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andrewisnot

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 19, 2008
32
0
West Coast BC
Is this hurting the computer/graphics card?

Everyday I plug my external monitor into DVI port on my MBP. At first, I would do this while the computer was off. Now, I'll just plug it in while the computer is on. And I almost never screw in the screws. I unplug the same way. Part of me feels like I am playing with fire every time I do this. The other part of me feels like this magical machine can do anything and this is what it is made to do.

Most of the time I find that the computer will usually detect the external right away with the quick blue screen flash and then boom, 2 monitors. I say usually because I sometimes have to go and detect the displays in system pref's manually.

Another glitch is sometimes after plugging in, the menu bar at the top of the external only goes 3/4 way across the top of the screen (when this happens, it seems to go away by itself after a bit). And every once and while, my dock disappears from both monitors completely. Every thing else is fine, just no dock. Then I have to go and play with the arrangement in the display settings until I can get it pop up again.

I found I was having even more problems (or more frequent of the above) when I would unplug/plug in while the computer was asleep so I switched to doing it while it was on.

Am I crazy for doing this with a brand new MBP? Should this only be done while the computer is off?

Any feedback is appreciated.
 
There's no problem connecting/disconnecting an external display while the computer is on. This information is available in your user's manual.
 
Haha

Why would it be harmful?

You can damage the port if you aren't careful (i.e. pulling on the cable while its screwed in/excessive shifting).

But as far as the internals, there are no physical switches that trip when your display setup is changed (so nothing to break).
 
Thanks for the replies.

Yes, I know the user manual says to...

1 Turn on the external display or projector.
2 Make sure the display cable is connected to the external projector or display.
3 Connect the display cable to your MacBook Pro. Your MacBook Pro automatically detects the external display.
4 Adjust the resolution on the external display by using the Displays"

Still, I have these small glitches when attaching external monitor so I was wondering about #3 above as it doesn't specify if the computer should be off, asleep or on. Or if it even matters. Sounds like it doesn't matter from some of the posts.
 
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