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

[burnkill]

Greetings everyone. I just received my Mac mini m2 and guess what...Problem still persists. I found this thread because of this very issue.

Current monitor setup:

• Primary Monitor - Acer CB281HK - connected directly to Mac via HDMI. (this is the troublesome monitor)
• Secondary Monitor - Dell U2713HM - connected via HDMI via Anker USB-C hub/dock

As called out, seems to happen more while using Safari (thus far). I'm going to attempt to use a USB-C to HDMI cable for my primary one. Will report any issues. Just wanted to make sure everyone knows the issue is still not resolved. I get a lot of folks have just learned to live with this.. but if I can't find a fix, this machine is going back.

 

[burnkill]

Update already:

• Tried a USB-C to DP - no dice, got flickering as well.

Trying to a USB-C to HDMI, will provide results when possible.

 

[ibash]

Other info are: pay attention - MacOsX turns of often the HDR flag after the monitor wakes up from sleep mode

So the bug reproduced and I was able to test the affect of HDR.
I can positively state that enabling HDR _does not_ resolve the issue. If anything it makes it more apparent because HDR causes screen brightness to go up.

 

[ibash]

Greetings everyone. I just received my Mac mini m2 and guess what...Problem still persists. I found this thread because of this very issue.

Current monitor setup:

• Primary Monitor - Acer CB281HK - connected directly to Mac via HDMI. (this is the troublesome monitor)
• Secondary Monitor - Dell U2713HM - connected via HDMI via Anker USB-C hub/dock

As called out, seems to happen more while using Safari (thus far). I'm going to attempt to use a USB-C to HDMI cable for my primary one. Will report any issues. Just wanted to make sure everyone knows the issue is still not resolved. I get a lot of folks have just learned to live with this.. but if I can't find a fix, this machine is going back.

I think your best bet is buying different monitors, I did a bunch of testing and found that a lot of the solutions in this thread don't work. (see Wednesday at 10:54 AM )

 

[burnkill]

I think your best bet is buying different monitors, I did a bunch of testing and found that a lot of the solutions in this thread don't work. (see Wednesday at 10:54 AM )

I cant accept that as an answer unfortunately. Either way, the mac has been returned.

 

[oz_rkie]

I think your best bet is buying different monitors, I did a bunch of testing and found that a lot of the solutions in this thread don't work. (see Wednesday at 10:54 AM )

This is sadly why Apple can get away with completely ignoring non-trivial issues like this one. Unfortunately, the apple user base has become so complacent and accepting of getting screwed over by Apple and are 'ok' with it, that in a scenario where the m1/m2 chips are clearly doing something funky with a large number of external monitor, the 'best bet' to resolve this issue is to play monitor lottery in the hopes that one of them will play nice with an obviously faulty apple product instead of returning said apple product.

P.S. I know in many cases macOS is a requirement for some people for their workflows but the situation with Apple just ignoring their customer issues unless the said issue is massive enough to cause them a PR headache is pretty disappointing and apple users are a large part of why they get away with it. It's always 'you are holding it wrong' or 'you are using it wrong' with faulty apple products. Yeah, the new apple silicon chips are great but they aren't that great that you'd want to put up with image flicker and image retention issues. I mean how hard is external monitor support? It's not like its something new. I guess this is apple's way to push people toward their ridiculously priced apple displays.

 

[ibash]

This is sadly why Apple can get away with completely ignoring non-trivial issues like this one. Unfortunately, the apple user base has become so complacent and accepting of getting screwed over by Apple and are 'ok' with it, that in a scenario where the m1/m2 chips are clearly doing something funky with a large number of external monitor, the 'best bet' to resolve this issue is to play monitor lottery in the hopes that one of them will play nice with an obviously faulty apple product instead of returning said apple product.

P.S. I know in many cases macOS is a requirement for some people for their workflows but the situation with Apple just ignoring their customer issues unless the said issue is massive enough to cause them a PR headache is pretty disappointing and apple users are a large part of why they get away with it. It's always 'you are holding it wrong' or 'you are using it wrong' with faulty apple products. Yeah, the new apple silicon chips are great but they aren't that great that you'd want to put up with image flicker and image retention issues. I mean how hard is external monitor support? It's not like its something new. I guess this is apple's way to push people toward their ridiculously priced apple displays.

I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to imply that this is user error. The fault is clearly with apple. Instead I was trying to point them to an actual known solution, however bad it is. As it is I'm still experimenting to see if I can find the underlying issue.

 

[ibash]

Minor update, asked someone at the office to hook their computer up to my setup. They have a newer apple silicon laptop. The issue reproduces.

At this point I've tested swapping all the previous settings, swapping the monitor (newer version of the same model), swapping the dock (same model, but with hardware rev), all the cables, and tested a completely different machine. The issue still reproduces.

