How connect External monitor to iMac?

How to do that depends on the iMac variant you have. iMacs have been in continuous production since 1998 in four broad families that are not 100 percent alike in behavior.
Please look at the iMac images and descriptions in the links on this site:
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/index-imac.html
and tell us what variant you believe you have.
iMacs from the first through third-generations (G3, G4, and G5 processors) that support an external monitor were not set up to do anything other than "mirroring"--you see on the external exactly what is on the built-in display.
Your description sounds like you have a newer iMac than this forum covers because, starting with the Intel iMacs in 2006, external monitors were allowed to do both mirroring and "extended desktop." The latter is what I believe you are seeing.
Try this first: press the F7 key. On many Macs capable fo using external monitors, this was a shortcut to toggle between mirrored and extended display. If your keyboard has an "fn" modifier key, you may need to press that to get the F7 key to work.
If you have an intel-powered iMac I can ask the Hosts to move you to that forum, which is much more active than this one which is for pre-2006 iMacs.

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VGA Port stuck on connected external monitor.

Lenovo G580, Win. 8.1 with all updates.VGA Port stuck on connected external monitor.Connected to external monitor via vga; "duplecate", "extend", and "second screen only" all works fine.When I return to default PC screen it too works fine; however, if I unplug the vga cable the default screen goes black.I tried restarting but it did not fix. Defult screen will only work if vga is pluged in.Any soloutions?

Hi JohnD7,
Welcom to Lenovo Community Forums!
Make sure that the Main LCD isused as the main LCD.
Open Screen resolution page
1. In the first box select your Main LCD
2. A Box below should appear, Place a check in Make this
hit Apply and try unplugging your external VGA
Let me know if this works for you
Cheers!
Solid Cruver

How to connect external display to iMac

which port do I use to connect external display to my iMac ?

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
Depending on the iMac you have, you have different ports: Mini-DVI, Mini DisplayPort or Thunderbolt. Mini DisplayPort is available in 2009 and newer iMacs, and Thunderbolt is available in the Mid 2011 and Late 2012 iMac.
You have to use one of those ports to connect an external display. You will probably have to look for an adapter, depending on the port the external screen has got

2 external monitors for imac?

Is it possible to connect two external monitors to the new 2013 IMAC? If so, how?

Yes, one per thunderbolt port. Of course these displays should support either DVI or HDMI with 1080p minimum if you want the full effect. VGA is analog, and only gives you 4:3 screen ratios. mini-Displayport to DVI and HDMI adapters exist. HDMI has built-in audio support.

External monitor on Imac?

Just spent 45 minutes with Adobe support enabling my external monitor , a TV connected to Thunderbolt via HDMI adapter. Got it working but support did not explain how, they accessed my Imac and did it themselves. While working the monitor went back to the screen saver and I'm not sure what I accidentally hit that lost external preview. Ideas?

Just spent 45 minutes with Adobe support enabling my external monitor , a TV connected to Thunderbolt via HDMI adapter. Got it working but support did not explain how, they accessed my Imac and did it themselves. While working the monitor went back to the screen saver and I'm not sure what I accidentally hit that lost external preview. Ideas?

Need help connecting external monitor

My brother needs help with connecting an external monitor to his 20" iMac G5. He has the adapter with the standard monitor port, and when plugged in, the monitor duplicates the iMac screen. His question is, how can he set it so that the desktop is extended, instead of duplicated? I, myself, have a MacBook and two months ago I used my adapter to connect a projector, and I remember an option where I could choose between duplicate and extended desktop, and right now I tried to find it on my MacBook and well as my Intel iMac and I can't find the option, and neither can he.
Please help, thanks!

The iMac G5 can only mirror the internal display unless you hack the firmware.
Display options like that only appear when you connect a display which is why you can't see them on the MB at the moment.
mrtotes

HMDI Connected External Monitor only works mirrored

I've got a 27-inch iMac with the 2.93 Ghz Intel i7 (running Mac OS X 10.6.5) connected to a Hannspree HF289H 27.5in external monitor (1920x1200 resolution, connect via Mini Display to HDMI adapter and an HDMI cable). It has worked fine for a few months, but all of sudden the 2nd monitor will just go black. When I restart the computer, the 2nd monitor will flash on and off and resize, but will not show anything once the computer fully comes up. If I go to the monitor settings and choose to "mirror" the display, it comes on and works. Then, if I take it off mirrored, it will work for a matter of minutes to hours, but eventually go black again.
Any thoughts? I've already tried resetting the SMC and restarting with a PRAM reset as mentioned in other posts.

