[anly]

Maybe some of you or all of you guys know this, but I like to share this with you all. I've been to our Apple service center a couple of times already; locate din Taipei. Every time I go there, I always see Apple monitors on the racks. Yesterday when I went to retrieve my PB, I overheard a conversation. This "newbee" was asking another dude who brought in his Apple monitor; "what happended" The dude explained, "cannot display anything...nothing happens after power-on". To investigate further, I found out these monitors were OEMed in Mexico. When I took a peek in the monitors, man, it really looked like the someone back in the stone-age assembled the thing with crappy thin wires. ( a bit exaggerating) These were spanking new Apple monitors... hmmm. I think I would consider twice about buying an Apple monitor, Would anyone out there think otherwise? They look nice and all but...never owned one so I cannot say 4 sure.

Howdy!

I don't know the answer to your question, but I have a question about a problem I'm having with my Apple Monitor (16" or 17"--not a 1705 or 1710)...

My monitor screen does not allow me to view the sides of the MacOS desktop. No matter how wide I make it with the monitor button, it will not allow me to see the outer edges. It's almost like they're beyond the scope of the screen.

Anyone have an idea of how I can fix this?

I remember opening a Mac SE/30 and twisting a couple knobs inside the case to make a wider screen. I assume there's something like this on this monitor. I hesitate to open the thing and play with stuff, since there's probably a lot of juice stored up inside...

Ideas?

Thanks!

You should be able to change the width of the monitor using the controls on the front. Being an Apple monitor, there may be controls in the monitors control panel.

To check and see if it's the monitor or the Mac, you could try hooking it up to another Mac and see if the same thing happens.

The only other thing I can think of is that maybe you should either put in (or remove) something like the AppleVision extension.

Originally posted by moonshadow:
Howdy!

I don't know the answer to your question, but I have a question about a problem I'm having with my Apple Monitor (16" or 17"--not a 1705 or 1710)...

My monitor screen does not allow me to view the sides of the MacOS desktop. No matter how wide I make it with the monitor button, it will not allow me to see the outer edges. It's almost like they're beyond the scope of the screen.

Anyone have an idea of how I can fix this?

I remember opening a Mac SE/30 and twisting a couple knobs inside the case to make a wider screen. I assume there's something like this on this monitor. I hesitate to open the thing and play with stuff, since there's probably a lot of juice stored up inside...

Ideas?

Thanks!

If you have the old non-multi-sync(resolution) Apple 16" monitor, look on the bottom edge of the left side of the CRT part(towards the back of the monitor). There is a little panel that flips downwards and there are 4 pots that you can play around with. They adjust width and stuff. Be careful, they are plastic and easy to strip, so use the right sized screwdriver and you should be fine...=)

I work in front of an Apple Studio Display 21 all day long and can honestly say I love it (I've had it since they first switched over to graphite). The image is crisp and bright and the color seems extremely accurate.

I've spent a great deal of time in front of the Studio Display 17s, too, and they seem to be nearly as crisp. Color accuracy isn't great, but it's definitely not awful.

As far as quality goes, I've never had a problem with the Studio Displays personally (just with my 1710), and haven't heard anything major from friends who work as Apple techs.

The prices on the displays have been a little steep (especially the 17s), but there are some great deals to be had on the 17" displays right now. I'd say go for it. You have a year to find out if anything's wrong and have Apple repair it, but from my experience, you won't have to worry about that.

Hope that helps.

Anly,

I work in the IT department of a large Ad agency. We have quite a few of the Blue&White 21" Studio Displays and let me tell you they are dogs. We constantly get the same problem that you overheard. I've sent back 3 of the 30 we have in the past 3 months. The one that is out for repairs right now has now been sent back 5 times. They are good looking monitors and the color sync is great but for the price you would expect them to last. I was thinking about finding a B&W one to match my G3 but after my work experience with them, I've changed my mind.

