Comments on: The Mac mini is a Lemon

By: Kirk

Kirk — Tue, 17 May 2005 10:08:22 +0000

I tried a variety of "tightnesses" for the adapter – in fact, on my second monitor,
it was green all the time, no matter how tight it was, though on my first monitor
(the one I had planned to use with the mini) it seemed to get greenish when the
adapter was very tight.

As for posters on the Apple boards, maybe they gave up, returned their minis, or
maybe they simply ended up buying DVI screens? I was not planning to do this; I
actually bought the mini as a second Mac to replace an aging iMac which I use
for testing and writing books (with a virgin installation for screen shots).

By: vertigo25

vertigo25 — Tue, 17 May 2005 05:19:05 +0000

I’ve seen the green screen on two different minis with two different displays. One was a 17" Sony, and the other some off brand flat screen. In both cases the problem was resolved by tightening the vga adapter. In both cases, the adapter wasn’t tightened equally on both screws.

I do think that there is some kind of design flaw with either the port or the adapter (or both), but I’ve also noticed that most of the people who reported display problems on the apple boards only posted once, which leads me to believe that they resolved their problem. It’s unfortunate, but on boards like that, that is usually the case.

By: engpjp

engpjp — Tue, 17 May 2005 01:09:54 +0000

Kirk,

I have a borrowed 15" Sony monitor with exactly the same problem. My room
mate has a newer 21" CRT which looks brilliant. As you point out, it seems to
be a badly constructed VGA port. What’s interesting, though, is that if I try do
watch a movie, it’s well nigh impossible when using Apple’s QT or VLC (like
trying to read in a coal mine); however, switching to Mplayer OSX made things
much better. Compared to the aforementioned 21" it still isn’t up to par, but
except for really dark night scenes, watching movies is actually enjoyable.
That said, I expect to get a new TFT screen before long – and I WILL check
that it is compatible before handing out the cash…

Peter J. Pedersen