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peppermg · Nov 10, 2006, 06:10 PM

I got my MBP this morning and so far I love it. Ive only had one problem. It seems that when I have an external display hooked up and the MBP's LCD goes to sleep (not sure if its even supposed to do that?) when I try drag anything from the external to the internal LCD everything freezes. The LCD stays asleep and the mouse and keyboard stop responding although the MBP is still alive, I.E. its not a kernal panic or anything. The external is a ViewSonic P95f+ and I was using it as the main display. Any body know whats going on?

ibook_steve · Nov 10, 2006, 06:30 PM

Maybe you need to explain how you are attaching the external display. Are you closing the lid then attaching the external display and going into closed lid mode or are you attaching the display while the machine is awake? The internal LCD is not supposed to turn off when you attach an external display. Are you sure the brightness (backlight) isn't off? And what do you do after this "freeze" to know that the machine is still alive? I think some more details are needed here.

Steve

peppermg · Nov 10, 2006, 06:38 PM

I figured the internal display wasn't supposed to turn off with an external display attached. I've had a 1.25 GHz PB for 3 years in this same setup with no problems. Setup is MBP - > DVI to VGA -> P95f+

The first time it happened I was copying 60 GB of Music from a FW800 drive to the MBP. The external screen, keyboard and mouse froze and the internal LCD was off but the FW800 drive was still being accessed. I just waited till it stopped and force restarted. After the reboot all the Music was there so the system didn't crash.

For now I just put "put the display to sleep when the computer is inactive for: Never" a temporary fix.

TailsToo · Nov 10, 2006, 07:02 PM

I hooked up my 2.33 to a Dell 2405 and it works fine - it was dual display when I started Mac OS X and worked in mirror mode when I booted into XP (I now have the 2405 set as the primary, and the built-in Display on on OS X and off on XP)

ibook_steve · Nov 10, 2006, 07:35 PM

Originally Posted by peppermg

I figured the internal display wasn't supposed to turn off with an external display attached. I've had a 1.25 GHz PB for 3 years in this same setup with no problems. Setup is MBP - > DVI to VGA -> P95f+

The first time it happened I was copying 60 GB of Music from a FW800 drive to the MBP. The external screen, keyboard and mouse froze and the internal LCD was off but the FW800 drive was still being accessed. I just waited till it stopped and force restarted. After the reboot all the Music was there so the system didn't crash.

For now I just put "put the display to sleep when the computer is inactive for: Never" a temporary fix.

It is still not clear what you are doing. So you are running fine in spanning mode when all of a sudden, the internal display completely turns off, or just the backlight goes off (should be able to barely see desktop when backlight is off)? When you say the mouse froze, do you mean you have an actual frozen cursor? I haven't seen that in a while. Are you sure you're not getting a kernel panic, again checking the internal display carefully? I don't understand how preventing the screen from turning off is a fix for this.

Steve

peppermg · Nov 10, 2006, 07:52 PM

Ok, the displays are spanning just fine. Then I'm guessing the internal display is going to sleep because of the energy saving settings (this is why I turned it to never) When that happens everything is still alright until I try to drag something from the external monitor to the internal, this is when the screen freezes. It is not a kernel panic, and the internal screen is completely off. By turning off the "screen going to sleep" in the energy saving settings I prevent this problem but I don't think this should be happening in the first place.

My external ViewSonic P95f+ monitor is somewhat old and has recently done some odd things and made some weird sounds, not sure if it could be the externals fault.

Another odd thing I have noticed, not sure if its normal or not. Anytime I use photobooth the MBP's fans come on.

ibook_steve · Nov 10, 2006, 08:27 PM

Well, I guess you've stumped me. I've just tried setting display sleep to 1 minute with my external display attached and both displays turned off. Moving the mouse woke them both up. Your old monitor could be doing something weird. There's special circuitry in all Powerbooks (and now, I would assume MBs and MBPs) to support the "power button" found on the old Apple Cinema displays (the touch sensitive button you could use to power on, or wake and sleep the machine). Some monitors just don't play nice with this circuit hack (which is what it really is since there is nothing in any official monitor specification to support this feature) and can cause strange problems. I'd try with another monitor somewhere first before panicing about your machine.

Steve