Q: Mac Mini 2012 video blinking out

Gonna pile on with mine.  Got my new mini on Tuesday, set it up today (intending to use it as a Plex media server).  I've plugged it into an LG 32 HD LCD HDMI --> HDMI.  Every 1 to 2 hours, it the display wigs out.  You see all sorts of blocky colored patterns over what remains of the last frame that was on screen before the crash.

Unplugging and reseating the HDMI cable on either or both ends produces nothing but alternating blank screen and "snow" screen.  Turning the LCD on and off makes no difference. 

Tried ECM reset.  Still happens. 

Tried safe boot and then restarting again after it comes back.  We'll see if that did any good, but I'm not holding my breath.

Oh, I do agree that Intel Grahics are the worst, I'd not even accept a computer for fre that had that, much less pay for one, thanks for your report!

Thanks for the report, still quite a mystery, since Mike hasn't seen the problem on his Mini.

Anybody tried re-applying the 10.8.2 update?

I wish I had a video of what I just saw on my monitors. Yesterday my Thunderbolt port died but I left the monitor connected to it and turned on. Just now my HDMI-DVI connected monitor rapidly faded to blue, then back to normal. Then again. Then my Thunderbolt-DVI monitor fired up, then blanked. Then the two monitors alternated back and forth blinking a couple of times before the HDMI monitor went blue for several seconds and then slowly faded to a normal image.

Very impressive show. I think my mini is telling me to revert back to my old MacBook before I lose both displays.

Last night I updated from 10.8.1 to 10.8.2 & SMC reset.  The blink/snow issue persists.

I was forced to roll back to my old MacBook early than I hoped when the mini's monitors started rapidly ping-ponging back and forth as to which one was on and which one was blanked. This continued until I yanked the Thunderbolt display out. But I took the hint, complete display failure was imminent.

I'll be returning the mini to the Apple Store and asking for a refund. I'll wait until Apple finally speaks up and offers a solution before buying a mini again.

It is extremely painful rolling back from a 2.3 GHz i7, 16 GB, with Fusion drive back to an early 2008 MacBook running Lion. Soooo slow.

Thanks.

I really think you may be onto something with this one.  Like some other people in this thread, I got my Mini to setup as an HTPC (with Plex, in my case).

I have the low-end, dual core i5. 

I started out setting up my new Plex with changing out the stock RAM for two 8 GB DIMMs.  I ran the system migration tool to move settings from my old Mini, did the Software Updates that were available (10.8.2, principal among them), then installed Plex Media Server and the OSX Plex client on it.  All my media is stored separately on a ReadyNAS NV+.  All the Mini does is serve up the content.  Plex will sense if you have the media you are trying to catalogue on a network drive and prompts for credentials needed to access it so it will make sure the connections stay alive and mounted.  Did that, and the drives are getting mounted and staying mounted after PMS launches.  So far, so good.

However, once I set out to catalogue the various locations using Plex Media Manager, or play any of the videos it did manage to catalogue, I'd get a kernel panic, or something that looked like them within 30 to 60 minutes every time.  The screen would get a bunch of colored boxes in  various places over what was left of the image that was displaying, and the box would be completely inaccessible through VNC, ssh, ScreenSharing, pings, and anything I'd try.  I'd also get the blank screens and snow.  Unplugging and plugging the HDMI cables in again did nothing.  It would actually produce the snow and screen blanking, post-kernel panic.  Turning the LCD on and off again likewise did nothing.

I also tried looking through the Console for clues, but didn't see much that appeared to be related to this in any way.  I had three instances of a Plex Media Server crash there, but nothing reflecting the volume of actual system failures I was experiencing.  I also tried completely shutting off Spotlight indexing, in case that was interefing for some reason.  Didn't help. Tried an SMC reset.  No improvement.

I finally pulled the DIMM out of Bank 1 as your link suggested.  I haven't had a kernel panic, HDMI dropout, snow/blank screen since, and it's now been nearly 18 hours where previously it was an hourly occurance.

So, BDAqua.  I'm curious, can you explain maybe why having multiple RAM channels filled would maybe make all the difference?  Is it some bad interaction between the dedicated VRAM, GPU, and paging out to system RAM when that gets maxed out during certain operations?  I really don't understand the hardware and OS well enough to know down at that level and probably sound like an idiot.