Are you using the method in this Apple article? If you do, it should work.
Mac notebooks: How to use your computer in closed clamshell (display closed) mode with an external display

Connecting external monitor, hard drives

I'm thinking of buying a new iMac for video editing but I don't see how you would connect an external monitor to it. I see USB and Firewire 800 jacks to connect drives, and T-bolt jacks, but no monitor jack. Is it possible?

Lloyd Lathrop wrote:
So the three monitors I have now are useless?
Of course not you can also use what Niel suggested to connect your existing displays. Depending on the connections the displays have you can use a Mini Display port to VGA or DVI or even HDMI. You can find these in an Apple Store or at Apple's online store. I wasn't assuming you already had external displays, I was merely suggesting you could also get the display I provided a link to.

NEC Multisync 2090uxi as external monitor to Imac 20" - will it work?

I'm thinking of buying this NEC display to use as an external monitor for my 20" iMac.
The NEC's supported resolutions appear to be: 1280 x 1024; 1280 x 960; 1200 x 1600; 1152 x 870; 1152 x 864; 1024 x 768; 832 x 624; 800 x 600; 720 x 400; 640 x 480
Will this work? I don't see the iMac's native resolution on that list.
Any advice much appreciated! Many thanks.

Hi buddhahat
With Mirroring both displays use the same resolution and depending on the difference in native resolution, will depend on how funky one of them appears.
With Extended Desktop you have a preference panel for each display and a choice of resolution for each display.
For more info: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303086
Using extended desktop open the Display Preferences, click Arrangement and follow the on screen instructions. Then just drag any open window from the iMac Display over to you other display window and away you go.
DVD movie playing on the big screen and posting in Discussions on the iMac display all at the same time!
I have a 27" flat screen TV connected to my 17" Early Core Duo set to Extended Desktop. The TV Display is excellent for DVD movies in DVD Viewer, iPhoto previews & Slideshows, MS Word PowerPoint Slideshow & presentations, Quicktime videos, Web videos etc.. The only draw back is that working in text windows is a little rough.
Dennis

Connecting a Monitor to iMac

I am wondering if I can connect a monitor to my iMac in order to expand the display image. If so, how can I actually do that?
Thanks much in advance.

If so, how can I actually do that?
Plug in the monitor, using an adapter if needed, and then set it up in the Displays pane of System Preferences.
(50959)

External monitor with imac not working

Hello.I have problem with external monitor connected to my imac 27 via mini display port to vga connector. It was working perfectly but around month ago it suddenly stopped. It looks like my monitor doesn`t get any signal from imac, at least that`s what is says on external monitor.. also, when monitor is connected my mouse is jumping all over the place. I`ve been looking everywhere but i couldn`t find solution to this problem and i know there are many people having the same issue. Did anyone find solution?

I have my 24" connected to a 32" TV via DVI and have had no problems thus far.
When you open display preferences is the external display detected? If so, try switching between mirror and extended to see if it comes on.
The only other thing I could suggest is to try another VGA connector and/or cable. The fact the mouse goes erratic sort of points to there being the problem somewhere in the connection. You might want to try DVI if your monitor supports it.

