I hope its fixed for you but like many others in this thread, 'fixes' like the ones outlined in your earlier reply seem to be mostly temporary. Hope this is not the case in your instance though and that the fix is permanent.
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M1/M2 flickering, ghosting with external display [Merged]
- Thread starter aednichols
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Just created an account to try and get some help. I've also tried a few monitors - two Samsung 32" G5s and two Philips 328E1CA 4Ks. I didn't notice any flickering with the G5s, but the text was blurry so I ended up returning those, figured it may be related to the 2k resolution capacity. Then the Philips ones get here and they both flicker side by side. Using a Mokin adapter for both HDMI outputs.
Anyway, I tried to read through several pages, and it seems there's no reliable fix. I made this account because I am just wondering, is there *ANY* monitor, ideally at least 27" if not 32"+ that has been found to reliably be compatible with an M1? 4k would be preferable but at this point I just want non-flickering, non-blurry external displays, as I'm sure everyone here wants as well. Who knew this was too much to ask for.
FWIW, I'm using a 2021 MacBook Pro 16". Figured I'd ask before I get on the phone with Apple and try to get an M2 out of them, which will likely be a fruitless attempt on my part. So before I fail in my quest and then return these monitors too, anyone have any M1-compatible monitor suggestions as described above?
Thanks!
Anyway, I tried to read through several pages, and it seems there's no reliable fix. I made this account because I am just wondering, is there *ANY* monitor, ideally at least 27" if not 32"+ that has been found to reliably be compatible with an M1? 4k would be preferable but at this point I just want non-flickering, non-blurry external displays, as I'm sure everyone here wants as well. Who knew this was too much to ask for.
FWIW, I'm using a 2021 MacBook Pro 16". Figured I'd ask before I get on the phone with Apple and try to get an M2 out of them, which will likely be a fruitless attempt on my part. So before I fail in my quest and then return these monitors too, anyone have any M1-compatible monitor suggestions as described above?
Thanks!
I've now got the Xiaomi 27 inch 2k gaming monitor. Hooked up with an 8K hdmi cable, set to 120 hz, using the srgb mode on the monitor, and the generic rgb color profile within macos. Been using it without any problems whatsoever for about half a year now. I think I can safely say this issue is no longer bothering me.
Before this, I had the msi ps321qr, on which I had been trying to fix the flicker and image retention burnin issue for over a year without succes..
I still check this thread from time to time because I'm curious if this will ever get fixed. This has to be one of the weirdest issues I've ever encountered in about 25 years of dealing with hardware/software.
How about M2, is the issue still there? I wonder.
Before this, I had the msi ps321qr, on which I had been trying to fix the flicker and image retention burnin issue for over a year without succes..
I still check this thread from time to time because I'm curious if this will ever get fixed. This has to be one of the weirdest issues I've ever encountered in about 25 years of dealing with hardware/software.
How about M2, is the issue still there? I wonder.
Don't know but I don't think anything will change with 12.5 or even 13.x or m1 vs m2 given the age of this issue. I've sold both my m1 airs and have switched to linux machines. Couldn't be happier, everything just works.
I just installed the developer preview of Mac OS Ventura (13 beta 3) this morning, and so far I've not had the issue anymore. On 12.x I had it almost immediately when I started up. I have a studio m1 max with MSI Optix G27. Was only experiencing issues with the one monitor I had plugged into the actual HDMI port and a USB-C/HDMI adapter. The other monitor through DisplayPort was not having the same issue.
I also noticed when I switched to a DisplayLink adapter for HDMI the issue went away for that other external monitor, even on Monterrey. I use this DisplayLink adapter. I know spending almost $100 per monitor to fix an issue on a $200 monitor is not feasible for everyone, but the more you know I guess. Also displaylink is pretty frustrating for daily driving.
I will also note this was only present on my MSI Optix G273QPF (a TN panel) on HDMI, while my more expensive MSI MAG274QRF-QD, which is IPS, does not have this issue over HDMI.
I was getting ready to either sell my mac studio or switch to $400 monitors all around because this issue was so frustrating, and the ghosting persisted even after I switched to my gaming PC over DisplayPort for 30 minutes to an hour and had really bad issues with flickering.
I will post an update after 48 hours.
I also noticed when I switched to a DisplayLink adapter for HDMI the issue went away for that other external monitor, even on Monterrey. I use this DisplayLink adapter. I know spending almost $100 per monitor to fix an issue on a $200 monitor is not feasible for everyone, but the more you know I guess. Also displaylink is pretty frustrating for daily driving.