[Heman]

When I got my B&W G3, I told meself to get a Studio display to match it. I can tell you that I really regret I did. The geometry is awful. I think those poeple at Mitsubishi or Apple should have their eyes checked. they can't get the focus and convergent right.
When I got the imac DVSE, I just can't believe it is a product from Apple, the monitor is blur, out of focus and bad color convergent. I have to take off the cover to ajust the knots on the electronic gun.
Other Apple products are great, but the monitor, hmmm...

I own a B&W 17" Apple Monitor, which has starting exhibiting an odd behavior lately. Every now and then (this has happened four times now in the last two months) the monitor will suddenly make a loud "pop" noise and everything will go black. It'll then click like it's changing resolutions, and then finally the picture comes back and everything is as it was before. This whole process takes maybe 3-5 seconds.

I did some research on Apple's Tech Exchange, and wouldn't you know it -- there are tons of posts by people with similar problems. One guy even claims to know exactly what part is bad on the monitor, and says that Apple's previous 17" monitor had the exact same problem. The other day, I mentioned it to my brother-in-law, and he's had the same thing happen to his B&W monitor, too.

It seems like Apple has a definite harware problem with their monitors, but as usual they don't want to officially recognize that a problem exists. After spending this kind of money on a monitor, however, I expect the highest quality. My $120 Gemstar 17" cheapo display has given me flawless service for years, although to be fair the picture quality isn't nearly as good as Apple's monitor. And, as luck would have it, the Apple monitor started having problems one month after the warranty ran out.

Jeff

Apple's monitors are made by either Sony or Mitsubishi depending on which model you are talking about. Apple charges $100 more for them just to put their logo on the case. I got a Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 710 rather than Apple's 17" Apple Studio Display and I love it.

------------------

I got a AppleVision 17 inch 3 years ago.
It got fixup 2 times.
1st time is the screen just gone.
2rd time the screen is unable to display upto 1280x1024.
3rd time the screen's boarder is distorted, and after a few hours use the bottom of the screen will get fuzzy.
I give up fixup on the 3rd time. Becuase the Apple care say it need about 400USD to fix.
I would rather get a new one instead of fix.
But anyway, it is the worst monitor I ever use in my whole computer life.
I still have a 15inch monitor runing ok since 1990.
I won't use Apple's monitor anymore.
There quality is not as good as their seems to be.

The "popping" sound you here is the gasses in the CRT building up and then discharging, temporarly cutting out your display. This is a common problem especially with big new monitors, but often happens in 17 in monitors as well. The problem is quite normal, there is not really any way to get arround it in the manufacturing processess. Each time the monitor pops, however, more of the gas is destroyed - Eventually, the monitor will start doing it less and less and eventually stop. It's not damaging the monitor, it is designed to discharge like that. As long as your monitor is properly grounded, you won't have a problem. Like I said, this generally happens with new CRT's and often all the "pops" are gone by the time the monitor is done with burn in, but sometimes they continue for some time. The problem is especially common with Sony's Trinitron tubes, less with viewsonic and mitsubishi.

Originally posted by The Gonif:
I own a B&W 17" Apple Monitor, which has starting exhibiting an odd behavior lately. Every now and then (this has happened four times now in the last two months) the monitor will suddenly make a loud "pop" noise and everything will go black. It'll then click like it's changing resolutions, and then finally the picture comes back and everything is as it was before. This whole process takes maybe 3-5 seconds.

I did some research on Apple's Tech Exchange, and wouldn't you know it -- there are tons of posts by people with similar problems. One guy even claims to know exactly what part is bad on the monitor, and says that Apple's previous 17" monitor had the exact same problem. The other day, I mentioned it to my brother-in-law, and he's had the same thing happen to his B&W monitor, too.

It seems like Apple has a definite harware problem with their monitors, but as usual they don't want to officially recognize that a problem exists. After spending this kind of money on a monitor, however, I expect the highest quality. My $120 Gemstar 17" cheapo display has given me flawless service for years, although to be fair the picture quality isn't nearly as good as Apple's monitor. And, as luck would have it, the Apple monitor started having problems one month after the warranty ran out.

