Official CustoMac Mini 2012 Guide and Notes (in progress)

[menu981]

Hi All,

I have just finished installing OSX on my new customac, however I'm having issues with the graphics.

If I have GraphicsEnaber set to Yes, the screen goes garbled when it gets to the log in screen. If I have it set to No, I can use the screen fine but can only get a resolution of 1024x768. I'm using the DVI port, is this a problem?

Everything else is as per the basic build for the CustoMac.

System Profiler States:
Display:

Type: GPU
Bus: Built-In
VRAM (Total): 64 MB of Shared System Memory
Vendor: Intel (0x8086)
Device ID: 0x0162
Revision ID: 0x0009
Kernel Extension Info: No Kext Loaded
Displays:
Display:
Resolution: 1024 x 768
Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes

Any suggestions?

Well, I went out and bought myself a nice shiny 24" monitor with HDMI and it worked like a treat. Obviously the issue is the DVI/VGA output.

Oh well, a nice monitor to go with my CustoMac can't hurt.

 

[DBP]

Got a problem with the HDMI output!

So it's the lead-up to Christmas and I'm trying to get the lounge-room installation finished before the extended family descends on us next week. So last night I moved my H77N-WIFI box out there and slotted it in below the TV. Took out a 19" LCD as well connected to the DVI, and connected the TV (a Hitachi 720p plasma) to the bottom HDMI port. The TV's VGA input is currently being fed by a Mac mini.

Powered it up: all fine. Hmmmm: this room's very quiet. Will have to do something about slowing that fan down a bit, and maybe I do want an SSD for the lack of noise.... Anyway, the system recognised the TV and I had a dual-screen setup running. The DVI LCD was the primary display (with menubar/etc) and the TV was secondary.

The HDMI defaulted to 1080i, but I switched that to 720p no problems (that's 1280x720x32@60). At both resolutions the TV was clipping the edges of the image, but in this old unit I could not find any setting for turning overscan off. But in the Displays Preferences I could move the Underscan slider to about the half-way mark and see the edges again. I know this isn't optimal (we're wasting pixels by ignoring the bits that the TV will throw away) but it worked fine. All good so far.
Now to disconnect the DVI and use only the HDMI. Unplug, and it looks great. But reboot, and we're screwed.

Upon booting, the screen is at 720p but the edges (e.g. the dock, the menubar) are clipped. Obviously there's no underscan happening. Go to Display Preferences and the slider's in the same position, but I move it and there's no effect. Until I move it to 0, at which point the screen goes crazy, with portions of the screen interlaced throughout each other. Move the slider a fraction off 0, and it comes back to normal (but still with the edges clipped). WTF?
If I re-select 1080i it doesn't work like before: it's squashed horizontally (circles become ovals). Same goes for 480 resolutions, etc. 720p is OK, but with overscan. Argh!

I'm able to use Screen Sharing from a laptop to see and control the machine remotely even when the display is garbled (or I can't see the menubar, etc). And I can re-connect the DVI LCD for now, so all is not lost. But right now I'm scratching my head!
Does anyone have any suggestions? If I could disable overscan in the TV my problems might be solved, but seriously I can't find it. And the TV's menus aren't that complex.

 

[boogawho]

If you try to wake the computer and wait 10 minutes, does the screen remains blank and does the caps lock light toggles on / off when pressing the caps lock key? (you need to set System Preferences -> Energy Saver -> Computer Sleep to something larger than 10 for this test to work)

So as it turns out, if I wait about 5 minutes the computer does eventually wake from sleep.. Is there a setting I can modify in BIOS or DSDT to make it wake faster?

Thanks for your help.. I'm one step closer to a 100% functional system!!

 

[boum]

So as it turns out, if I wait about 5 minutes the computer does eventually wake from sleep.. Is there a setting I can modify in BIOS or DSDT to make it wake faster?

Thanks for your help.. I'm one step closer to a 100% functional system!!

