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SteveJobs · 02:47 PM

Hey everyone,

my dad has an own G4 mac mini, 1.2 Ghz, 40 GB hard drive, Mac OS X 10.5 etc.

This morning, it started up, but the screen remained blank. We tried again and it didn't help. We tried to access the mini over the network and we could. This is how it remained for the rest of the day. Until an hour ago - then, it just worked again and it works well ever since. I did a PRAM reset and ran First Aid, just in case.

Any idea? What's the cause? Can we help it? I thought it might be the graphics card, but it's on the motherboard and we couldn't exchange that. Could it be a software problem? OS reinstallation perhaps?

(Edit) I forgot: When the screen didn't work with the mini, we tried with a different mac and it did work. So we thought the problem was neither the screen nor the cable.

Any advice would be great!
Steve

reader50 · Jan 21, 2011, 02:33 PM

If it happens again, try a different monitor. Also, put a flashlight against the problem monitor, to see if the picture is present, but unlit.

Waragainstsleep · Jan 22, 2011, 06:17 AM

Its more likely to be either the DVI to VGA adaptor if you have one, or the GPU on the motherboard. Scan around eBay and you'll see a few Minis with duff graphics cards.