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Brand new Mac Mini and Jagged!

M

Macs4u

Suspended
Original poster
Apr 19, 2008
387
352
Stoke on Trent
Hi,

Just bought the new Mac Mini (with the latest ivy bridge and 4gb ram as standard) and connected it to a brand new Benq 22" 1920x1080 monitor. The monitor is a VA panel (better than a tn panel but not quite as good as an ips panel apparently) Its amazingly sharp and colourful but the icons in the dock and some of the text look jagged. Im connected by a brand new decent quality hdmi lead so cant see that as the problem. Its also causing me terrible eye strain and i have the monitor set at 20% brightness?

Any ideas?

Matt
 
Doesnt give me the option for 1920x1080 , just 1080p which is the same. By default its set to best for monitor but if i click scaled it is already on 1080p...


6ols2q.jpg


121678o.jpg
 
Something i forgot to add , ive noticed a few times the screen will go black for literally 1 or 2 seconds and then back on as normal. Cant be a power saving issue as I've set both sleep and monitor sleep to off. Wonder if i have a faulty graphics chip inside my mac mini?
 
Apple fanboy said:
How many PPI does your monitor have? VA is quite an outdated technology these days. I hope it was a cheap screen.
Click to expand...

It was cheap enough (£99.99) but cant understand how this would be so jagged? Its 1920x1080 in a 22" screen so would have same pi as any other 1920x1010 22" screen surely?

Matt
 
Sharpness?

I got rid of the text jaggies with my new Mac mini hooked up via HDMI to my older Sharp LC-32SH12U TV by turning down the sharpness on the TV (from the default of "25" to "5"). I guess the sharpness makes it TOO sharp, showing the text smoothing tricks (gray around white text, for example) too literally.
 
Last edited:
Voch said:
I got rid of the text jaggies with my new Mac mini hooked up via HDMI to my older Sharp LC-32SH12U TV by turning down the sharpness on the TV (from the default of "25" to "5"). I guess the sharpness makes it TOO sharp, showing the text smoothing tricks (gray around white text, for example) too literally.
Click to expand...

Hi,

Thanks for that. Ive just checked and the monitor was on 5 out of 5 for sharpness. Ive turned it down to 1 and most of the jaggies has gone as when i turned the sharpness down the text went from light grey to black which stands out more now.

Thanks for taking the time to post

Matt
 
Macs4u said:
Something i forgot to add , ive noticed a few times the screen will go black for literally 1 or 2 seconds and then back on as normal. Cant be a power saving issue as I've set both sleep and monitor sleep to off. Wonder if i have a faulty graphics chip inside my mac mini?
Click to expand...

I have the same problem, random black/blank screen for < 1 seconds.

What is your setup like?

I have mini -> hdmi-to-dvi-adapter -> dvi cable -> dell 24" monitor.

I want to bring back to apple store for replacement, but not sure if that would help.
 
Not by chance hooked the thing up over VGA?
Seems like a settings/cable problem.

And VA is not perse worse than IPS, depends on your preferences. If you like high contrast and deep blacks with decent viewing angles, go PVA. If you want faster response with less contrast but similar angles, go IPS.
 
Random Black Screens

Wow,

It would seem this is more pervasive than I thought. I purchased the baseline Mac Mini a few days ago and then experienced the random black screens on my 17" Samsung and my 24" Acer with two separate DVI cables going in to the monitors. It didn't matter which one I used. I thought it might have been the adapter so I took it back and while there I upgraded to the Mid Mini and it still does the black screens at home. 10.8.2 helped, but it will do it at random intervals (seems to do it more when switching from full screen graphical apps).

Sure hope an update can fix this! :(

I am still in the return window but I don't want to return if they can fix it.
 
DVI mode?

One of the HDMI input channels on my old TV can be switched between two modes: HDMI and DVI. On mine it just seems to switch the digital audio pass-through but would switching something like that possibly get rid of any flickering problems for you guys? Something like this on your TVs may be the switch between HDMI "active/tell the computer you're on this input" mode and DVI "passive/just spit out the signal" mode.
 
I just got my new Mac Mini base today and had a problem with the screen at first too. The picture was a bit blurry and text wasn't pretty or easy on the eyes. This was when I connected my screen with HDMI - HDMI. The problem turned out to be that the HDMI forces you to use 1080p screen resolution, not 1920x1080. I don't even know if there's a difference, but when I connected with a DVI cable using the adapter that came with the mini the problem was solved. Now the resolution is 1920x1080 and the picture is perfect. I think it's worth a try for the OP.
 
