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clamshell mode in mountain lion?

A

AlexQQQ

macrumors member
Original poster
May 10, 2010
66
0
Hi-
In snow leopard I was able to run clamshell mode then open my lid and use the laptop keyboard (the laptop screen is black) and solely use the external monitor.

Is this not possible in mountain lion?

it seems that once i put into clamshell mode and open the lid to use the keyboard the laptop screen is awakened (so both the laptop screen and external screen is active).

do i need to buy an external keyboard if i wanted the same clamshell setup as in snow leopard, using only the external screen? or is there a way around it? thanks, much appreciated
 
AlexQQQ said:
Hi-
In snow leopard I was able to run clamshell mode then open my lid and use the laptop keyboard (the laptop screen is black) and solely use the external monitor.

Is this not possible in mountain lion?
Click to expand...

I don't think it was possible in Lion either. In Snow Leopard how does it know you when you want to run it the way you describer and when you want to run dual monitors?

You can open it up and turn the laptop screen brightness all the way down. I'm doing that at the moment on ML
 
In snow leopard once you put the laptop into the clamshell mode (shut the lid down while attached to external monitor than wake it up with a mouse), the laptop monitor does not become active.

for snow leopard same as mountain lion, If you wanted the dual monitor (I am assuming you mean laptop screen and external monitor...for two external monitors, I don't know) you simply go to display icon in the system preferences (you don't need the clamshell mode for this).

Don't know about lion, as I skipped that version.

yeah, I suppose I could make the laptop screen dark...not ideal though but an option. thanks.
 
hi-
it isn't off. whenever you lower the brightness the apple logo brightness is affected (try it out). also, you can move the cursor below into the darkness or have something opened in the laptop screen and see it go dark.

Alex
 
You could use SwitchResX with a Monitor Profile - with it you can disabled a Monitor!
 
When you plug in an additional screen to your Apple notebook, the video memory of the active GPU is split between the screens. As is the GPU time to a certain degree (drawing on two displays).

The attractive component of clamshell mode was that it would turn off the integrated notebook display and remove it from the device list. Thus all video memory and GPU cycles can be directed at the external display. This was a boon for any software that was dependent on VRAM (from Photoshop to Rhino to Starcraft 2).

I do not know if this is supported in Lion or Mountain Lion. I know it worked fine in Snow Leopard. I would be curious to know, though. Perhaps I will test it later with my TV and an external mouse.
 
just tried it before installing ML (running Lion on base MBPr w/ 16gb) :

With external attached via MDP --> DisplayPort
- Lower screen brightness till the internal screen "turns off" = not actually off, "Displays" under settings still finds it which means even though I'm not seeing anything, the gfx card(s) are working pushing data to that

Put it in clamshell mode
- only external screen shows up in System Preferences/Displays


hope this helps a little :)


edit: this is just a newbie speaking, first mac ever so I could be extremely wrong :p
 
br3nt said:
just tried it before installing ML (running Lion on base MBPr w/ 16gb) :

With external attached via MDP --> DisplayPort
- Lower screen brightness till the internal screen "turns off" = not actually off, "Displays" under settings still finds it which means even though I'm not seeing anything, the gfx card(s) are working pushing data to that

Put it in clamshell mode
- only external screen shows up in System Preferences/Displays


hope this helps a little :)


edit: this is just a newbie speaking, first mac ever so I could be extremely wrong :p
Click to expand...

OP's sentiments explain why my friend who has SL looked at me like a crazy person when I said it isn't possible in Lion (and now ML). I've heard of people putting fridge magnets on the left side of the MBP but it didn't work for me.
 
jterp7 said:
OP's sentiments explain why my friend who has SL looked at me like a crazy person when I said it isn't possible in Lion (and now ML). I've heard of people putting fridge magnets on the left side of the MBP but it didn't work for me.
Click to expand...


Oh yeah, now that you mention it, reminds me of one of my professors talking about how he used to take a magnet and "troll" his colleagues with that trick :p

...Well, of to install ML. Wish me luck!

(sorry for OT)
 
br3nt said:
Oh yeah, now that you mention it, reminds me of one of my professors talking about how he used to take a magnet and "troll" his colleagues with that trick :p

...Well, of to install ML. Wish me luck!

(sorry for OT)
Click to expand...

unbelievable that windows is still better in this regard in allowing control for internal and external displays
 
jterp7 said:
OP's sentiments explain why my friend who has SL looked at me like a crazy person when I said it isn't possible in Lion (and now ML). I've heard of people putting fridge magnets on the left side of the MBP but it didn't work for me.
Click to expand...

again...let me reiterate..

TYPE

sudo nvram boot-args="iog=0x0"

into terminal and you can activate clamshell mode and open the lid and have only the external powered.

no need for fridge magnets...
 
canucksfan88 said:
again...let me reiterate..

TYPE

sudo nvram boot-args="iog=0x0"

into terminal and you can activate clamshell mode and open the lid and have only the external powered.

no need for fridge magnets...
Click to expand...

Thanks for that, but it doesn't change what I said. Why should OSX require typing in the Terminal instead of a simple option in the display menu?
 
jterp7 said:
Thanks for that, but it doesn't change what I said. Why should OSX require typing in the Terminal instead of a simple option in the display menu?
Click to expand...

There are more terminal options than in GUI on every *NIX system (at least in my opinion)

PS: You can make an app for it :)
 
canucksfan88 said:
again...let me reiterate..

TYPE

sudo nvram boot-args="iog=0x0"

into terminal and you can activate clamshell mode and open the lid and have only the external powered.

no need for fridge magnets...
Click to expand...

haven't tried this one but copying it to my "good to have scripts".
How do you "re-activate" if you change your mind?
 
br3nt said:
haven't tried this one but copying it to my "good to have scripts".
How do you "re-activate" if you change your mind?
Click to expand...

its in the link above...but my issue with it is that is requires a reboot to activate and then another if you change your mind. This is quite Windows like is it not?
 
jterp7 said:
its in the link above...but my issue with it is that is requires a reboot to activate and then another if you change your mind. This is quite Windows like is it not?
Click to expand...

Actually Windows handles multiple monitors pretty well. You can simply turn the internal display off in most cases.
 
terraphantm said:
Actually Windows handles multiple monitors pretty well. You can simply turn the internal display off in most cases.
Click to expand...

yeah that was my point exactly:)

When I first picked up my 2011 air, the guys at the apple store couldn't understand why I would want to ability to customize my ability to use external displays or say choose to turn one off at will. It looks like its one of things that apple is saying just get used to it or do the terminal "hack".
 
terraphantm said:
Actually Windows handles multiple monitors pretty well. You can simply turn the internal display off in most cases.
Click to expand...

Yep, I'm running two monitors on a windows desktop and its pretty nice when I can go to control panel and just turn off the other one if I don't want my mouse to keep leaking to another windows if I'm running a game in full screen mode.
 
jterp7 said:
Thanks for that, but it doesn't change what I said. Why should OSX require typing in the Terminal instead of a simple option in the display menu?
Click to expand...

sorry i misunderstood you. i don't know why apple changed it. it goes back to my whole gripe with apple and them dumbing down OSX. It is becoming ridiculous. it looks to be a "simplifying" thing, where Apple is dumbing down the OS for stupid people.

Open lid = monitor on
Closed lid = monitor off
 
jterp7 said:
its in the link above...but my issue with it is that is requires a reboot to activate and then another if you change your mind. This is quite Windows like is it not?
Click to expand...

ah, thx. missed that post -just saw the other one with the terminal info :eek:
hehe yeah, and I'm running away from it :p
 
Last edited:
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