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ravenvii

macrumors 604
Original poster
Mar 17, 2004
7,588
494
Melenkurion Skyweir
This is interesting... OS X remembers monitors you used with the machine and associates it with a wallpaper. I have one Mac mini, and two of everything else (two LCDs, two mice, two keyboards). The cheapo ones are at uni, while the nice ones are at home :) Anyway, during the summer when I was home, I had a Serenity wallpaper on. Then I went to uni, and sometime during the semester I changed the wallpaper to something else. Then when I came back home and hooked the Mac mini up to the LCD here, it switched back to the Serenity wallpaper!

Interesting.
 
yup- cool huh?

i've noticed this when i switch from my 12"PB to my 23" Cinema Display

they 'keep' or 'save' their own desktop pic's

which is great- as the pic on one would look dumb on the other right now :)
 
OSX amazes me in new ways all the time. I plugged my G4 desktop into my 61" widescreen TV via the DVI cable just for fun (and a huge desktop). OSX recognized it right away and had all the TV specs under system profiler. :cool:
 
How do I delete a monitor? because I set a monitor from 60 htz to 85 htz, and now the tv has a message telling me I can't use it becuase of the signal. And every time I plug it in it says the same thing sicne it remembers it. Can anyone help?:confused:
 
cashmoney said:
How do I delete a monitor? because I set a monitor from 60 htz to 85 htz, and now the tv has a message telling me I can't use it becuase of the signal. And every time I plug it in it says the same thing sicne it remembers it. Can anyone help?:confused:

I think you can reset your PRAM and it will clear that kind of data.
 
cashmoney said:
How do you do that again?

N/m, disregard this question. I figured it out...But, it didn't work. I let it reset 4 times and it still says "signal not compatable".
 
cashmoney said:
N/m, disregard this question. I figured it out...But, it didn't work. I let it reset 4 times and it still says "signal not compatable".

Hmm darn...:(

Only other thing I can think of is deleting a plist (preference file) for the display control panel. I know there's a way to fix this, I've done it before when I messed with my refresh rates...hmm.
 
ITASOR said:
Hmm darn...:(

Only other thing I can think of is deleting a plist (preference file) for the display control panel. I know there's a way to fix this, I've done it before when I messed with my refresh rates...hmm.

In your home directory you have a /Library/Preferences/ByHost folder. Within that folder is a com.apple.windowserver.X.plist file where X is a hexadecimal number. Delete that file.
 
have you tried plugging in a different monitor? recently we changed the resolution on a cheap LCD to a setting outside of the bounds of the screen via System Prefs and the screen went black. deleting every plist file and resetting PRAM etc all did not work. the solution turned out to be just plugging in a different monitor to bring it back to life.
 
tjwett said:
have you tried plugging in a different monitor? recently we changed the resolution on a cheap LCD to a setting outside of the bounds of the screen via System Prefs and the screen went black. deleting every plist file and resetting PRAM etc all did not work. the solution turned out to be just plugging in a different monitor to bring it back to life.

I've disconnected and pluged it into a different monitor and it remembers that monitor and works. But when I plug it back into the other LCD tv that i'm using, it says the same thing:" signal not compatible". I'm still confused. I've even reset the LCD tv/monitor.But the thing is, when I boot up, it works but then once it goes to the account screen is goes black and says that message. this "HTZ" settings is ruining my day
 
cashmoney said:
I've disconnected and pluged it into a different monitor and it remembers that monitor and works. But when I plug it back into the other LCD tv that i'm using, it says the same thing:" signal not compatible". I'm still confused. I've even reset the LCD tv/monitor.But the thing is, when I boot up, it works but then once it goes to the account screen is goes black and says that message. this "HTZ" settings is ruining my day

Have you deleted the plist file? Also, you could try pluging the powerbook into the TV/monitor, then reboot the system holding down the shift key so that it boots in safe mode.
 
mrichmon said:
Have you deleted the plist file? Also, you could try pluging the powerbook into the TV/monitor, then reboot the system holding down the shift key so that it boots in safe mode.

I tried to Delete the plist file and it didn't work. But it did work in safe mode. I guess i'll just have to boot in safe mode all the time. What is the differences in regular mode and safe mode?
 
cashmoney said:
I tried to Delete the plist file and it didn't work. But it did work in safe mode. I guess i'll just have to boot in safe mode all the time. What is the differences in regular mode and safe mode?

If you have booted into safe mode then you should be able to set the resolution to the correct settings (ie the previously working settings). Once you have done that if you reboot you should be fine.
 
mrichmon said:
If you have booted into safe mode then you should be able to set the resolution to the correct settings (ie the previously working settings). Once you have done that if you reboot you should be fine.

I looked at the resolution settings in safe mode and it was all correct. So I shut down and restarted in normal mode. It still has that same error message.
 
cashmoney said:
How do I delete a monitor? because I set a monitor from 60 htz to 85 htz, and now the tv has a message telling me I can't use it becuase of the signal. And every time I plug it in it says the same thing sicne it remembers it. Can anyone help?:confused:

I think you do this under calibration under displays in the PP.
 
I'm assuming you're using Tiger and the TV that has the wrong refresh rate set is in addition to another display that's working. If so, bring up displays preferences with the TV hooked up, and then on the main monitor, click "Gather Windows" to bring the controls for the TV over onto the main monitor and you should be able to change the refresh rate.
 
mduser63 said:
I'm assuming you're using Tiger and the TV that has the wrong refresh rate set is in addition to another display that's working. If so, bring up displays preferences with the TV hooked up, and then on the main monitor, click "Gather Windows" to bring the controls for the TV over onto the main monitor and you should be able to change the refresh rate.
This is the way to do it, but only works if you can somehow get two monitors working. Since you have two monitors, it shouldn't be that big of a deal on most Macs--almost every Mac that doesn't have a built-in monitor that you can use to fix the other one has two video outputs. Unless you have a Mini...

I was sure /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist is the one you want to chuck, though--mine certainly appears to have all my monitor settings it in. Wonder if there's a second file that keeps track of that stuff...
 
cashmoney said:
I've disconnected and pluged it into a different monitor and it remembers that monitor and works. But when I plug it back into the other LCD tv that i'm using, it says the same thing:" signal not compatible". I'm still confused. I've even reset the LCD tv/monitor.But the thing is, when I boot up, it works but then once it goes to the account screen is goes black and says that message. this "HTZ" settings is ruining my day

ok, but once you've plugged into an alternate and can see the screen can't you just use that time to set the display settings to something within your LCD's range?
 
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