M1/M2 flickering, ghosting with external display [Merged]

[rmasoni]

Just as a heads up, I believe the last system update has reset the plist file as my monitor is back to YPbPr and having strong and more often flickering/ghosting/line issues.

 

[oz_rkie]

Has anyone who had support tickets open with Apple received any responses from them or any general Apple updates anyone is aware of, as to when this might get addressed?

 

[Sarah Hamilton]

I got my Mini a week ago, and the issue was still present in the latest MacOS version too, with Dell s2817Q

 

[oz_rkie]

I got my Mini a week ago, and the issue was still present in the latest MacOS version too, with Dell s2817Q

Not good . Thanks for the update though. I am interested to see if this issue will persist in the new m1 pro and m1 max based macbooks. No support or even acknowledgement from Apple is very disappointing.

 

[Sarah Hamilton]

Not good . Thanks for the update though. I am interested to see if this issue will persist in the new m1 pro and m1 max based macbooks. No support or even acknowledgement from Apple is very disappointing.

Yes it is very disappointing. This is a major flaw. I remember the iPhone 5, 5s SE that had the loose button at the top and it would rattle, majority of devices had it, and some didn't. That you could live with, this you cannot due to it being a thing that affects use. I fear for someone who has Epilepsy, it could trigger it with the flickering.

 

[Sarah Hamilton]

I sold my M1 Mac mini for around $600 in May because of this.
I was hoping that update will fix the issue eventually but sadly nothing has changed. I should've returned it sooner.

I returned my Mac mini purchased a week ago. Going to stick to my 2016 MBP

 

[Sarah Hamilton]

Not good . Thanks for the update though. I am interested to see if this issue will persist in the new m1 pro and m1 max based macbooks. No support or even acknowledgement from Apple is very disappointing.

When are those new laptops getting delivered? Can't wait to see people try them. I'm never going to buy a newly incepted Apple product. I'm glad I was able to return it for a refund. I reckon Apple will declare this as a manufacturing fault, but I can't see what they'll be able to fix if it's hardware, it'll mean the whole motherboard needs to be replaced if it is a manufacturing defect. If it was a software issue it would have been resolved by now we're almost 12 months in since release

 

[amitdel]

I’ve experienced this on my S2721QS, but not since I switched to using HDMI via a USB-C to HDMI and VGA dongle from Amazon.

Would really appreciate if you can share if a) You are getting RGB on this with M1 and b) Colors and Text Sharpness are good / very good or a bit off.

Thanks!

 

[macrumors_reader]

hi everyone. I am also aware of this issue with the M1 (more info here) and just got my 16-inch M1 Pro delivered today. I have tried Reddit.com in dark/night mode and haven't been able to reproduce the issue I had with the M1 Mac mini I purchased in July (and returned because of the issue). From what I remember (it's been 3 months) Reddit.com in dark mode triggered it for me, another website with black background (forgot which one) also triggered it. let me know if there are specific websites, sequences of steps you want me to take to see if the issue is still present on this M1 Pro MBP. so far so good for me though but it's also in my best interest to figure out if this is still an issue (from what I remember 3 months ago I could not establish a conclusive thought/theory about what would trigger it besides something that has to do with dark background, as the return deadline approached I had to return the mini without being able to investigate further)

 

[Sarah Hamilton]

hi everyone. I am also aware of this issue with the M1 (more info here) and just got my 16-inch M1 Pro delivered today. I have tried Reddit.com in dark/night mode and haven't been able to reproduce the issue I had with the M1 Mac mini I purchased in July (and returned because of the issue). From what I remember (it's been 3 months) Reddit.com in dark mode triggered it for me, another website with black background (forgot which one) also triggered it. let me know if there are specific websites, sequences of steps you want me to take to see if the issue is still present on this M1 Pro MBP. so far so good for me though but it's also in my best interest to figure out if this is still an issue (from what I remember 3 months ago I could not establish a conclusive thought/theory about what would trigger it besides something that has to do with dark background, as the return deadline approached I had to return the mini without being able to investigate further)

Can you try please try the following:

1. https://www.apple.com/mac-mini/
2. https://www.netflix.com

Can you also let me know which monitor you are using? Is it the same as in July? Was it a M1 Pro MBP that you had previously, or mini? Which cable? I really do not want to invest in a new monitor, I have a 4K monitor the Dell S2817Q.

I don't mind in investing in a new HDMI cable. I am going to order a mac mini soon to test out to se if it was one bad unit, but I doubt it was.

