MBP13‘3 and External Monitor Problem (screen goes pink/ laptop hangs)

well, i probably found a solution.
my system is now running half a day with no freeze.

to obviate that this is no luck, i`ll wait a few hours and then i can tell you if its gone.
but so far, this is now the longest time i ever had with stable system.

And what did you do? Please let us know.

Well... i've received my MacBook Pro 13". The service told me that they couldn't reproduce the problem but they've changed the logic board anyway. Several weeks have passed without any hang, so the problem is, of course, the logic board.

See you and thanks all! 😀

I've tested on my two displays: ProView 700P VGA (with Apple MiniDisplay to VGA adaptor) and Samsung SyncMaster 971P (with LMP MiniDisplay to DVI adaptor). When refresh rate is 60Hz on extended montor - all hangs in about half an hour with one tone on both displays. But with 75Hz all works for all day.

Message was edited by: Gilean Void

My problem seems to have been solved. I have a Macbook Pro 13 bought a month ago. Initially, when connected to a Sony monitor via MiniDisplayPort to VGA connector, I got frequent freezes and shutdowns. It abated somewhat when I lowered my external monitor's screen resolution but did not entirely solve the problem.

I called AppleCare.

They suggested I reset PRAM.

I did, and since then I have had no problems even with the external monitor set at maximum resolution.

Hope this is the end of it!

So, in my case it seems PRAM was the problem. Whatever "PRAM" is.

That's very interesting to know.
And how do you reset "PRAM"? I'm interested to try this too.

Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379

(I'm not a believer that this is the solution, but will humor people to try and report their findings, since its an easy, harmless action)

I used to be a non-beleiver of these actions in the past, too. But friday night i did an SMC-Reset like the Apple Support told me to on and i have been watching movies and TV-Shows every evening for the last three days and haven't had a single freeze since.
I'll keep testing every evening this week and i'll post if anything changes.

We have a user with a new 13" MBP with the same issue, I'm glad I found this forum, and I'm glad to hear that Apple is aware of it and looking for a solution. Someone asked earlier, and I didn't see a reply, about mirroring. My user has switched to mirroring, and so far (knock on wood) he hasn't had any freeze ups. It's only been one day, but maybe this is a work around until there's a resolution.

Well, scratch the mirroring fix. I just spoke with the user, it has been freezing up with mirroring.

Has anyone else tried the SMC-reset? I 've had my MacBook connected to my beamer since friday night and haven't had a single freeze since.

I tried resetting the PRAM and the NVRAM. At first it seemed to work well, my computer was fine for a good 2 hours, but as soon as I got into more graphics intensive stuff, it crashed again. So, while the resetting the PRAM and NVRAM did seem to extend the time my computer was function using the external monitor, it didn't fix the problem.

Also, I'm not sure how related this is, but I figured it would be worth posting. Last night while using my Macbook Pro's track pad to pinch-to-zoom while in iPhoto, my computer crashed; pretty much exactly like it does when I am running both the laptop screen with an external monitor. It has done this once before, so out of curiosity I started up a separate photo program (Adobe Photoshop CS4) that I knew supported the pinch to zoom trackpad gesture to see if it would crash the computer. Sure, enough, it did it almost immediately. The weird thing, is that I have had practically no issues while working in photo programs (mainly Photoshop CS4), zooming in and out with an external keyboard and mouse and I do some pretty heavy editing in photoshop at work. Does any body else with these external monitor issues have the same thing going on?

All i can say is that i haven't had a single freeze since the SMC-reset on september 10th and i used the MacBook connected to my beamer every single day for several hours.

I did that this morning and it's happened twice since! I'm going crazy with this issue...

Trying to connect my *MacBook Pro 13" 2.4 GHz, 4gb* (purchased *June 10'*) to an external monitor *(View Sonic 1920x1080)* in order to use it in "extended desktop" mode.

I've tried through both VGA and DVI (original Apple hardware) and still get the issue anywhere from *10m to 3h* since I start using it.

It does not happen when I work on the View Sonic 1920x1080 with the Laptop's screen closed.

Working with *Mac OS X 10.6.4* and all the latest updates. I tried *resetting the PRAM, NVRAM, SMC*

I tried taking it to the Genius bar and obviously it didn't happen while I was there. Tried everything, and was unable to get them to commit to changing anything. Can anyone tell me what they said to get a successful solution from the Geniuses? (I went to *NYC SOHO*)

The worst thing about it is that the guy in front of me has the same identical MBP connected to another monitor without issues.

Any suggestions?

tell them to use a high resolution on the external screen, at least 1600x1200... and from time to time it works for 3 or 4 hours, so make shure that they connect your mbp to a screen a give it not only 30 min time. and they should use your dvi adapter. if they connect it without adapter maybe to a imac, its not the same. it should be a external monitor, high solution and dvi-adapter.

had the same trouble with that. it sometimes takes a little bit of time to convince them.