15" MacBook Pro & 23" Apple Cinema Display Questions

Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
1) Any ideas on how to crank up the res on a MacBook Pro for external mirroring?



A manager at my company ordered a 15" MacBook Pro & a 23" Apple Cinema Display for the purpose of Mirroring.



When spanning, the laptop and the display look great (and both run in their native modes of 1920 x 1200 and 1440 by 900, respectively), but when mirroring is enabled, the MacBook video card acts like it can't power the 23" LCD properly. It wants to default both the 15" built-in display and the Cinema display at 1440 by 900 - which is unacceptable.





2) Is it possible to close a MacBook Pro's lid and continue to power the external monitor without the MacBook sleeping?





3) Is it possible to toggle the MacBook Pro's video signal to turn OFF the built-in laptop display and ONLY run on the external display? I remember older PowerBooks being able to do this. Many PC laptops will allow you to disable the local video and only send a signal to the external display (for presentations etc).

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 1
    1) Thats because when you mirror, the display needs to go by the lowest common denominator - the 1440x900 LCD. It's simply displaying a blown-up version of the 15" onto the 23". No way to get around that.



    2) Yes. Plug in an external keyboard and mouse, as well as the display, and close the MacBook Pro, which will proceed to go to sleep. Then tap a few keys on the external inputs, and it will wake back up. For added reliability, set the 23" to the primary display before doing this. It will then default to the primary display whenever the two are connected, but the machine will revert to the 15" as primary when you remove the Cinema.



    3) Not as far as I know. The closest thing would be to turn the display backlight off, but that would still consider the screen active, and would cause the mouse to trail onto it when you get close to the edge. Otherwise, see #2.
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