Apple Mac Mini Incorrectly Detects Some Monitors

I was recently graced with the frustration of monitor troubles on a Apple Mac Mini. A family member bought a Mac Mini, with the intention of using their previous LCD monitor with it. Save on costs, so on, just how Apple promote their product.

The problem was, after having set it up, the Mac Mini suddenly stopped working with the monitor. The monitor would display a message saying "Out of Range." An hour on the phone with AppleCare turned up nothing more than "Your monitor must not be supported by our product." Which was disappointing to say the least. The monitor, connected via VGA, should work without any sort of support requirements.

I worked out that the Mac Mini must be detecting their LCD monitor as another panel that had a higher maximum refresh rate. Apple's products when automatically detecting a monitor, set the monitor to it's native resolution and maximum refresh rate. Unfortunately for us that meant it was setting the monitor to a refresh rate it couldn't support.

The solution was to use a second working monitor to boot the device up and enable screen sharing. We could then connect their monitor, Detect Displays and wait for the display to go black and say "Out of Range." Then via Screen Sharing, we could go into the Display Settings and set the frequency to 75 which was in range for the monitor.

What was more concerning about this experience was that AppleCare could be of no help to us. It was a simple solution really. My only concern now is if the mini ever decides to "rediscover" what type of monitor is connected and they get stuck with it running at 85 again. Ultimately Mac OS X should, on detecting a monitor, set it to it's lowest refresh rate, like Windows does.

For reference the monitor is a BroMagic LCD 17" VT7V71, the same as a Northgate VT7V71, and many other rebrandings. The monitor was falsly detected as a PV1710, a panel used in a Sun, Advueu and VHT monitor.

This shouldn't be a reason to use only Apple supported monitors. I encourage you if you have any problems like this to perserve. Just because Apple don't support a monitor, doesn't mean that the monitor's manufacturer should have to suffer the sale loss.