My mother-in-law, who lives overseas, bought an external monitor for her MacBook White. I helped her with screensharing and video chats to set it up that it shows the same picture as on the MacBook when both are on (mirrored). I showed her how she can use her external monitor while having the MacBook lid closed (close the lid of the MacBook, have the power cord connected and press any key on the external keyboard to wake up the MacBook). So far, this works fine. The problem now is, when she works on the external monitor with the MacBook lid closed and then opens the lid of the MacBook to do a video chat using the iSight of the MacBook, her MacBook screen stays blank. It only turns on when she puts her MacBook asleep and wakes it up by opening up the MacBook lid. Here is my question: How can she get her MacBook screen activated when only the external monitor is on, without going through putting it to sleep first and waking it up again?
Mirrored displays, MacBook display stays black
- Thread starter Markim
- Start date
As far as I remember, that is a feature, not a bug, although this answer probably doesn't help you very much. Some people tend to want to only use one display at a time, but their notebook gets quite hot after a while when it stays in its closed state while running. This way, they can open the display later on in order to let hot air move away more quickly, without the internal display turning on.
You've already found the workaround: Putting the MacBook to sleep and waking it up again lid opened.
You've already found the workaround: Putting the MacBook to sleep and waking it up again lid opened.
I love my Mac but sometimes Windows PCs have better features: On a PC notebook there is a fn-key combination (F8 or something) which allows to switch between 'only external', 'only internal', and 'internal and external' screen mode. I thought a Mac may have something similar. It shouldn't be wrong to let the user decide what he wants.
Well, it depends on the case. If I am on my external monitor (without a camera or a microphone) and I receive a video chat invitation, I would like to just open my MacBook and start the chat. But instead I would have to put the computer to sleep first which cancels the chat, open the MacBook and either wait for another invitation or send an invite myself. It's just not really fluid. - And yes, I could have gotten an Apple display with an iSight camera but since they are glossy, I had to choose a different one.