MAC Mini early 2009 and Benq GL2450 24 inch

Question

MAC Mini early 2009 and Benq GL2450 24 inch

Hi there,

MAC Mini early 2009, 6GB RAM, 500Gb HDD, OS X 10.11.2. Two partitions:

1. OS X 10.11.2

2. Windows 7 32 bits

Last week I bought a new monitor, a Benq GL2450 with 24 inch. From the first day, I disconected my old monitor and connected the new one while MAC Mini was running under OS X partition. It worked perfect. Clear image and fine resolution of 1920 px by 1080 px. Few hours later I switched to Windows partition and it also worked fine.

Next day, on December 31 when I started my ccomputer under OS X 10.11 I noticed that the monitor resolution was not OK. Was less then 1920x1080. I decided to start booting in SafeMode. Resolution was fine. It worked perfectly. I rebooted in normal mode and I experienced same weird resolution. Then I decided to:

1. SMTC Reset

2. PRAM Reset

While booting in normal mode I noticed same weird resolution and the OS was starting to work so slow. It took minutes to open any applications. I decided to restart MAC under Windows 7. I can work on it normaly at the right resolution. So, in my opinion it has nothing to do with video card.

Some people ssuggested to try using another monitor on my MAC and see how it works. So, I took my wife's monitor a BENQ GL2250 with 22inch. I cconnected it to my MAC and booted in normal mode. It worked fine. What was even weird is that OS was working fine. No slow motion, no delays, no slags nothing. I decidded to connect my new monitor instead of my wife's monitor. It was fine for 2 minutes or less when suddenly resolution was changed back to a lower resolution and OS started to work slow.

My wife is using a MAC Mini late 2010 and as I already stated a BENQ monitor with only 22 inch. Her monitor is connected to MAC by HDMI, while my monitor is connected via VGA to mini-display port connector. I connected her monitor using the same connector: VGA to Mini-Display port. Therefore I am not sure the conectivity is anything to do with this behaviour.

Tomorrow I'll try to connect my new monitor to her MAC via VAG to Mini-display port and see hhow it works. Hopefully her OS will not get wotking slow and she will not experience same issues as I am experiencing.

At this stage I am re-installing OS X 10.11. Not yet sure if it helps. Certainly a simple repair did no magic at all. Hopefully a fresh install will correct this behaviour.

However, I am opened to any suggestions and I will be gratefull for any pace of advice.

Sincerely,

Sebastian

Mac mini, OS X Yosemite (10.10), Pages 5.5.3

Posted on Jan 4, 2016 1:56 PM

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Answer 1

lllaass

Level 10

210,519 points

Jan 4, 2016 1:58 PM in response to sebatian.codrut

Try one of these apps:

SwitchResX _ Resolution Control For Mac

Display Menu from Mac App Store

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Answer 2

Jan 5, 2016 12:24 AM in response to lllaass

Thank you for your answer. I think it has nothing to do with that new monitor. I just connected this new BENQ 24 inch monitor to my wife's MAC Mini and it works fine. In the meantime, last night I tried to install on my MAC a fresh OS X 10.11 and it didn't worked. I can only guess that in the end is the HDD that created all those issues. Tomorrow I will receive a SSD and I will connect it to my MAC and try a fresh install of OS X 10.11.

Anyway, as a general idea during tests both monitors were connected to MAC Mini computers via VGA to Mini Display Port connector. Therefore it has nothing to do with video card or connector(s).

However, once I will install OS X on SSD and if the resolution will still be lower I will try the application you recommend.

Once again, thank you so much for your time.

Sincerely,

Sebastian

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Answer 3

Jan 5, 2016 1:36 PM in response to lllaass

Hi there,

It's me again. Tomorrow (my time) I will receive the SSD for my MAC Mini. I wonder whether I can install OS X 10.11 on it. As I recall the MAC Mini early 2009 came with its own DVDs with OS X 10.6 (if I am correct). In order to upgrade to OS Maverick I had to buy OS X 10.8. Only then I could update to OS X 10.9 and further more to OS X 10.11. But all those updates came over an already installed OS X 10.8. Therefore is there any chance to make a Boot Drive for OS X 10.11 and fresh install it on my MAC Mini early 2009 with SSD? Or I will be forced to download an older version of OS X install that one and then updating to OS X 10.11. If moving to an older version what would that be?

Thank you.

Sebastian

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Answer 4

lllaass

Level 10

210,519 points

Jan 5, 2016 1:54 PM in response to sebatian.codrut

You can only download Mavericks and Yosemite if you previous "purchased" them from the Mac App Store

- Download the appropriate OSX installer. They should be listed in the Purchased section of the Mac App Store if you previously downloaded them with the ID you are using.

- Make a bootable USB media using the following:

DiskMaker X

- Boot from that media

- Format the startup disk and install OSX from the bootable media

Same for Lion and Mountain Lion but y can also purchase a download code from them They are not free.

You said "In order to upgrade to OS Maverick I had to buy OS X 10.8." That is not true. You can go directly from SL to Mavericks or Lion to Mavericks.

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Answer 5

Jan 6, 2016 3:30 AM in response to lllaass

Hi,

Thank you for your reply. I am sure that I had to buy that OS. I even remember paying 19 EUROs on it. Otherwise I could not make the upgrade from my original OS that came with my MAC and OS X Mountain Lion. The purchase was made November 12, 2012. Then the following OS X were upgraded for free: OS X Mavericks on October 23, 2013; OS X Yosemite on October 17, 2014; OS X El Capitan October 1, 2015.

Anyway, I created a bootable USB drive using DiskMaker X5 and I put Mavericks on it. Then I tried to install it on my old HDD until the new one will come. But it didn't work. It shows me that is installing, then is rebooting and that's all. With OS X Mavericks it was blocked on a grey screen with a grey wheel showing me that it is still working. I left it from 2 AM to 10 AM. Nothing happened. Same grey screen. Before that, when I tried installing OS X El Capitan it did the same just the screen was different. After rebooting it was a dark grey screen with a progress bar that was filling up to 100% and froze in there. Also left it for several hours without seeing any improvements. Despite the fact that I tried for several times to install OS X El Capitan on that hard, at some points I got some messages on the screen and the computer was forced to reboot displaying a message in several languages: Your computer restarted due to an error (or something similar). That never happened when tried to install Maverick, but to El Capitan.

Start to think that it is definitely a failure of my HDD. Though there are no noises made by it. Still puzzled that it permits to do almost entire process.

Anyway, thank you for your support.

Sebastian

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Answer 6

lllaass

Level 10

210,519 points

Jan 6, 2016 8:07 AM in response to sebatian.codrut

When booted from the USB install media can you successfully repair/first aid the HD?

I do suspect a hardware problem.

If you get the message again

"I got some messages on the screen and the computer was forced to reboot displaying a message in several languages: Your computer restarted due to an error (or something similar)."

Take a photo and post it here. It has to be readable

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