried about it. I won't use it. If I need to, I can just go DVI to HDMI.
Click to expand...

Regardless of whether you use it or not, it seems wrong that you'd be ok with a possibly bad HDMI port on a $2000+ Macbook. That's just me.
 
jedolley said:
Regardless of whether you use it or not, it seems wrong that you'd be ok with a possibly bad HDMI port on a $2000+ Macbook. That's just me.
Click to expand...

If it were a problem for me, I'd worry about it. It's not. Besides, there are other threads about this and it seems the port is not the problem, but rather, drivers. Either way, I have what I need.
 
xxcysxx said:
i dont think hdmi cable or even the interface support anything over 1080p resolution. i know you are using a monitor. but the hdmi might be your culprit. if you want to do 1200 vertical then perhaps you want to use the display port interface since it can support higher resolution. like display port to dvi, but not display port to hdmi. just stay away from hdmi if you want more than 1080 resolution.

or if the hdmi is your prefer method since it carry audio in the same cable then you just have to deal with 1080p resolution.
Click to expand...

actually, never mind on that. it turns out hdmi 1.4 does indeed support resolution up to 2160p.
 
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