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Question

MBP and external monitor screens go blank

Jun 3, 2012 3:50AM PDT

Hello all!

Am writing because I have felt a little alarmed by a couple of display blackouts (while connected to an external display) of my Macbook Prof laptop, and am unsure if this is potentially serious.

So, whenever I am at home I use my MBP (Dec 2010, OS X 10.6, Core 2 Duo) along with an external monitor (Viewsonic). I have not had any problems in using the two together, and the connector I bought from Mono Price has worked fine so far.

However, a couple of days ago, when I was trying to move around an MS Word window and click dragging it, the screen suddenly went blank. All I could see was a light bluish background. Eventually, I had to do the worst thing possible - force shutdowm the laptop by pressing the boot button.

Today, I was watching a movie, and left my table for some time after pausing VLC. When I returned I just saw a blank screen with a black background, and again nothing would make it go away. So, again I had to force shutdown my laptop :o(

Is this perhaps some problem with the connector which I am using to transfer the display to the external monitor? Or could it be something more serious with the laptop itself?

How can I avoid such situations?

Thanks!

Discussion is locked

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Answer
While possibly a sign of a more serious problem,
Jun 3, 2012 6:50AM PDT

let's try the basics first.

Remove the external monitor from the equation and see if you get a repeat of the problem.

It could also be an overheating problem. A squirt of air around the vents would not go amiss.

P

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Answer
I have
Jun 3, 2012 7:39AM PDT

I have had a couple of adapters from Monoprice go bad on me, so I would start with the suggestions given and then also maybe try and get a replacement cable off Monoprice. If the replacement cable and everything else doesn't solve it, you've probably got a video chip going bad, which means I hope you bought the Applecare warranty on that unit, otherwise you may as well think about getting a new laptop since it'll probably be 40-50% the cost of a new one to repair the existing one.

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Answer
How to disconnect laptop from ext monitor
Jun 4, 2012 12:34AM PDT

That's useful advice. I have another related query. So, when I need to pack my laptop, I simply yank out the connector cable that provides the signal from the MBP to the external monitor.

Is this okay to do? Or should I be going to the display settings every time, and dragging the menu bar from one monitor to the other every time I want to pack my laptop?

Or is it perhaps a better practice to first shutdown the computer and then take out the connector cable?

Thanks!

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Should be fine
Jun 4, 2012 1:46AM PDT

Should be fine, MDP is a hot-pluggable interface, which is just a fancy way of saying you can connect/disconnect devices at any time.

However, you should NEVER move a laptop while it's running unless it has a SSD, because otherwise you're putting unnecessary stress on the HDD which will have a slow, but cumulative negative effect on it. You also greatly increase the odds of a head crash (very bad) every time you move a laptop around while it's turned on.

At the very least, close the clamshell to put it into sleep mode so the HDD is powered down, THEN move it. Better still is shutting down completely so there's no real chance of the unit spontaneously powering back up. The cables for those sleep magnets do tend to go bad, so I wouldn't trust them implicitly to keep the system in sleep mode. While the Mid-2010 models like you have were not a particularly problematic model on the whole, they did have a lot of little minor issues. Top cases would be one of the big failure points along with the obvious like HDDs and ODDs. Just something to keep in mind.