 

[nephorix]

I'm looking to buy an external monitor for my M1 MacBook Air and reading all these forums have really deterred me. Seems like this spans multiples brands and models and like someone mentioned above, playing lottery. I would not mind having to perform the temporary fixes repetitively anytime the issue pops. But then there are some people like ibash who says nothing fixes the issue. So the flickering is permanent for you?

 

[xargs]

Same here, I have a 14inch MBP M1 pro, 1 Lenovo QHD and Dell 4K monitors, and Lenovo is fine while Dell experiences ghosting and flickering with vertical lines. I use the same Dell with my trusty 2010 Mac Pro which has no issues whatsoever with AMD Radeon RX580 (PC card). It's mind boggling that there's been 2 full years since M1/M2 was released and this issue still persists even with latest OS. I have checked some Dell forums and they are aware of the issue and recommend their Thunderbolt to HDMI adapter that supposedly fixes this issue, but they priced is at $CAN65.00 and honestly I don't believe it would work, but if someone does have it let me know. This leaves me to use Lenovo display only since 4K exhibits this issue constantly throughout the day making it unusable. There seems to be a workaround I just found

but need to test it out after I switch the screen back to Dell.

 

[ibash]

@nephorix Fwiw it comes and goes, and in my case it seems to reoccur with days between.

Also, I realize now that when I did my tests although I had power cycled the monitor, I didn’t do anything to drain any internal power (eg pull power cord and hold down a power button to drain internal capacitors) so my tests could be flawed.

Ktoni73 said this model worked fine for them: "LG32UN880 Ultra Fine" -- probably makes sense to start a list of known good/bad models.

 

[oz_rkie]

@nephorix Fwiw it comes and goes, and in my case it seems to reoccur with days between.

Also, I realize now that when I did my tests although I had power cycled the monitor, I didn’t do anything to drain any internal power (eg pull power cord and hold down a power button to drain internal capacitors) so my tests could be flawed.

Ktoni73 said this model worked fine for them: "LG32UN880 Ultra Fine" -- probably makes sense to start a list of known good/bad models.

Known good/bad models likely won't work. If you read this and other threads you will find users who have the same monitor, one person has 0 issues while the other will experience every issue. My own example in this thread and others, when I still had these macbooks (I've sold them a while ago after becoming fed up with this issue) was using an LG38GL950B, a high end ultrawide display that worked flawlessly with any non m1 device (windows pc, linux laptop, even older intel based macbook) and still works flawlessly with non m1 devices suffered from extreme flickering, image retention etc. while there was another user with the same monitor that had no issues to report.

 

[nephorix]

@nephorix Fwiw it comes and goes, and in my case it seems to reoccur with days between.

Also, I realize now that when I did my tests although I had power cycled the monitor, I didn’t do anything to drain any internal power (eg pull power cord and hold down a power button to drain internal capacitors) so my tests could be flawed.

Ktoni73 said this model worked fine for them: "LG32UN880 Ultra Fine" -- probably makes sense to start a list of known good/bad models.

I see, so those temporary fixes do indeed work. When you and other users mentioned that non of the fixes solves the issue, you'll mean that it reoccurs again every few days/intervals right? If that's the case I might just go ahead and buy the Dell S2722QC (and apply those fixes every few days) as I really need a monitor for the extra screen space right now.

 

[oz_rkie]

I see, so those temporary fixes do indeed work. When you and other users mentioned that non of the fixes solves the issue, you'll mean that it reoccurs again every few days/intervals right? If that's the case I might just go ahead and buy the Dell S2722QC (and apply those fixes every few days) as I really need a monitor for the extra screen space right now.

The frequency of how often it might reoccur is pretty arbitrary btw. You might not get the issues reoccur for many days after the temp fixes at times and at other times it will happen every few minutes even after you keep applying the temporary 'fixes'. Just fyi.

 

[cliffordyen]

Same here, I have a 14inch MBP M1 pro, 1 Lenovo QHD and Dell 4K monitors, and Lenovo is fine while Dell experiences ghosting and flickering with vertical lines. I use the same Dell with my trusty 2010 Mac Pro which has no issues whatsoever with AMD Radeon RX580 (PC card). It's mind boggling that there's been 2 full years since M1/M2 was released and this issue still persists even with latest OS. I have checked some Dell forums and they are aware of the issue and recommend their Thunderbolt to HDMI adapter that supposedly fixes this issue, but they priced is at $CAN65.00 and honestly I don't believe it would work, but if someone does have it let me know. This leaves me to use Lenovo display only since 4K exhibits this issue constantly throughout the day making it unusable. There seems to be a workaround I just found

but need to test it out after I switch the screen back to Dell.

I have the exact same monitor and a MacBook Air M1 model, and I can confidently say the settings pointed out in the video do not really fix the problem. All those measures just alleviate the problem. You don't know when it will happen again. I replaced my monitor 3 times with Dell and finally gave up and admitted that M1 doesn't make sure "it just works" for monitors, such a fundamental peripheral.

