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RoskO

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 14, 2008
74
32
I recently purchased a MBP 17" unibody, I've owned a few in the past 15", and 17" of the previous silver keyboard generation (the ones with the notorious 8600gt logic board death). I guess I expect too much from apple to release a product that just works on the simple stuff. My current "big" issue is with an external display, I have a 24" Samsung 1900 x 1200 connected through DVI. I'm using an apple purchased mini displayport to DVI connector.

My main problem is, when the system goes to sleep or even just puts the display to sleep, upon resume the external display is completely garbled and unreadable....some really bad sync issue between the displayport and the monitor. The fix, I have to unplug the cable from the laptop, and plug it back in, sometimes 2+ attempts to get it working. I've got another 23" monitor, Acer, and I've tried another DVI cable, I get the same result. I tried a DVI to hdmi cable, same result....on 2 different monitors/brands/resolutions/interfaces.

I called apple, I do commend them for good tech support and pretty knowledgeable people, the first tech was sure it was an issue with displayport, the actual connector that interfaces with the video card, and suggested I get a new laptop because I've had it such a short time. I went to best buy, returned it and got a new 17", brought it home, and it has identical results.

I put another call in to apple, the second tech was helpful, but he also was like me, throwing up his hands and saying "I don't really know what's wrong". He wants to setup a genius appointment at my local apple store to try to fix it.....which makes absolutely no sense to me, 2 laptops are identical and have the same behavior, I'd bet the farm that it's a design flaw or just a problem with displayport, or nvidia.

Any help is appreciated with this, my other issues are minor but still annoying, you really can't enable tap to click in windows or the trackpad is virtually useless, clicking on everything when you simply touch it. The drives sucks......

Also the driver for nvidia in windows really is terrible, it doesn't allow you to utilize the 9400m, so the laptop just drains battery and heats up for no reason....this really shouldn't be hard for them to include since nvidia makes the chipset and provides drivers for it...come on Apple.

I can deal with the two smaller issues if I can keep from being forced to unplug and plugin my displayport every single time I wake the computer....soon enough the physical displayport will be worn out just from the amount of action it's going to get re-syncing.

Any help is appreciated, I've posted a video of what the computer looks like when it resumes the screen from sleep, or resumes the entire computer from sleep.

Ignore the audio and things on screen :) I didn't have time to do more.
Video showing my problem

I'm to the point where I've spent enough time with it, I'm about to ask them if they would just give me money back....or something along that line. I doubt they will do much for me, but if anyone has suggestions I'm all ears. I apologize if I missed the solution somewhere else, I've search everywhere for it.
 

RoskO

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 14, 2008
74
32
That's the last thing I have to try...I am going to get one today from the apple store.....
 

kate-willbury

macrumors 6502a
Feb 14, 2009
684
0
hmm. just tried this with my macbook connected to my 25" monitor via mini displayport -> hdmi (bought from monoprice)

seems to work fine for me. left the external monitor on. put macbook to sleep. both screens turned off. woke macbook up. both screens turned on just fine.
 
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