[krs9999]

I fiddled around last night trying to connect the Mini 10v to an LCD TV using the VGA connection.

The first thing I learned the hard way - DO NOT enable (check off) the mirror display option in OS X System Preferences>Display.
You end up in a situation where all you get are vertical lines and funny windows both on the Min and on the external display and getting out of that mode is a real pain.
If you boot up on the Mini without the VGA cable plugged in, the mirror display option doesn't come up to uncheck it and if you boot up with the external display connected via VGA, you can't see the mirror display option to uncheck it.
In the second scenario, the box is actually there as far as the Mini and OS X are concerned and some people just kept clicking in the vicinity where they thought the check box was and eventually succeeded - I must have tried that for close to an hour and finally gave up and found a terminal command to turn mirroring off.
So as I said - don't ever turn mirroring on (unless you downloaded and installed a patch I saw on the net) or you'll have the same headache I did.

OK - to hook up VGA.
For one thing - the obvious way of connecting the external monitor or TV to the VGA port on the Mini and booting up the Mini does not work.
It should in my opinion, but all you get is a somewhat smaller display on the Mini - looks like a standard 3:4 ratio and nothing on the external display. My external display btw was a wide screen 32-inch LCD TV with a VGA input.

The way I got mine working is to boot up the Mini on OS X with nothing connected to the VGA output of the Mini.
Once the Mini was fully booted, plug the VGA cable from the external display into the VGA port of the Mini.
The display on the Mini should now change to just the background you had selected and it will go to the smaller screen and the Desktop of the Mini will appear on the external LCD display.
If it doesn't, go into System Preferences>Display>Appearance and drag the narrow white band on the top of the left display (representing the task bar) to the display on the right (which is your external)
Resolution will be whatever your external display is - you don't have to adjust anything. You can check that it's the maximum which will give you the sharpest picture.

One abnormality I noticed was the dock. I keep my dock hidden on the left side of the screen. That didn't work with the external. The dock still shows up on the Mini or you can move the dock to the bottom of the screen, then it shows up on the external display.

Tried the same thing with a 17-inch LCD monitor (4:3 aspect ratio).
Same procedure - just booting up the Mini with the external display already connected would not work.
If you already booted up this way, you can just unplug the VGA cable on the Mini, either wait or hit the space bar or touchpad - eventually the normal display will come back and then you can plug the VGA cable back in and proceed as above.

[nerdlord20]

I don't have the option to uncheck (or check) mirroring. If a plug in a vga cable after it boots up, will i have any problems?

[krs9999]

The "mirroring" option only shows up after the Mac OS detects that there is a second monitor connected. You should see the option after you connect the external display - just don't click to enable mirroring like I did.
If you don't see your desktop on the extertal display automatically, go to the Arrangement" tab (I think that's what it's called and grab the long narrow bar above the left window and drag it into the right window.'
You can't really mess anything up as long as you don't click on "mirroring".
After I had miroring disabled again via the terminal, I tried all sorts of combination to get the external display to come up automatically when one boots up with the external display connected, but nothing worked - you had to have the 10v booted first and then connect the monitor.

[krs9999]

I just found out something else odd.
When the display is on the external monitor, the cursor will only show when one is using a mouse with the Mini.
When one is using the track pad, the cursor shows on the Mini screen not the external monitor. Don't know how to fix that.

[nerdlord20]

that most be a problem for you- i can use the trackpad just fine on the connected screen. thanks for the help though. if I were u i'd mess around with this some more.

[krs9999]

I find that trackpad and mouse operation are inconsistent.
I have also had connections to an external ,monitor where the mouse cursor initially only showed up on the Mini screen and I needed to iunplug and replug the VGA cable to get the mouse cursor to show on the external screen.
Never did get the trackpad cursor to show up there yet.

In my mind, this is a crude work-around only. Shouldn't one be able to have the external monitor plugged in before booting up and then everything shows up on the external automatically, that would be my expectation.

I only use the external monitor to watch videos - much nicer on a bigger screen and higher resolution.

[M20JJL]

i unticked the mirror bit on the drop down at the top how did you get over that because all i get is all the lines also i have installed the mirror patch afterwards no joy please help

yes i have done the same as krs9999

how did you fix it ?

regards
M20jjl:con fused:

[krs9999]

Sorry - I hadn't checked back here for a few days.
Did you boot up the 10V first completely and only then plug in the external monitor?
And then if necessary drag the simulated toolbar in the display preferences to the external display to make that the primary one.

As to "mirror patch" what is that and where do you find it?

[skipper]

Hi guys.

I have dell mini 10v with 10.6.4, installed with windows transmac process (10.6.0) and installed NBI from HERE, and then updated to 10.6.4. I now tried to connect it with my LCD TV through VGA cable (resolution is 1024x768), with no success. When I plug the cable into my mini, the screen goes white and there's nothing, I can do but turn it off by pushing the power button for 5 seconds. The same happens when booting with vga cable connected. The apple logo spinning and after about a minute, when the icons should start showing on desktop, the screen goes white.

Any ideas on this? When I go to About my mac in graphic card I don't see anything about ci/qe. Where can I check, if it is turned on?

Thank you in advance.

Best regards.

[M20JJL]

hi i booted the 10v with the update 10.6.4 all worked fine on the top where the display screen is i clicked on that and it had a tick on the mirror so un ticked it nothing when i plugged in the vga excepted for lines ect . so i then downloaded the patch still the same although i plugged in a monitor yesterday i got the purple picture clear on the other monitor then went to lines

now just goes to the lines all over the screen

i plug in the vga after the laptop is booted right up

oh also then when i unplug the vga the lap top goes back to normal

regards M20JJL

---------- Post added at 09:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:39 PM ----------

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