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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Problem With Monitor Display
dlbk - Mar 29, 2005 - 11:55 am
Hi -
I have a G5 workstation with a 2nd monitor configured. I shut down for the weekend as I normally do at work, and when I powered up yesterday, my settings had changed. The screen resolution on my 2nd monitor now is stuck at 640 x 480, with no options to change (previously it was the same as my main monitor, 1152 x 870). When I go into preferences / display, the 2nd monitor has screen resolutions greyed out, so I can't change it. Is there another way around this?
My Photoshop tools also were messed up - all popping to the main monitor (I design on the main, tools are all on the 2nd monitor), and the dock had popped from the main monitor to the 2nd one. Very strange. This has never happened before and no one was working on this over the weekend.
Any thoughts how I can return the screen resoltion on monitor #2 back to it's former self?
Thanks,
Deb
I have a G5 workstation with a 2nd monitor configured. I shut down for the weekend as I normally do at work, and when I powered up yesterday, my settings had changed. The screen resolution on my 2nd monitor now is stuck at 640 x 480, with no options to change (previously it was the same as my main monitor, 1152 x 870). When I go into preferences / display, the 2nd monitor has screen resolutions greyed out, so I can't change it. Is there another way around this?
My Photoshop tools also were messed up - all popping to the main monitor (I design on the main, tools are all on the 2nd monitor), and the dock had popped from the main monitor to the 2nd one. Very strange. This has never happened before and no one was working on this over the weekend.
Any thoughts how I can return the screen resoltion on monitor #2 back to it's former self?
Thanks,
Deb
Jmassey79 - Mar 30, 2005 - 9:14 am
Hi Deb
I too have a second monitor on my G5 here at work. and I have had 3 second monitors (I keep getting my hands on old LCD's that are all washed out). However when I had the same problem as you, all I needed to do was disconnect the monitor and restart the machine. Please give this a try and get back to me. If this does not work I will see what else we can do.
-John
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dlbk - Mar 30, 2005 - 11:01 am
Hi John -
Thanks for the reply. I unplugged everything - plugs to both monitors as well as connections at the tower, and no luck. I still have no options for res with my secondary display. Hmmm. This one is really stumping me! Any other thoughts?
Thanks,
Deb
Thanks for the reply. I unplugged everything - plugs to both monitors as well as connections at the tower, and no luck. I still have no options for res with my secondary display. Hmmm. This one is really stumping me! Any other thoughts?
Thanks,
Deb
Jmassey79 - Mar 30, 2005 - 11:44 pm
Ok on to the fun stuff. Im thinking that you settings are all messed up... We might want to reset the pmu chip just to make sure we get everything back to defults. What you need to do for this one is to open up the side of your G5 after you unplug the power. Inside on the left side of the mother board down near the bottom is a small button black button. You want to press and hold this button for about 10 seconds. After this is done try again. If this does not help at all you may want to try another display if you can get your hands on one without too much trouble. Always good to rule out the monitor as well.
Hope this helps,
-John
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dlbk - Mar 31, 2005 - 10:03 am
Hi John -
Guess I have to say I might be a tad hesitant to open the computer and start fooling around - but it's worth a try - as long as it's fairly evident what button I need to push and don't screw things up!
It seems strange that the second monitor settings would get messed up just by powering down - the monitor is just a bit over a year old (the entire system is, actually). I may not get to it till next week (I'm off tomorrow), but will let you know the results when I do.
Thanks again and have a great weekend!
Deb
Guess I have to say I might be a tad hesitant to open the computer and start fooling around - but it's worth a try - as long as it's fairly evident what button I need to push and don't screw things up!
It seems strange that the second monitor settings would get messed up just by powering down - the monitor is just a bit over a year old (the entire system is, actually). I may not get to it till next week (I'm off tomorrow), but will let you know the results when I do.
Thanks again and have a great weekend!
Deb
Jmassey79 - Apr 1, 2005 - 9:45 am
Deb,
Take a deep breath and realax. The inside is not that scary, and yes the small button you are looking for should be the only one in the case. The other option that may or may not help would be to reset the Pram at boot, to do this you need to hold 4 keys at boot, they are apple, option, 'P', and 'R'. and you need to hold them till your mac chimes about 5 times or so and then start up and see what happens.... I forgot about this part and maybe you should try it before we brave the case... Have a good weekend yourself.
-John
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dlbk - Apr 4, 2005 - 12:31 pm
Hi John -
I'm back at work after a long weekend - I just tried your suggestion to reboot and hold the apple, option, P & R keys. There was no change in my screen display, however.
In resetting the pmu chip, could you tell me what settings will be changed - or are all settings across the board changed? I might want to make a note of my settings wherever I've changed them to remind myself, as many were changed when I first started on this machine and I might not recall what they were.
Thanks,
Deb
I'm back at work after a long weekend - I just tried your suggestion to reboot and hold the apple, option, P & R keys. There was no change in my screen display, however.