 

[macrumors_reader]

Can you try please try the following:

1. https://www.apple.com/mac-mini/
2. https://www.netflix.com

Can you also let me know which monitor you are using? Is it the same as in July? Was it a M1 Pro MBP that you had previously, or mini? Which cable? I really do not want to invest in a new monitor, I have a 4K monitor the Dell S2817Q.

I don't mind in investing in a new HDMI cable. I am going to order a mac mini soon to test out to se if it was one bad unit, but I doubt it was.

I copied/pasted my post from the other thread I created (which received no replies so that's why I'm posting here in this thread) below which answers some of your questions and to give you some background:

I bought an M1 Mac mini back in July and was pleased with the performance but I encountered this "flickering" issue with external displays and unfortunately had to return it. I initially thought it was my display (Dell U2718Q) that was broken and asked Dell to exchange it under warranty. Dell didn't have the U2718Q so they sent me a (refurbished) U2720Q which is basically the 2020/improved version of the U2718Q (which was released in 2018). I continued to have the same issue and suspected there was something wrong with the Mac mini rather than my monitors. During this whole time (before, during, after) I had/have been using my Windows computer with the both monitors without issues (running at the same 4K resolution and 60Hz refresh rate). So it's definitely something wrong with the M1.

I will receive my 16-inch M1 Pro 16GB memory 1TB storage today and will be testing it with my U2720Q (as well as another monitor I have which is the Dell P2421). You can look up the specs of these monitors if you're not familiar but basically the U2720Q is a 4K (2160p) panel and the P2421 is a 1080p. To avoid falling to perform an extensive test of this issue, let me know the ways in which the issue gets triggered for you and I can test those in addition to browsing Reddit.com in dark mode (which was one of the things that triggered it for me from what I remember -- it's been a while)

I also want to add the reason I was initially confident it was the monitor that had problems was because when the flickering/ghosting happened if I switched connection to my Windows laptop or even if I have no connection at all to the monitor I still saw the flickering/ghosting (which went away after several hours of leaving the monitor unused). That was the weirdest thing ever and I still can't understand how/what could have caused that.

As for your other questions, for the M1 Mac mini in July I used a USB-C to HDMI cable to connect to the U2718Q (which doesn't have a USB-C port); when I got the U2720Q I did the same USB-C to HDMI and USB-C to USB-C (via DisplayPort Alt Mode protocol) and all of those setups had issues.

Now I'm using the same USB-C to USB-C cable mentioned above with my 16-inch MBP M1 Pro (16GB Memory 1TB Storage) running macOS 12.0 (Monterey) and so far have no issues. I tried your those 2 links you posted -- no issues (no flickering, no ghosting) at all. I'm hopeful this means the M1 Pro (and presumably M1 Max) have fixed the ugly problem, but it's only been several hours of use with this new 16-inch MBP so time will tell.

So overall I don't think the monitors or cables have anything wrong with them (assuming you choose the good brands such Cable Matters I chose). It's the M1 chip that appears to have the issue. So I don't think you can avoid this if you end up buying an M1 machine. I only tried the M1 Mac mini but apparently people with M1 MacBook Air and M1 MacBook Pro have been dealing with this flickering issue too.

 

[oz_rkie]

Can you try please try the following:

1. https://www.apple.com/mac-mini/
2. https://www.netflix.com

Can you also let me know which monitor you are using? Is it the same as in July? Was it a M1 Pro MBP that you had previously, or mini? Which cable? I really do not want to invest in a new monitor, I have a 4K monitor the Dell S2817Q.

I don't mind in investing in a new HDMI cable. I am going to order a mac mini soon to test out to se if it was one bad unit, but I doubt it was.

I personally ruled out a bad unit issue. I went through 3 m1 macbook airs that all had the same issue with my LG ultrawide. I kept my last macbook air and did not return it as unfortunately I have a hard dependency on mac os for work (xcode can only run on macos). I ended up just getting a new (different) monitor sadly just for the macbook. Such a waste of money in the end. If I did not need macos I would never go back to apple again. They clearly know by this point that this issue exists and not even acknowledge it.

 

[pantsdancetrance]

Hi all

6 months ago I bought and returned an M1 mac mini for flickering reasons. I detialed it all here: https://www.reddit.com/r/macmini/comments/mvzlht
My conclusion was it was a hardware issue with the M1 chip, no fixable by software updates.

Yesterday I bought a basline macbook pro 14. I plugged it into the same 2 monitors as before, one fairly new Viewsonic vp2768-4k, and one old 1080p Hans-G monitor. I have exactly the same issues that the old 1080p monitor flickers.

