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10.8.4 External Display Problem

Updated my rMBP to 10.8.4. The laptop rebooted, and the external display is not displaying correctly. How can I fix this?


The monitor has never had problems until immediatly after the update. The monitor attempts to display 1920x1080, but is offset. Part of it is off the screen, and is not horizantally long enough to fill the screen anyway. (Black bar on left side).


Bootcamp Trial

Booted into Windows 7 64bit

Monitor works fine, highest available resolution is 1280 x 1024.


Tried to set Mac resolution to 1280x 1024, works, but this is noticably less resolution than I had originally, before the update.


Specs

Retina Macbook Pro

LG external monitor: FLATRON W2343T

Thunderbolt to VGA adaptor


Thanks for any help you can provide.

OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.4)

Posted on Jun 4, 2013 8:05 PM

Reply
177 replies

Jun 2, 2017 7:26 PM in response to mhgoldburg

I cannot believe I am having this issue again in 2017!


One of my Mac Minis, a late 2012 quad core i7, started booting with an 800x600 screen resolution instead of 1920x1080. The Mac Mini is connected to a BENQ G2420HDBL monitor via a mini Display Port to VGA adapter.


So, what I tried:


o PRAM reset;

o SMC reset;

o Display applet, ALT/Option Key-Click Scaled, choose 1920x1080 = correct resolution, but screen shifted about 3" to the right (black bar on left);

o Third party Display Utility - choose 1920x1080, same effect as above, shifted to the right;

o Third party utility SwitchResX - choose 1920x1080, same effect as above, shifted to the right (and unable to adjust horizontal porch to centre screen (note: in the past this was the solution that worked for me, just not this time).


The solution: using a different mini Display Port to VGA adapter and everything is as it should be. No fiddling required. Resolution perfect.


Postscript: the original mini Display Adapter works perfectly on another Mac Mini, so I speculate macOS (in this case Sierra) stores a unique id and resolution somewhere ... forever as PRAM and SMC resets do not affect it. I believe it is an operating system/software issue as I have never had the issue on the other Mac Minis which run FreeBSD for their operating systems, only on two different ones running OS X / macOS.

Jun 6, 2013 1:14 AM in response to khroy

Same problem with:


MacbookPro Mid 2009

Asus VE247 External monitor

Minidisplay port to VGA adaptor

OS X 10.8.4


Only happens with VGA resolution 1920 x 1080, others resolutions or with HDMI adaptor works fine.

In windows 7 with Bootcamp works fine.

Downgrading to 10.8.3 with Time Machine resolve the problem.


I tried with no results:


- Change to the other internal GPU (NVIDIA GeForce 9400M to NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT)

- Reset PRAM

- recalibrate screen manually.

Jun 6, 2013 12:57 PM in response to khroy

I am experiencing the same issue on my MacBook (late 2008) which is connected to a Dell U2211H via mini-DisplayPort to VGA. I have found that I am able to re-establish full screen and full resolution by sleeping the computer and then waking it again. Unfortunately this method is not always effective so sometimes it requires a single sleep while in other situations it is multiple attempts before things are back to normal. Very odd behaviour.

10.8.4 External Display Problem

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