In resetting the pmu chip, could you tell me what settings will be changed - or are all settings across the board changed? I might want to make a note of my settings wherever I've changed them to remind myself, as many were changed when I first started on this machine and I might not recall what they were.
Thanks,
Deb
Jmassey79 - Apr 5, 2005 - 9:10 am
Hi Deb,
Sorry to hear that things sitll aren't working for you. The PMU reset on the board resets any setting related to hardware, time, network setup, power options, Hopefully display settings, and i think sound. I would still take a look at most of the sttings to make sure it dosent get anything eise, but i think that is it.
Also I think its time to try the display on another machine and see what it does there. At this point what could it hurt.
-John
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dlbk - Apr 5, 2005 - 10:36 am
Hi John -
I'll try the pmu at end of day tomorrow (my last day of the week).
I'm not exactly sure what you mean when you say to try the display on another machine. Could you clarify? (switch out my small, 2nd monitor and try another in its place? I'm not sure if I'll be able to do that, as I work in a small office of 4 and we have no extra monitors around, but I can put in a request)
Thanks,
Deb
I'll try the pmu at end of day tomorrow (my last day of the week).
I'm not exactly sure what you mean when you say to try the display on another machine. Could you clarify? (switch out my small, 2nd monitor and try another in its place? I'm not sure if I'll be able to do that, as I work in a small office of 4 and we have no extra monitors around, but I can put in a request)
Thanks,
Deb
Jmassey79 - Apr 5, 2005 - 12:52 pm
Not quite deb, however this would be a good idea as well, What I ment was to move your monitor to one of your coworkers machines ( lunch sounds like a good time, or right before you both go home). And then see how the monior acts on their machine, as a stand alone, and then a second display if all goes well. What this will do is test the monitor seperate from you machine, allowing us to know whatis going on.
-good luck, and if you dont want to dive into your machine yet ( and trust me i understand that) this would be a better next step.
-John
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dlbk - Apr 5, 2005 - 12:59 pm
John -
Thanks for the clarification. As it happens, a co-worker is out today and tomorrow, so I could possibly do that. One question: I'm the only one using a G5 (the other two stations are G4s, but we're all running 10.2.8) - does that make a difference? The other thing - I'm the only one running two monitors. I guess I'll keep fingers crossed and hope the pmu does the trick.
Thanks again,
Deb
Thanks for the clarification. As it happens, a co-worker is out today and tomorrow, so I could possibly do that. One question: I'm the only one using a G5 (the other two stations are G4s, but we're all running 10.2.8) - does that make a difference? The other thing - I'm the only one running two monitors. I guess I'll keep fingers crossed and hope the pmu does the trick.
Thanks again,
Deb
dlbk - Apr 15, 2005 - 12:35 pm
Hi John -
Success! I finally had time to open the case and reset the PMU chip. My second monitor is now showing available options for various screen resolutions where before everything was greyed out save for the lowest res.
Your description of where to find the chip was perfect - we located it in a few seconds, pressed for 10 seconds and that was it!
Thanks again for all your help - you made my day!!
Deb
Success! I finally had time to open the case and reset the PMU chip. My second monitor is now showing available options for various screen resolutions where before everything was greyed out save for the lowest res.
Your description of where to find the chip was perfect - we located it in a few seconds, pressed for 10 seconds and that was it!
Thanks again for all your help - you made my day!!
Deb
Jmassey79 - Apr 16, 2005 - 4:14 pm
Great Deb,
Glad to hear that everything went well. Enjoy and if you have any more problems you need help with just check back in and I'll see what I can do for you.
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Glad to hear that everything went well. Enjoy and if you have any more problems you need help with just check back in and I'll see what I can do for you.
--------
Thank you for choosing macosx.com
dlbk - Apr 19, 2005 - 10:44 am
Ooops John - I spoke too soon! 
When I started up my system after the weekend, it reverted back to it's previous condition - with the small monitor's resolution at its lowest res. Does this mean I need to reset the PMU chip each time after I shut down?
Thanks,
Deb
When I started up my system after the weekend, it reverted back to it's previous condition - with the small monitor's resolution at its lowest res. Does this mean I need to reset the PMU chip each time after I shut down?
Thanks,
Deb
dlbk - Apr 19, 2005 - 12:33 pm
John - I just tried resetting the PMU chip again - and unlike last week, it didn't positively affect the monitor this time, so I'm back to square one. Any ideas? This is a curoius one!
Thanks,
Deb
Thanks,
Deb
Jmassey79 - Apr 19, 2005 - 9:34 pm
Hey there Deb,
Ok, so now you are starting to get me here.... I'm just not sure on this one anymore, I am sorry that the PMU reset did not help.
Did you write this post to the forum?
http://www.macosx.com/forums/showthr...hlight=monitor
Because if you did then you have read my mind. I will keep trying to look up a solution for you on this one. but it is just odd. The only think that I can think of from here is to change the battery on the logic Board ( which is only slightly more difficult than resetting the PMU) but you would know if that was dead, your clock would alway be wrong in the morning (unless you set your time via the network, in system prefs)
I am going to send this to the tech forum as well and see what pops up.