I have experienced this on different occasions and so far, my best guess is that this was related to the system disk not being /dev/disk0. You can check this in the Disk Utility; select your system hard drive in the left column and click "Info", and check what is the value for "Disk Identifier". In my system I have 2 hard drives and an optical drive, and when changing drive connections, the system drive could end up being /dev/disk1; this in turned seem tied to the really slow wake from sleep.

I resolved this by connecting only the system hard drive on SATA port 0, booted the system, then shutdown and connected the other hard drive - it's as if the BIOS reports hard drives in "oldest connected first" instead of the SATA port number order.

 

[mountainbeast]

I have the same problems like DBP !
Clipping on top and bottom of my 720p TV screen - so dock and menubar are clipped !
Move the Underscan slider does not work/help !

On the same PC also runs Win 7 - there I was able to change the resolution to 1368x769 and there is no more clipping of the desktop ! Using this native resolution of the TV also shows much clearer text on the desktop.

The only problem: this resolution 1368x769 is not available under MAC Os X ?
I guess this would solve our problems. Why is this resolution missing - how can I get it ?

 

[t3steve]

I am having Magic trackpad problems.
It was working perfectly using the onboard bluetooth
then I booted to windows and now it won't work on the mac side

I deleted the Magic trackpad from the blue tooth icon in the upper right corner and now I can't get it to reconnect. I the system preferences
trackpad.
It finds it, I hit continue
Then it says pairing attempt unsuccessful
click continue to try again
and it keeps failing

What do I do?

It worked perfectly the first time and I was using if for about a week now nothing


Steve

 

[B-San]

I am having Magic trackpad problems.
It was working perfectly using the onboard bluetooth
then I booted to windows and now it won't work on the mac side

I deleted the Magic trackpad from the blue tooth icon in the upper right corner and now I can't get it to reconnect. I the system preferences
trackpad.
It finds it, I hit continue
Then it says pairing attempt unsuccessful
click continue to try again
and it keeps failing

What do I do?

It worked perfectly the first time and I was using if for about a week now nothing


Steve

I recently purchased a Magic Trackpad & at the time, I wasn't aware that the onboard bluetooth could work... In the process I've used 4 different USB to Bluetooth adapters with underwhelming results...

Is there something which needs to be checked in Multibeast in order to enable the on-board Bluetooth?

I have 2 CustoMac Mini systems - one with the GA-Z77N and another with the GA-H77N.

I just installed Windows on the Z77N.

If you have any tips you can provide as to how I can get it working, I can first try it on my H77N then try on the Z77N (which has Windows).

Look forward to any response!

 

[DBP]

Only thing I had to do to get the onboard Bluetooth to work reliably was connect the WiFi/Bluetooth antennas that came with the motherboard. Possibly only one is required for Bluetooth, but didn't bother finding out: connect them up and things work. Prior to that I could sometimes pair with devices but not actually connect and use them.

 

[jmpa]

Got a problem with the HDMI output!

So it's the lead-up to Christmas and I'm trying to get the lounge-room installation finished before the extended family descends on us next week. So last night I moved my H77N-WIFI box out there and slotted it in below the TV. Took out a 19" LCD as well connected to the DVI, and connected the TV (a Hitachi 720p plasma) to the bottom HDMI port. The TV's VGA input is currently being fed by a Mac mini.

I had a lot of problems with overscan and the problem was the TV. Just find the overscan option in your tv and disable it to that source. In some tvs is hard to find that option, sometimes they give it another name or that option just appears if you have TV set to 16:9 or Auto Aspect, like in panasonic.

 

[DBP]

Yeah, good thought about the aspect ratio/etc. However, I've checked out all those options (just been back to it and double-checked). This TV is too old and stupid to have an overscan control. However, I have a workaround.

The TV also has a DVI input. Unfortunately the TV only reports that it supports 800x600, 832x624, and 800x600. All of these end up stretched on the screen. But with both HDMI and DVI connected the machine things it has two screens. With the DVI screen being the primary (with menubar/etc) the underscan control on the HDMI screen works again!

I can get EyeTV displaying on the secondary, which solves my main problem.
Only issue now is to get HDMI audio working (shouldn't be hard now) as the TV ignores all other audio inputs when HDMI is selected for input. Almost there...