 

[nephorix]

The frequency of how often it might reoccur is pretty arbitrary btw. You might not get the issues reoccur for many days after the temp fixes at times and at other times it will happen every few minutes even after you keep applying the temporary 'fixes'. Just fyi.

Yeah that's my fear that it will constantly occur, how frequent was yours.

 

[oz_rkie]

Yeah that's my fear that it will constantly occur, how frequent was yours.

My issues were with an LG 38GL950B. On certain days with certain apps/colors on the screen it used to happen pretty frequently, every half an hour or so. And the issues in my case were pretty severe, crazy flickering to image retention. In the cases where I'd get image retention, the only way to get rid of the image retention was to fully power off the monitor, i.e. completely plugged off mains for a few hours (not even switching devices, switching inputs, simply turning on/off the monitor would resolve it). Although people that had severe image retention with the m1/m2 chips are not as many as just the flickering issues.

 

[nephorix]

My issues were with an LG 38GL950B. On certain days with certain apps/colors on the screen it used to happen pretty frequently, every half an hour or so. And the issues in my case were pretty severe, crazy flickering to image retention. In the cases where I'd get image retention, the only way to get rid of the image retention was to fully power off the monitor, i.e. completely plugged off mains for a few hours (not even switching devices, switching inputs, simply turning on/off the monitor would resolve it). Although people that had severe image retention with the m1/m2 chips are not as many as just the flickering issues.

Damn that sounds rough, I wonder how those popular YouTubers using Mac don't face this issues with their non Apple monitors. Could it be the software or certain type of work flow being done that's causing this hmmmm.

 

[pabloteari]

Guys, I bought an Apple Thunderbolt Display 2011 2k and a UBC-C to Apple Thunderbout Display 2011 adapter, all problems solved, beautiful image, no vertical interfering lines.

Very curious all this, but happy now.

 

[cliffordyen]

Guys, I bought an Apple Thunderbolt Display 2011 2k and a UBC-C to Apple Thunderbout Display 2011 adapter, all problems solved, beautiful image, no vertical interfering lines.

Very curious all this, but happy now.

I guess the reason why it solves the problem is that it's a 2K monitor, not because it's Apple's first-party monitor. Others in this thread also report they don't have this issue with their 2K monitors. It seems like most of us suffer from this issue all use 4K monitors since it's the lowest resolution you can enable HiDPI mode for an external monitor connected to a Mac.

 

[NegativePress]

I agree, I've had nothing but issues with my Dell 4k S3221QS (connected usb-c to HDMI). My super basic HP 24inch (1080p) has no issues what so ever.

The problem is clear when running a Youtube video that has dark to light transitions (or general gameplay videos) or ironically scrolling through this Logic Pro page on Apples website.

Was hoping updating the OS & firmware would help - a new branded (Anker) cable had 0 effect

 

[NegativePress]

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.

I have exactly the same setup (except running usb-c to HDMI) as you in every way and have 100% the same issues you have described.

My PC (Intel/Nvidia) works like a charm but the Mac Studio just won't play nice 100% of the time. Frustrating, but you are not alone!

 

[pabloteari]

I guess the reason why it solves the problem is that it's a 2K monitor, not because it's Apple's first-party monitor. Others in this thread also report they don't have this issue with their 2K monitors. It seems like most of us suffer from this issue all use 4K monitors since it's the lowest resolution you can enable HiDPI mode for an external monitor connected to a Mac.

Yes, but I came to this forum because I have these problems reported here on a Dell 22 1080p monitor, which bother me a lot.

So in my case it wasn't even in a 4k.

I've tried others too, and to no avail. So unfortunately the only way was to get this 2k. But I would have liked to have continued with my Dell 22 FullHD, I liked it, this one gets very hot..

 

[Zest28]

I guess the reason why it solves the problem is that it's a 2K monitor, not because it's Apple's first-party monitor. Others in this thread also report they don't have this issue with their 2K monitors. It seems like most of us suffer from this issue all use 4K monitors since it's the lowest resolution you can enable HiDPI mode for an external monitor connected to a Mac.

I have had no issue with a 4K Samsung monitor. Works just as good as my Apple Studio Display except for the slower "awake from sleep reaction time" that is significantly slower.

Are you guys using good quality cables?

 

[cliffordyen]

Yes, but I came to this forum because I have these problems reported here on a Dell 22 1080p monitor, which bother me a lot.

So in my case it wasn't even in a 4k.

I've tried others too, and to no avail. So unfortunately the only way was to get this 2k. But I would have liked to have continued with my Dell 22 FullHD, I liked it, this one gets very hot..

Interesting. What is the color depth of your Dell monitor? 8-bit or 8-bit + FRC (although it is sometimes labeled as 10-bit, mostly it's not a true 10-bit panel). I am trying to figure out what is the root cause. Since the resolution is not the reason, then maybe the temporal dithering is the culprit. Otherwise, it would be so weird to me that the situations everyone faces are so inconsistent.