Sorry I'm out of ideas for now, but no worries I don't give up.
-John
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Ok, so now you are starting to get me here.... I'm just not sure on this one anymore, I am sorry that the PMU reset did not help.
Did you write this post to the forum?
http://www.macosx.com/forums/showthr...hlight=monitor
Because if you did then you have read my mind. I will keep trying to look up a solution for you on this one. but it is just odd. The only think that I can think of from here is to change the battery on the logic Board ( which is only slightly more difficult than resetting the PMU) but you would know if that was dead, your clock would alway be wrong in the morning (unless you set your time via the network, in system prefs)
I am going to send this to the tech forum as well and see what pops up.
Sorry I'm out of ideas for now, but no worries I don't give up.
-John
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dlbk - Apr 20, 2005 - 10:30 am
Hi John -
My clock always reads the correct time, whether I shut down, crash, disconnect from the server, etc. Another designer here said his clock will get messed up if he gets disconnected from the server, or if I shut down. (for some reason, my system has been designated as the Alpha computer and if I shut down, the printer doesn't work for anyone, etc.)
So, I don't think the battery is the problem. It does seem strange that resetting the PMU did the trick the first time but not the second. The only variable is that the first time I did it, I unplugged everything from the tower. This last time I just unplugged the monitor and power cord from the strip.
RE: the message on the forum - no - that wasn't me. I didn't know about the forum. I somehow got a link into this Q & A area and actually haven't had time to mosey around to see what else was here. Should I pose this question there?
Thanks for all your help,
Deb
My clock always reads the correct time, whether I shut down, crash, disconnect from the server, etc. Another designer here said his clock will get messed up if he gets disconnected from the server, or if I shut down. (for some reason, my system has been designated as the Alpha computer and if I shut down, the printer doesn't work for anyone, etc.)
So, I don't think the battery is the problem. It does seem strange that resetting the PMU did the trick the first time but not the second. The only variable is that the first time I did it, I unplugged everything from the tower. This last time I just unplugged the monitor and power cord from the strip.
RE: the message on the forum - no - that wasn't me. I didn't know about the forum. I somehow got a link into this Q & A area and actually haven't had time to mosey around to see what else was here. Should I pose this question there?
Thanks for all your help,
Deb
Jmassey79 - Apr 20, 2005 - 12:37 pm
no, that is just it, someone else is having the same problem as you on the forums. I will keep an eye on it for you and see if anything comes out of it. I have also put this ticket on our tech forums and will be checking there as well.
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dlbk - Apr 20, 2005 - 12:38 pm
Thanks John - much appreciated!
Deb
Deb
Jmassey79 - Apr 21, 2005 - 8:41 pm
Ok Deb,
I got a suggestion to clean out your system cache. The best program that I have found to do this is called "OnyX" http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/20070 is a direct link to the download page. Its Beta but I have found it very stable. I would just go to the cleaning tab and clean out almost everything ( its good to do now and then anyway ) and maybe rebuild the permissions as well.... None of this should hurt your system, But if you dont have a recent backup, you may want one of those before hand just in case......
Cant hurt, might help.
Goodluck and ill keep looking for more info.
-John
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dlbk - Apr 26, 2005 - 10:39 am
Thanks again John - I think this may be starting to get into an area I don't feel very comfortable in, so I may hand it over to the guys who occasionally help us out with this sort of stuff. Someone else had suggested perhaps it might be the graphics card, so we'll check into that also.
Thanks,
Deb
Thanks,
Deb
Jmassey79 - Apr 26, 2005 - 3:35 pm
no problem Deb,
But dont worry too much about cleaning out the cache files, this is something the system does anyway if you leave it run overnight. Apple set the cleanup scripts to run at like 4am... it wolnt hurt the system to try. The worst thing that will happen is your computer may run alittle slow, but that is only if something odd happens, i clean out my caches every week.... well atleast lately... it has solved alot of my small issues.
good luck
-John
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dlbk - Apr 26, 2005 - 4:08 pm
OK - I'll try that and see if it helps. Do you think this could be a video card issue?
Thanks,
Deb
Thanks,
Deb
Jmassey79 - Apr 27, 2005 - 7:35 pm
im starting to think that if the cache files do no good then we need to explore the library files, then maybe the card.... the bad thing about OSX is that things have alot of levels, the good thing, once you know where to look almost anything can be fixed... but yes it could be the card
-john
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dlbk - Apr 28, 2005 - 10:15 am
John -
I'm going to see if I can get to it this afternoon - we have a heavy deadline today and hopefully I can't get that out of the way with time left to try your suggestion, as I don't work Fridays.
Thanks again,
Deb
I'm going to see if I can get to it this afternoon - we have a heavy deadline today and hopefully I can't get that out of the way with time left to try your suggestion, as I don't work Fridays.
Thanks again,
Deb
Jmassey79 - Apr 28, 2005 - 12:22 pm
good luck Deb,
Let me know what happens
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Let me know what happens
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