I got on the phone with an Apple tech this moring and described all of this to him.  We checked the health of the disk and did a permissions verify and all was right with the world there.  He waited while I catalogued a large collection of TV shows on my NAS and it sailed right through.  Before pulling the RAM in Bank 1, that would have gaurateed a crash a little less than half way through that operation.

Interestingly, entries in the Console have also calmed down in frequency quite a bit.

I'll allow that this may still be somehow be Plex related, but since pulling a DIMM seems to have completely resolved this issue, I'm leaning toward this being something more likely hardware- or OS-related.

Has anyone else out there tried removing the top-most stick of RAM (the one on top when you open the case) and met with success other than me?

I'm currently running a catalague on my NAS-based music library, which contains tens-of-thousands of small files and has been running for over two hours, and haven't noticed even the slightest hiccup.  I'll report back here with the results.  I can get all the way through that, and playback a bunch of video for, say, three or four days without issue, I think I'll be writing this up and posting my story to http://www.apple.com/feedback/

I'm also going cross-post this to the Plex forums and see what they have to say as well.

I'd be interested to hear from anyone else what they've tried and if it worked.

Thanks!

>So, BDAqua.  I'm curious, can you explain maybe why having multiple RAM channels filled would maybe make >all the difference?  Is it some bad interaction between the dedicated VRAM, GPU, and paging out to system >RAM when that gets maxed out during certain operations?

Looks like memory mapping or allocation in the HD4000 is faulty.  Question is, is there a workaround using the MRC code or is it a hardware fault?

I experienced my second blink today.  calling apple

Music catalogue just completed.  Still up and running.  No crash.  Watched a short video no problem.  Started a feature length video and so far no issues.

Unless I see another acid-trip-kernel-panic/HDMI-drop/snowstorn, I'm going to be convinced this is it.

One stick of RAM to rule them all, apparently.

Returned Mini to Apple store this morning before 14 days are up.  Not going to buy another until Apple fixes problem.  Totally UNSAT.

I've also got this problem. Late 2012 Mac Mini 2.5Ghz i5.  HDMI to DVI connected to Dell 23" monitor.

10Gb of RAM installed (8GB Crucial and 2GB Apple)

Both the black screen and less occasionally the 'snow screen' described here.

I've never had any issue with the screen connected via DVI to an old Macbook (2006) or via Thunderbolt / MiniDisplayport to a Macbook Pro (2009) or Macbook Air (2012).

Definitely a Mac Mini issue.  Seems pretty random.  Just used for the last hour and can't replicate it.

It might be useful if we can post some console logs directly after it happens to see if there's anything related.  I think the below is related to mine as it also happened earlier in the afternoon and there were similar logs, but I'll post up again immediately after it happens again and will try via the Thunderbolt port to see if it occurs with that connection.

11/11/2012 19:20:41.118 WindowServer[115]: CGXSetWindowBackgroundBlurRadius: Invalid window 0xffffffff

11/11/2012 19:20:41.121 loginwindow[63]: find_shared_window: WID -1

11/11/2012 19:20:41.121 loginwindow[63]: CGSGetWindowTags: Invalid window 0xffffffff

11/11/2012 19:20:41.121 loginwindow[63]: find_shared_window: WID -1

11/11/2012 19:20:41.121 loginwindow[63]: CGSSetWindowTags: Invalid window 0xffffffff

11/11/2012 19:20:41.122 loginwindow[63]: find_shared_window: WID 18

11/11/2012 19:20:41.259 WindowServer[115]: Created shield window 0xa9 for display 0x2b28508e

11/11/2012 19:20:41.260 WindowServer[115]: device_generate_desktop_screenshot: authw 0x7f9079484910(2000), shield 0x7f907947d1d0(2001)

11/11/2012 19:20:41.316 WindowServer[115]: device_generate_lock_screen_screenshot: authw 0x7f9079484910(2000), shield 0x7f907947d1d0(2001)

Sorry, can't explain it, but I can see that sharing RAM as VRAM could be a big timing problem.

Off to see if the one I know about that has no problem has only one stick of RAM.

Hi, I've read the various posts suggesting a ram interaction with the hd 4000. To those people who are developing this theory please incorporate the fact that most people do not seem to get the blank screens or snow while using the mini display port?

Is it possible the mdp and hdmi ports use a different code path, because they are most certainly sharing the same ram.

For what it's worth I've been running for days now on mini display port to DVI with no problems. I still want the hdmi port fixed and I am still considering returning the mac.