DVI connected external monitor now having mouse troubles

Hi Everyone, I'm new. I recently bought a 27inch imac and a DVI adapter to hook up a second monitor. When the second monitor is plugged in and on everything is ok. When the second monitor is unplugged everything is ok. When the second monitor is pluged in but turned off my mouse skips LOTS. Like it lags a bit then will shoot off to the side of the screen. I tried other mice (apple and microsoft) and different mouse pads/none/paper and no difference. I rang applecare (before I realised it was to do with the monitor) and they told me my mouse was stuffed.... Im convinced the imac gets confused when anothe monitor is connected. Others on mac rumors are having trouble also... Any ideas please?
Cheers
Jaidan

Hello,
I can confirm this problem on my iMac 27" of Mid 2010.
At first in June, when i bought it, i had no problem whatsoever connecting my external Samsung 226bw. It worked like a charm.
After some time, maybe a month of daily use, the iMac refused to wake up the external monitor after waking from sleep mode. Now the problem only got even worse, as it now refuses to power up the external monitor when booting too.
The funny thing is it springs alive after a random period of time. (between 2 to 4 hours)
When the iMac is in its 'Im ignoring your external monitor, Sir' mode, my magic mouse is very jumpy and laggy, like described earlier on in this thread. When the monitor comes alive, the mouse behaves normal.
Now i've been looking into this problem quite some time now on the net, and all i can find are mostly confirmations of people having the same problem.
There are some suggestions here and there on what to do, like resetting nvram or the SMC, deleting windowserver preferences files etc, but none of them seem to solve the issue.
Strange thing is that Apple doesn't move a word about this? At least an acknowledgment of some sort, letting us know they are aware of the problem and maybe try to fix it.
Message was edited by: Tw3aky

How many external monitors can I support with 13" rMBP (late 2012)?

Device has two DisplayPorts and each is powering an external display properly. It also has an HDMI port. Can I connect a third monitor here?

I got my new 13" Retina in the other day (late 2013 model ME865LL/A)
I was all excited to see if the two Thunderbolt 2 outputs and the HDMI output would work together, but plugging in the HDMI output knocked out one of the Thunderbolt outputs, so what I read was right, the 13" model will only power two external monitors. Before I got this I kept reading over and over how it wasn't possible, but that was dealing with the Late '12 or the Early '13 models, I was hoping that the upgraded video card on the newest Haswell versions may be different, but alas, not to be....
But I did implement a work around as I have a Matrox Triple Head 2 Go DP Edition for my old Macbook and what that does is make my two Lenovo 22" widescreens look like one big 3840x1200 monitor to it's host (tricking the MB to thinking "hey, this is one monitor"), so this allows me to use one Thunderbolt output to power these two monitors and then I am using an HDMI --> DVI cable to power an HP 23" widescreen monitor I also have running at full resolution, all this in addition to the Laptop display as well:
Here is a quick 20 second video of all monitors playing video.... the one on the left in the middle row was staggering but that is more a problem with AMC's website more than anything, I never get good stream speeds from their site
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfIsupl3psc
I just installed iStat 4 an hour ago and am showing CPU temps around 150 degrees, not really sure what "normal" is or what is acceptable...... I'm going to keep tabs on what the temps are as I finish up my workday here (another 6 hours to go)
I still want to re-arrangle things so i only have two levels of screens to deal with, but still formulating that setup with my desk

Connecting external monitor or tv

Hello,
I've got a MacBook Pro Retina 15' and i want to connect 2 external screens to it.
I am already using the HDMI port to connect to my tv to use that as the first external monitor.
I'm thinking of getting a second one for my desk but i can't decide if i should get one of the 2 following options:
Option 1:
Getting a second TV + Displayport to HDMI adapter
Option 2:
Getting a computer monitor + Displayport to DVI (or VGA) adapter
Aside from the size of the screen (tv can be bigger), is there an argument to get a monitor over a tv, and the other way around?
What should i do?
Thanks in advance

Hi
For resolving the mentioned issue , Please try the following
1. Update the Bios to latest version
http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloads/detail.page?DocID=DS014992
2. Update the Display Video drivers
http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/research/hints-or-tips/detail.page?&DocID=HT063249
After updating drivers press Fn + F7 to toggle from internal to External Monitor
I hope this helps

Monitor Keep Flashing after connecting External Monitor with HDMI to VGA Adapter

Dear Support,
Here the case that i have connecting an External Monitor by HDMI to VGA Adapter.Once it connected, the monitor (Macbook) with keep flashing and no signal on the external monitor. Please help.

Hi there BrianYip,
You may find the troubleshooting steps in the article below helpful.
Apple computers: Troubleshooting issues with video on internal or external displays
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1573
-Griff W.

How connect External monitor to iMac?

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