Unibody MBP + Dell 2408WFP waking from sleep problems and washed out MBP screen

[Muds]

Heya,

I bought a new unibody Macbook pro in December and have had it linked to a Dell 2408WFP for 4 months now (dell monitor as primary monitor, macbook as slave via apple mini displayport to DVI adapter) and I am also using the dell USB ports to hook up my apple wired keyboard and logitech revolution MX mouse.

Problems occurring ever since the beginning include:

Occasionally the computer refuses to wake up either screen. It may flash blue and look like its going to come out of sleep (or monitor shut off) with no problems but then hangs. This is intermittent and I cant seem to trouble shoot what causes it.

On top of that, more frequently, the Macbook screen looks washed out (loss of colour depth). It doesnt flash and there are no blank/white areas of screen, just very poor colour depth. This can occur even coming out of screen saver mode. It seems to correct itself with time or disconnecting the dell monitor.

Main programs I always leave open are Firefox +/- Transmission. Seems to happen regardless of programs being open or not. Have updated everything that Software Update can find to update.

Anyone else having these problems or have any ideas how to fix?

Cheers!

Muds

 

[DaLurker]

Heya,

I bought a new unibody Macbook pro in December and have had it linked to a Dell 2408WFP for 4 months now (dell monitor as primary monitor, macbook as slave via apple mini displayport to DVI adapter) and I am also using the dell USB ports to hook up my apple wired keyboard and logitech revolution MX mouse.

Problems occurring ever since the beginning include:

Occasionally the computer refuses to wake up either screen. It may flash blue and look like its going to come out of sleep (or monitor shut off) with no problems but then hangs. This is intermittent and I cant seem to trouble shoot what causes it.

On top of that, more frequently, the Macbook screen looks washed out (loss of colour depth). It doesnt flash and there are no blank/white areas of screen, just very poor colour depth. This can occur even coming out of screen saver mode. It seems to correct itself with time or disconnecting the dell monitor.

Main programs I always leave open are Firefox +/- Transmission. Seems to happen regardless of programs being open or not. Have updated everything that Software Update can find to update.

Anyone else having these problems or have any ideas how to fix?

Cheers!

Muds

I'm experiencing the same, annoying problems but I haven't been able to solve either of them.

On the other hand another way to temporarily fix the loss of colour depth as you describe it is to go to the Display option in the System Preferences instead of disconnecting the monitor. A nice little keyboard shortcut is alt+brightness up (ie F2) which should save you some time.

 

[sandbagsteve]

Same here - I have a dell 2408-WFP with my Mac Pro Early 2008. It's a pain in the ass. My second monitor, a cheapo LG E2250V has no problems at all (although the calibrated colour is nowhere near as nice/accurate as the dell). No amount of updates, or resetting pram etc has fixed this.

I actually had the dell changed under warranty after 11 months. I guess it a design issue or just an unfortunate interaction with the apple hardware. I just turn my monitor on and off manually at the end of the working day.