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I have an early intel Mac Mini (1,1 Late 2006) that I'm resurrecting for the purposes of a media centre (intend to replace with a modern device when finances allow). This model is furnished with a DVI output, I'm going direct to VGA via DVI-VGA cable. It is giving me a headache because it will not connect at 1080p. Running 10.6.8, fully updated.

I'm getting a huge list of possible resolutions in Display Prefs, each with different freq's, here are the some:

  • 1280 x 1024 (displays correctly)
  • 1344 x 1008 (no display)
  • 1400 x 1050 (displays correctly)
  • 1600 x 1200 (displays correctly horizontally, must be scaling vertically)
  • 1920 x 1440 (no display)
  • 2048 x 1536 (no display)

I've tried using ScreenResX, but when I add a custom resolution of 1080p and restart, the custom resolution is not available "not activated - invalid?". According to tech specs the mini is capable of outputting to 1080p. How can I get this machine to output correctly?

I can successfully output to this LCD TV at 1080p (native res) from:

  • Powermac G5 2GHz (directly via DVI->VGA cable)
  • Macbook Pro (miniDisplayPort->DVI adaptor, DVI->VGA cable)

Many thanks for any suggestions!

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  • Does your HDTV have HDMI or DVI in? My personal recommendation would be to purchase a DVI->HDMI cable. Doing that will provide a pure digital DVI signal the entire way, which could potentially help the Mac mini to recognize the screen configurations. As you've demonstrated above, it can clearly output a sufficient number of pixels. Hope this helps.
    – bispymusic
    Commented Mar 18, 2013 at 14:28
  • This worked. Thanks for your advice. The colour is a bit off and the definition doesn't seem so sharp with the use of HDMI, but that's only noticable when I'm looking at the desktop. Since I'm normally running xbmc, it's great for me at this point.
    – skinner
    Commented Mar 29, 2013 at 13:11

1 Answer 1

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As answered in the comment by bispymusic, this was resolved by using a DVI->HDMI adaptor or cable. The Mac mini was able to output a whole new set of resolutions, and jumped straight to 1080p as the most suitable. Thanks.

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