I will also note this was only present on my MSI Optix G273QPF (a TN panel) on HDMI, while my more expensive MSI MAG274QRF-QD, which is IPS, does not have this issue over HDMI.
I was getting ready to either sell my mac studio or switch to $400 monitors all around because this issue was so frustrating, and the ghosting persisted even after I switched to my gaming PC over DisplayPort for 30 minutes to an hour and had really bad issues with flickering.
I will post an update after 48 hours.
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Can confirm that I still have the strange, faint vertical bars all across my screen if I plug my 1080p HDMI monitor on 12.5
Up until yesterday I would've suggested the Dell U2720Q (one of which I've been using for about 16 months), but unfortunately I am now intermittently experiencing the same issue with my 3-4 month old Macbook Pro (16").
I'm both baffled and exasperated by this, never seen anything like it in over 30 years of dealing with 'computer stuff'.
So I wanted to add my voice to this debate, because I've been experiencing htis problem on a brand new Mac Stduio M1 Max, and had the vertical line issue with a Dell 32" Curved 4k Monitor (Dell 3221QS).
Before I explain further, I will say I've switched to my older monitor, a BenQ 27" 4k monitor (PD2700U), and experience no issues. I will also say I have a home built Wndows PC, Intel/Nvidia, and have never had this issue. Both the Dell and BenQ work great with it.
All connections are HDMI 2.1 cable-based. No usb-c->displayport. I will be picking one of those up later toay.
I could faithfully reproduce this effect with certain YouTube videos played fullscreen at 4k resolution, which allowed me to test some things with a controlled environment. The flickering appeared to be frame specific, in that I could get it to happen at the exact same time for each playthrough.
What I found is that if I changed my Color Profile, from the 3221QS profile as directed by the system, to Apple RGB, the vertical line issue was less frequent in my test YouTube video, but still showed up. I switched to different color profiles, like Adobe RGB (very prevalent flickering) and Wide Gamut RGB (the least amount of flickering) so I felt like I was on to something.
Now, one thing I discovered with my Dell, is that my Mac Studio drives it in YPbPr mode, not RGB. My Windows machine drives the Dell in RGB. My Mac Studio drives my BenQ in RGB. So the Studio is capable of putting out RGB via the HDMI port, but refuses to with the Dell monitor. If I force my Dell Monitor into RGB mode, it takes on a strong false color / purple color space. Think of it like Predator vision.
My instincts now are to try a usb-c to thunderbolt cable, and see if that will force my Dell to use RGB, and if so, if that will help. But I've done pretty much everything else I can think of: Updated Dell's firmware, switched HDMI cables, switched the input port, and nothing worked.
If anyone can think of a way to force Mac OS Monterey to force RGB output, I'd love to hear it.
Just wanted to add my two cents to the discussion, in case it moves anything forward.
Before I explain further, I will say I've switched to my older monitor, a BenQ 27" 4k monitor (PD2700U), and experience no issues. I will also say I have a home built Wndows PC, Intel/Nvidia, and have never had this issue. Both the Dell and BenQ work great with it.
All connections are HDMI 2.1 cable-based. No usb-c->displayport. I will be picking one of those up later toay.
I could faithfully reproduce this effect with certain YouTube videos played fullscreen at 4k resolution, which allowed me to test some things with a controlled environment. The flickering appeared to be frame specific, in that I could get it to happen at the exact same time for each playthrough.
What I found is that if I changed my Color Profile, from the 3221QS profile as directed by the system, to Apple RGB, the vertical line issue was less frequent in my test YouTube video, but still showed up. I switched to different color profiles, like Adobe RGB (very prevalent flickering) and Wide Gamut RGB (the least amount of flickering) so I felt like I was on to something.
Now, one thing I discovered with my Dell, is that my Mac Studio drives it in YPbPr mode, not RGB. My Windows machine drives the Dell in RGB. My Mac Studio drives my BenQ in RGB. So the Studio is capable of putting out RGB via the HDMI port, but refuses to with the Dell monitor. If I force my Dell Monitor into RGB mode, it takes on a strong false color / purple color space. Think of it like Predator vision.
My instincts now are to try a usb-c to thunderbolt cable, and see if that will force my Dell to use RGB, and if so, if that will help. But I've done pretty much everything else I can think of: Updated Dell's firmware, switched HDMI cables, switched the input port, and nothing worked.
