Mac Mini 2012 video blinking out

Ryan1369 wrote:

Well Well, I see they are touchy around here about posting employee contact info

I can understand why considering it is against forum rules.

wolf 1 wrote:

My guess is that a firmware-upgrade is needed...

I am also very confident that Apple will fix this.

I agree 100% on both points. Hopefully it will arrive soon.

Tom Sheppard wrote:

That is not correct. I have mentioned several times in this thread that my TB port died in its sleep. And again just now. 😉

I'm interested to know more about your dead TB port. You say that it died in its sleep... I can't recall now but it's quite likely that's what happened to me, too. I remember not being able to get it to boot up but it was probably asleep at the time. You also say that it happened "several times", so does this mean that it dies for a while then comes good? If so then this would also concur with mine apparently rising from the dead on Friday, but being dead ever since.

mfearby wrote:

I'm interested to know more about your dead TB port. You say that it died in its sleep... I can't recall now but it's quite likely that's what happened to me, too. I remember not being able to get it to boot up but it was probably asleep at the time. You also say that it happened "several times", so does this mean that it dies for a while then comes good? If so then this would also concur with mine apparently rising from the dead on Friday, but being dead ever since.

Sorry for the confusion. By "several times" I meant that I posted about it here several times.

My mini went to sleep according to schedule and when I tried to wake it in the morning, the TB port was dead. Tried the usual, unplug/replug, monitor off/on, restart mini, reset PRAM, boot in safe mode, etc. Nothing. Called AppleCare, they suggested a couple more things. Nothing. Saw the Genius. Wouldn't even look at it as it was a known problem.

I left the monitor plugged in while I continued to use the flaky HDMI port. One afternoon the TB port came alive and the HDMI port blacked out. They ping-ponged back and forth every couple of seconds continuously until I unplugged the TB cable to get it to stop.

Now you know why I returned my mini for a refund. 😀

Thanks for the clarification. I guess I'm going to have to bite the bullet and call Apple... soon. I installed CrashPlan yesterday so I might wait for it to finish uploading all my data (current ETA: 10 days) before dealing with the swap. Then again, the last time I re-adopted a PC after switching Linux distributions, the process of so-called "de-duplicating" all my data took the same amount of time as the original upload anyway. Maybe I should get the swap over and done with first, then. Woe is me... my transition to perfect, no-nonsense computing hasn't been what I had hoped.

@ BDAqua

Well after testing the version of 10.8.2 you sent me the link to I regretfully report back that there is no difference. Not too surprised though, seems a little too quick for a fix to this problem. I've noticed that my two Vizio TV's have given me the least amount of trouble on this issue. Not sure what the connection is but they have worked best for me.

Maybe I am overlooking something in the terms of use for this forum, but I have failed to find any print regarding not sharing the contact info for Apple employees who have assisted in a problem you have reached out to them about. It was not my intent to break any rules, but I felt it may be helpful to others to speak with the same contacts within the company that I had. Either way Apple is not giving any helpful info on this matter and the contact I posted earlier was as useless as the rest.

What build does it say you have now?

Likely the Vizios being less of a problem is because it's likely due to Timing issues is my guess.

Build version shows to be

OS X 10.8.2 (12C2034)

I had a pretty good experiment this week while traveling for work. I hooked the mini to two different LG TVs in two different hotels (the same model of TV I believe) and the results were the same. Roughly 10-20 minutes after boot up the display dropped and came back. My only instance of pixilated snow has been on my old Dell monitor using a HDMI to DVI cable.

@mfearby

Yes, I would call Apple as soon as possible, if for nothing else but to log another case for this problem. The more complaints they get the more motivated they will be to issue a fix.

Take a look here:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/30/intel_insists_mac_mini_hdmi_fix_inbound/

Lets hope this proves to be the case!

@ Philip Tyler

Thanks for the update. This does look promising, hopefully they get it to us soon. And on another note, I remember from a few pages back that your wife is in poor health. I hope that she is progressing along nicely and will make a full recovery soon. It is terrible to hear of somebody's loved one fighting for their life. Best wishes to you both.

LOL, bought an early MDD, had Problems, the shipped AHT version didn't work, Apple addressed the issue & saia they'd send a n updated AHT CD, they never did... after Warranty was gone found out one CPU was bad, OEM HDD was bad, & one RAM stick was bad! 😟

Ryan1369 wrote:

@ Philip Tyler

Thanks for the update. This does look promising, hopefully they get it to us soon. And on another note, I remember from a few pages back that your wife is in poor health. I hope that she is progressing along nicely and will make a full recovery soon. It is terrible to hear of somebody's loved one fighting for their life. Best wishes to you both.

Many thanks for your kind words, much apreciated.

Sadly I fear the worst, the information that is slowly drip fed by the doctors paints a very dark picture.

Dear all,

I would like to contribute both a new test case and a suggestion how to possibly avoid the problem - at a price.

Please try this: Remove one memory module so that you have just one DIMM remaining. This is known as a workaround to the same HDMI blinking out bug as ours, albeit on the PC platform.

According to this the bug only occurs with dual channel memory setups:

http://communities.intel.com/message/171244

(Apologies in case I am accidentally re-posting a link here).

Here a quick description of my setup: Mac Mini Core i7 @ 2,3 GHZ w/ 16 GB RAM. I have a dual-screen setup with two Lenovo L220x each @ 1920x1200. The display connected via the Thunderbolt->DVI adapter works fine without any trouble at all whereas on the HDMI I get flicker, interemittent snow, or permament snow (need to power cycle display) every hour or so.

Finally an interesting observation: I had exactly the same problem with my MacBook Air (2011) with an Intel HD 3000 Graphics (as opposed to the HD 4000 in the Mac Mini). The difference was that the flicker occured with a 3rd-party miniDisplayport->DVI adapter while it worked flawlessly with the corresponding Adapter from Apple.

Cheers,

-David