External Monitor "out of range" when Macbook is closed.

Question

Level 1

8 points

External Monitor "out of range" when Macbook is closed.

I have a late 2009 13-in macbook that i cannot get to work with my external monitor when the lid is closed. The monitor works great when the lid is open in a variety of display resolutions. The display has worked for a few seconds at a time in the past but never longer than that. The computer does not go to sleep when this happens and the display does pick up the signal... it just changes to be out of range regardless of what resolution the screen is in when I close it.

I have deleted the plist files associated with the display and system preferences along with a variety of other solutions that I found on the web and can't seem to get any of them to work including installing the latest OS X El Capitan (10.11.6).

Any thoughts?

MacBook, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6), VGA adapter

Posted on Sep 5, 2016 7:05 PM

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Answer 1

brenden dv

Community Specialist

Sep 6, 2016 6:09 PM in response to sbuhr

Hello sbuhr,

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.

I understand from your post that you cannot get your MacBook to work properly with your external monitor when the lid is closed. In a situation like this I recommend the following article to make sure everything is set up properly for you:

Use your Mac notebook computer in closed-display mode with an external display

Best Regards

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Answer 2

sbuhr Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 6, 2016 7:38 PM in response to brenden dv

Hi Brenden,

Unfortunately, I tried all of those solutions and they did not work. The problem seems to be that the macbook is either changing the frequency of the signal or the resolution when the lid closes. Any thoughts?

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