Jeff

I received a Studio Display 17" lately at work and had this big disappointement looking at this monitor that I first wanted to pay myself. The color is to my opinion great, but ... what is this concavity aspect. I can't believe it. At this price! I was told by a PC guy that this concave effect is "standard" on big monitors. So I went to an Apple store to see more Studio Display 17" with the same "standard" behavior. Could anyone tell me if a Studio Display 21" sxhibiots the same behavior.

I run two B/W Apple Studio 17's on a dual-headed linuxppc machine. I've had one of them for over a year now. The brand-new one is many orders of magnitude brighter and crisper, the way I remember the first one being. They're gorgeous displays, but they apparently degrade quickly. And now sometimes the old one just decides to cut out while the 0/1 power indicator blinks on and off once per second. It will keep doing this until I let the monitor remain off for awhile.

[Don Pickett]

Too bad to hear about Apple's monitor problems. Monitors used (and maybe still are) on of the things Apple does best. As someone already noted, Apple's monitors are rebadged Sony's, which should be a good thing. I still have my original Apple 13" color monitor from 1989 and it's great. I ever dropp it on the floor once, and nothing happened. I have never personally had a problem with any large Apple monitor, and I'be been using them for 11 years.

Pr'aps this is more of the kind of problem Apple had with the Pismos; most of them are great, but there are a few real lemons out there.

Don

Originally posted by hitech:
The "popping" sound you here is the gasses in the CRT building up and then discharging, temporarly cutting out your display. This is a common problem especially with big new monitors, but often happens in 17 in monitors as well. The problem is quite normal, there is not really any way to get arround it in the manufacturing processess. Each time the monitor pops, however, more of the gas is destroyed - Eventually, the monitor will start doing it less and less and eventually stop. It's not damaging the monitor, it is designed to discharge like that. As long as your monitor is properly grounded, you won't have a problem. Like I said, this generally happens with new CRT's and often all the "pops" are gone by the time the monitor is done with burn in, but sometimes they continue for some time. The problem is especially common with Sony's Trinitron tubes, less with viewsonic and mitsubishi.

Wow, really? Is it normal for the "pops" to first start after a full year of heavy use? I'm just trying to determine if what I'm experiencing is the same thing you're talking about. One guy on Tech Exchange claims that all these monitors have a bad "deflection" board (or something like that), and that the last model of 17" monitors had the exact same problem -- and had an Apple recall.

Jeff

[Adam Silver]

I have worked with both the 17" and 21" Apple Studio Displays. I have never had a problem with a 21" model - for $1400 it had better be perfect, but have had occasional problems with the 17" one.

Specifically, the power button on the display will sometimes not turn green (and the computer would not continue booting). The solution to this problem is simple: disconnect all USB devices from the computer and it will continue the regular startup process. (And, yes, you can safely reconnect your USB devices right after you disconnect them.)

[MacOS761]

My 15" LCD display is great, FWIW... I got it for a mere (heh) $1000, maybe they are still selling at that price. Seems to be worth the cash - less strain, more coolness factor, and no "pops"!

To the Goniff:

My Viewsonic trinitron monitor did the popping thing for about a week, before it completely died. Its final pop was followed by a loud bzzt, and then the screen shrunk to a 1 inch square. Luckily, it had a three-year warranty, so I only had to pay one-way shipping to get it fixed.

In general, I am very disappointed with apple monitors. We have 30 Macs at work, and nearly all of them have had monitor problems, especially the 15" and 17" multiscan monitors. The old 13" color monitors work, but they are getting dim and blurry. As each monitor dies, I have been replacing them with a variety of non-Apple monitors with 3-year warranties, so if there is a problem, we are covered.
(My personal preference is for Samsung and Viewsonic).