Wil-J said:
I just got my new Mac Mini base today and had a problem with the screen at first too. The picture was a bit blurry and text wasn't pretty or easy on the eyes. This was when I connected my screen with HDMI - HDMI. The problem turned out to be that the HDMI forces you to use 1080p screen resolution, not 1920x1080. I don't even know if there's a difference, but when I connected with a DVI cable using the adapter that came with the mini the problem was solved. Now the resolution is 1920x1080 and the picture is perfect. I think it's worth a try for the OP.
Click to expand...

First of all HDMI does not force you to use 1080p. If anything, it's the OS that's forcing it to 1080p. I have my Win7 PC hooked up to a 55" Samsung LED display and it looks fantastic and reports 1920x1080 as the input resolution.

I problem with going DVI route is that you lose your sound. I sure hope this isn't a limitation of the new Mac Mini as I was about to purchase one this weekend.

----------

After a quick glance at AVS forums there seems to be another solution if your TV or monitor has the right settings. Set the TV or monitor to PC mode and turn 1:1 pixel mapping on, this will force the TV to tell your Mac that's it's a true monitor not a a television set.
 
similar problems

Wil-J said:
I just got my new Mac Mini base today and had a problem with the screen at first too. The picture was a bit blurry and text wasn't pretty or easy on the eyes. This was when I connected my screen with HDMI - HDMI. The problem turned out to be that the HDMI forces you to use 1080p screen resolution, not 1920x1080. I don't even know if there's a difference, but when I connected with a DVI cable using the adapter that came with the mini the problem was solved. Now the resolution is 1920x1080 and the picture is perfect. I think it's worth a try for the OP.
Click to expand...

I'm trying to fix similar problems and I read on another thread that you can get a 1920x1080 using "SwitchResX" on your mac. That way you can continue to use the HDMI. I'm going to try it when I get home from work.

http://www.madrau.com/indexSRX4.html
 
daniyarm said:
First of all HDMI does not force you to use 1080p. If anything, it's the OS that's forcing it to 1080p. I have my Win7 PC hooked up to a 55" Samsung LED display and it looks fantastic and reports 1920x1080 as the input resolution.

I problem with going DVI route is that you lose your sound. I sure hope this isn't a limitation of the new Mac Mini as I was about to purchase one this weekend.
Click to expand...

Yeah, what I meant was that the OS won't let you change to 1920x1080 on HDMI.

I'm trying to fix similar problems and I read on another thread that you can get a 1920x1080 using "SwitchResX" on your mac. That way you can continue to use the HDMI. I'm going to try it when I get home from work.
Click to expand...

I also found some discussions about that. However I chose to use the DVI cable I had from my previous computer just lying around. I have speakers connected to audio out so I don't need HDMI for the sound.
 
cable connection

Wil-J said:
I just got my new Mac Mini base today and had a problem with the screen at first too. The picture was a bit blurry and text wasn't pretty or easy on the eyes. This was when I connected my screen with HDMI - HDMI. The problem turned out to be that the HDMI forces you to use 1080p screen resolution, not 1920x1080. I don't even know if there's a difference, but when I connected with a DVI cable using the adapter that came with the mini the problem was solved. Now the resolution is 1920x1080 and the picture is perfect. I think it's worth a try for the OP.
Click to expand...

Also, what combination of cables did you use?

My tv only takes HDMI. So you used HDMI to DVI then a DVI cable to what?
 
I have a Samsung S23A700D (120Hz monitor) and it exhibits the same behavior. HDMI looks pretty bad and OS X detects it as a TV. I looks a lot better with DVI, but it only has 1 DVI and 1 HDMI input. I am currently using a DVI-D from my gaming rig. So now I will have to unhook cables every time I want to change the input :(. I ordered a mini display to HDMI connector from Monoprice to see if that makes any difference from just using a straight HDMI cable.
 
humblpirate said:
Also, what combination of cables did you use?

My tv only takes HDMI. So you used HDMI to DVI then a DVI cable to what?
Click to expand...

I have a regular DVI - DVI cable. My screen has VGA, HDMI and DVI ports, so I can choose what ever I want. The setup that didn't work for me (without some application to alter the resolution) was a regular HDMI - HDMI cable.

As you have no option other than using HDMI on your screen, I guess that any adapter/cable tricks won't help. I would try using that basic HDMI cable and try an app like "SwitchResX" that someone here recommended. I didn't even bother to try it.
 
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