If anyone can think of a way to force Mac OS Monterey to force RGB output, I'd love to hear it.
Just wanted to add my two cents to the discussion, in case it moves anything forward.
Yes... I spent a small portion of yesterday afternoon stuffing around to achieve this.
I have a hunch that this is a 'thing' with DELL monitors - I'm using a U2720Q.
There's a Youtube video linked at this post:
BUT it required one extra step,
Find the following user-specific plist file, noting the bold/italicised sections will be unique to your user/machine. The machine specific UUID will be in a format like "ABCD12EE-12A3-1234-ABC1-0123456A123A":
/Users/<yourusername>/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.windowserver.displays.<machine-specific-UUID>.plist
Once found, create a backup copy to your desktop/somewhere easily found.
As well as changing the PixelEncoding integer value to 0 and the Range to 1, the BitDepth value was set to 10, and needed to be changed to 8 to match all the other sections. That section (starting at line 32, ending at line 42, but yours may be formatted differently) of my ../com.apple.windowserver.displays.<UUID>.plist now looks as follows, and switches to RGB output as soon as I have logged in.
Code:
<key>LinkDescription</key>
<dict>
<key>BitDepth</key>
<integer>8</integer>
<key>EOTF</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>PixelEncoding</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>Range</key>
<integer>1</integer>
</dict>Also to make this a little less complex, the wonderful BBEdit text editor can edit these .plist files natively, with no need to convert from/back to binary format.
Let me know how you get on.
Greetings every1
fix that flickering with reset to factory monitor settings + hight resolution cable speed with rgb color system (not ycb)
think it's a M chip trouble and it's will be fixed in next ventura updates
fix that flickering with reset to factory monitor settings + hight resolution cable speed with rgb color system (not ycb)
think it's a M chip trouble and it's will be fixed in next ventura updates
Update: going with a usb-c to thunderbolt cable fixed the issue completely for me. Been flawless since switching over.
Could it be, that your colour profile for the display was changed when you started using the USB-C to Displayport option and maybe then was switched to something else due to an OS upgrade (or something like that)?
I‘m asking, because I managed to reduce the frequency to quite some degree, by changing the colour profile (System Settings -> Displays -> Colour Profile). Without changing anything (!) else, this even felt like as if it has fixed the issue completely, however then for some reason I noticed it again here and there, but it‘s still much much better than before.
To anyone having that flickering problem, maybe give another colour profile a try. I‘m currently using "Generic RGB Profile". YMMV.
My hardware:
Mac Mini M1
USB-C to Thunderbolt
Samsung Odyssey G9
Lol, the amount of user bending over backwards to get Apple products to "work" is incredible. Guess we are just "holding it wrong".
Can‘t argue with that, however what else can you do when other OSs aren‘t an alternative? Then you are simply stuck and the only action you can take is something I encouraged everybody here to do already: contact the Apple support.
Of course that‘s not a guarantee that they will do something about it, but at least increases the likelihood that they do, as it should put the problem more and more on Apple‘s radar.
I'm surprised that Apple Engineers haven't noticed this. Does that mean they don't use any 3rd party external displays? Or they did notice it, and it is something they can't fix so they've chosen to ignore it? It certainly seems like a good amount of people have this issue.
I know their displays are great, but I'm not at the level where I'm willing to pay more for my display than the machine I'm using.
Yeah, I agree, not a lot of choice for those who need the mac os ecosystem. My post was not aimed at you btw, just a general note. Luckily my own dependence on macos has ended, I no longer need Xcode for the moment so I've been able to sell both my macbooks and moved to linux machines.
Pretty sure they know about this issue. And the thing is, this issue exists with even super expensive non-apple monitors so its not just cheaper monitors that might get this issue. I was using an LG38GL950 which was at the time of my purchase 3k with my macbook air which was 1.5k and my LG was basically unusable, flickering, image retention etc.
My guess is, from an Apple's point of view it could even be preferable for them for these kind of issues to persist, sort of force users to buy Apple displays. It's not beyond them to this sort of stuff on purpose, another example of note is the apple -> android texting issue where they pretty deliberately keep the experience sub optimal to nudge people into the apple eco system - It’s time for Apple to fix texting. (android.com) (I think mkbhd also had a video a while ago talking about this sort of stuff with apple). Pretty scummy imo.