At this stage, I am assuming it is a compatability issue with the hans-G, and M1 chips being super sensitive or whatever. The 1080p monitor is absolutely fine with an intel macbook pro 2019, and my 2010 imac. It just hates M1's.

The viewsonic, so far, from 1 day testing, is ok. But I am going to keep premiere and grey type colours going for the 14 days I have to return it easily if there are any issues. So fingers crossed they have improved this flickering issue enough for the laptop to be ok with newer monitors.

By the way, i STILL had to do the Plist edit to force RGB colours on the monitor, so they haven't sorted that out with the M1pro.

Thought this might be handy information for people, and would be interested over the next 2 weeks to see what others experience - if there are any big issues again, it would be really bad!

 

[oz_rkie]

Hi all

6 months ago I bought and returned an M1 mac mini for flickering reasons. I detialed it all here: https://www.reddit.com/r/macmini/comments/mvzlht
My conclusion was it was a hardware issue with the M1 chip, no fixable by software updates.

Yesterday I bought a basline macbook pro 14. I plugged it into the same 2 monitors as before, one fairly new Viewsonic vp2768-4k, and one old 1080p Hans-G monitor. I have exactly the same issues that the old 1080p monitor flickers.

At this stage, I am assuming it is a compatability issue with the hans-G, and M1 chips being super sensitive or whatever. The 1080p monitor is absolutely fine with an intel macbook pro 2019, and my 2010 imac. It just hates M1's.

The viewsonic, so far, from 1 day testing, is ok. But I am going to keep premiere and grey type colours going for the 14 days I have to return it easily if there are any issues. So fingers crossed they have improved this flickering issue enough for the laptop to be ok with newer monitors.

By the way, i STILL had to do the Plist edit to force RGB colours on the monitor, so they haven't sorted that out with the M1pro.

Thought this might be handy information for people, and would be interested over the next 2 weeks to see what others experience - if there are any big issues again, it would be really bad!

Thanks for this update, really appreciate it. Pretty disappointing though that the issue persists even with the newer max and pro chips. Apple should just acknowledge the issue and at the very least have a list of monitors that are known to work properly with their ARM based machines, sort of like a supported monitors list so that people atleast are aware that there are certain monitors that the new macbooks don't like.

 

[Sarah Hamilton]

I personally ruled out a bad unit issue. I went through 3 m1 macbook airs that all had the same issue with my LG ultrawide. I kept my last macbook air and did not return it as unfortunately I have a hard dependency on mac os for work (xcode can only run on macos). I ended up just getting a new (different) monitor sadly just for the macbook. Such a waste of money in the end. If I did not need macos I would never go back to apple again. They clearly know by this point that this issue exists and not even acknowledge it.

Which monitor did you get? You are right this is a waste of money. Of course Apple know, all those returns and support requests.

 

[Sarah Hamilton]

Thanks for this update, really appreciate it. Pretty disappointing though that the issue persists even with the newer max and pro chips. Apple should just acknowledge the issue and at the very least have a list of monitors that are known to work properly with their ARM based machines, sort of like a supported monitors list so that people atleast are aware that there are certain monitors that the new macbooks don't like.

Would defy the purpose of HDMI if theres a list of 'approved monitors'. What are Pros to do? When they go and see a client, carry their monitor with them or tell the client to get the approved monitor?

 

[oz_rkie]

Which monitor did you get? You are right this is a waste of money. Of course Apple know, all those returns and support requests.

My main monitor is an LG38GL950B which the m1 macs always had issue with, severe ghosting and flickering. After trying and returning 2 macbook airs, for the 3rd one I just gave up and decided to buy https://www.samsung.com/au/business/monitors/s65ua/ls34a650uxexxy/ which so far has been working fine with the mac. The colors are a bit washed out which I think is because of the mac not able to output RGB on many monitors (which is another annoying issue with these m1 macs and is well documented in another thread on this forum) but atleast theres no flickering or ghosting now with this monitor. I've also tried the macbooks with this monitor https://www.benq.com/en-au/monitor/entertainment/ew3270u.html and this was also fine, no flickering or ghosting issues.

 

[pantsdancetrance]

With my new macbook pro m1pro 14, connected to the Viewsonic VP2768-4k I still have some flickering on certain websites (both in safari and firefox). Not yet in Premiere though.

I can only assume something is not quite conpatible when certain scripts come up, or something that's beyond my nderstanding. But anyway - it's better than it was before on the mac mini m1. I'll keep my eye on it before the 14 days is up for easy return...

 

[kToni73]

Had this issue with my M1 Mac mini. My monitor is a new Dell P2721Q, which has a 4K 27in screen. Replicated flickering on dark gradients/colours and the associated image retention. An example that caused this for me was the NoMachine website, which has a black banner at the top and a very dark grey colour right underneath it.

I noticed that this issue was sensitive to the colour profiles I applied to the monitor. I changed to the "sRGB IEC61966-2.1" profile and found that this reduced the frequency (maybe it lightened the screen slightly as well). I also turned the monitor off more frequently when not in use, just in case this was a hardware issue. This only reduced occurrence.

Since there were anecdotes about HDR modes on monitors causing this, and my experience of it being affected by colour profiles, I looked into the colour output by the M1. M1 seems to output in YPbPr mode by default to many monitors using USB-C, DisplayPort, or HDMI. On my monitor, the OSD menu says YPbPr rather than RGB. Turns out, there's people complaining about YPbPr output from the M1 Mac. Luckily, someone figured out a fix (it's in that thread). Ran through the fix, and haven't had issues since (2 weeks and counting). The NoMachine website doesn't cause flicker any more.

Interestingly, DVI connections don't support YPbPr. So if you're connecting with DVI, you may not get this problem. But for many running 4K 60Hz screens, the norm is to connect with USB-C, DisplayPort or HDMI, which do support YPbPr.

Thank you.

 

[Sarah Hamilton]

With my new macbook pro m1pro 14, connected to the Viewsonic VP2768-4k I still have some flickering on certain websites (both in safari and firefox). Not yet in Premiere though.

I can only assume something is not quite conpatible when certain scripts come up, or something that's beyond my nderstanding. But anyway - it's better than it was before on the mac mini m1. I'll keep my eye on it before the 14 days is up for easy return...

This happens on websites and on software running on the mac, even happens on macos recovery mode

 

[pantsdancetrance]

I think it's worth me saying, I just got a displayport to thunderbolt cable and went on the same website that was flickering before with HDMI, and now it has stopped flickering!

It now seems stable.

My setup is the Viewsonic VP2768-4k linked to macbook pro 14 (m1pro base model) via displayport to thunderbolt (an expensive cable that says it's capable of 8k). I have the Plis modification so that it is outputting RGB to the monitor.

fingers crossed it keeps like this now. I think the M1 is very sensitive to all of these issues, rgb issues, hdmi issues, m1 issues - so it's a tricky combo of all of them.

 

[kToni73]

I think it's worth me saying, I just got a displayport to thunderbolt cable and went on the same website that was flickering before with HDMI, and now it has stopped flickering!

It now seems stable.

My setup is the Viewsonic VP2768-4k linked to macbook pro 14 (m1pro base model) via displayport to thunderbolt (an expensive cable that says it's capable of 8k). I have the Plis modification so that it is outputting RGB to the monitor.

fingers crossed it keeps like this now. I think the M1 is very sensitive to all of these issues, rgb issues, hdmi issues, m1 issues - so it's a tricky combo of all of them.

I got the same Cable (USB-C to DP) and it’s still going on… It’s even worse than HDMI on Docking Station. Ordered USB-C to HDMI to try next. I’d hate to return the Monitor.

 

[pantsdancetrance]

I got the same Cable (USB-C to DP) and it’s still going on… It’s even worse than HDMI on Docking Station. Ordered USB-C to HDMI to try next. I’d hate to return the Monitor.

Oh no! It seems random then. I hope you can find a solution.

 

[NYR99]

I seem to have this issue as well. I have an M1 Mac mini, with two Dell S2722QC monitors. The issue only happens with the monitor connected via HDMI. It does not happen all the time, seems to only happen after video has been playing for a while (over an hour or two). It also only seems to flicker on video that is playing on the screen. Like if I am watching YouTube, the video itself will flicker, but anything else on the screen appears fine. If I disable able f.lux it stops for a bit, then seems to slowly come back.

 

[Sarah Hamilton]

I seem to have this issue as well. I have an M1 Mac mini, with two Dell S2722QC monitors. The issue only happens with the monitor connected via HDMI. It does not happen all the time, seems to only happen after video has been playing for a while (over an hour or two). It also only seems to flicker on video that is playing on the screen. Like if I am watching YouTube, the video itself will flicker, but anything else on the screen appears fine. If I disable able f.lux it stops for a bit, then seems to slowly come back.

I have a Dell S2817Q, which flickers like crazy and makes me feel weird. My cheap HP 1920x1080 thanksgiving buy of 2015 works flawlessly. I wonder what it is in these monitors that causes this