Mac Studio screen flickering

[HDFan]

this flickering also happens with a Mac Studio connected to a Studio Display ???

Yes, connected with Thunderbolt. Goes away when I toggle scaling in Display preferences.

 

[jennyp]

Yes, connected with Thunderbolt. Goes away when I toggle scaling in Display preferences.

You mean "toggle" as in "change to a different setting and then change back again? That is, you're not forced to select a different scaling than you originally wanted?

 

[HDFan]

You mean "toggle" as in "change to a different setting and then change back again? That is, you're not forced to select a different scaling than you originally wanted?

Yes.

 

[Gr1f]

I've been gettinng the same with my 4k 32" Benq. It's intermittent. Seems to happen after some prolonged use.

 

[tigermurphy]

I just bought a new M2 Ultra Mac Studio and had the screen flickering problem right away when connecting an LG 27UP850 4K monitor. Connecting it via HDMI caused intermittent flickers that were super distracting, happening every few minutes. I tried to connect it via Thunderbolt 3/USB-C and that didn't work at all... I got a message in the OS saying the accessory didn't have enough power. I don't get that since the monitor has its own power supply. But finally when I used a Thunderbolt 4 cable it seemed to solve the issue. Of course the Mac is going to require the most expensive cable to work properly. But at least I was able to use an OWC 6ft TB4 cable that costs less than half of the insane price Apple charges for it. I hope this helps anyone else having a similar problem.

 

[Audentia]

I have the same panel as the OP, but in an EVE Spectrum connected via Thunderbolt to my Mac Studio.
I can confirm that some flickering occurs in a few situations. Specifically, at least for me, this seems to happen when the monitor is set to a variable refresh rate in the macOS preferences. In some cases it will then drop to 48Hz, which seems to generate a flickering effect, likely because the refresh rate drops low enough that one can actually pick it up.
I can fix this completely by going into the preferences and setting it to a fixed 144Hz, which eliminates the flickering entirely.

The only problem thus far is that in rare cases, macOS will -seemingly at random- decide to reset it back to enable variable refresh rate, which causes the flickering to occur again. Resetting it in the preferences resolves it once more, but is slightly annoying. Luckily it doesn't happen all that often (once a week or so).

You sir have just saved me, thank you. I couldn't figure out why my eve / dough spectrum was experiencing random flickering and then I found your post. What's weird to me is it flickers even if locked at 60hz in addition to the variable setting. Only 120hz or 144hz makes the flickering go away.

Is this an Apple problem or an Eve problem? I'm guessing VRR is not implemented correctly, and the flicker is a known issue on Eve forums.

 

[HDFan]

I just bought a new M2 Ultra Mac Studio and had the screen flickering problem right away when connecting an LG 27UP850 4K monitor. Connecting it via HDMI caused intermittent flickers that were super distracting, happening every few minutes.

I get an intermittent flckering Studio display on my Studio M2. Also occured on my M1. Since it is random and not reproducible in a holding pattern for now. Suspect it is a display problem but ...

 

[Lihp8270]

So your issue is the opposite of mine.

You can hook up an expensive or trash monitor to a PC with whatever cables and they all work. But MACs seems to be very choosy.

Macs are unfortunately pretty awful with monitor support

 

[reiherrera]

hey guys. I had the same issue and have the same monitor of the guy from the first post. someone suggested to change the color config but exploring the menu I tried and I disabled the free-sync from my monitor's menu (I use it with my ps5) and actually I think it solved the problem. I completely discard a monitor problem since I don't have any issue with my ps5 playing in 120fps.

It may be the same problem on everyone since the majority of the monitors nowadays comes with free sync and g-sync enabled by default. since Mac work with their own gpu and video technology that could be making a sort to discrepancy and also, that's why cheap monitors work without any problem.

 

[ErneX]

I've been gettinng the same with my 4k 32" Benq. It's intermittent. Seems to happen after some prolonged use.

Exactly what happens to me with the M1 MacBook Pro w/Benq monitor, and I noticed it happened more often recently during the heat waves we got this summer.

It’s so bad that if you let the monitor on while this is happening you will get image retention due to how fast the screen is flickering. Once I had to wait until it stopped doing this and then leave once of those youtube videos that are supposed to help with stuck pixels running fullscreen for some time and that cleared the retained images.

Hasn’t happened to so far on my Mac Studio but I haven’t used it as much as the M1 MBP.

 

[Chuckeee]

LG monitors are very susceptible to flickering issues when you don’t use the cables provided with the display.

The case is the exact opposite with Dell displays based on my experience. Flickering on a Dell monitorS were eliminated by replacing the the Dell supplied cables with 3rd party cables.

 

[thomasdavis79]

So I got the base M1 Max Studio on Friday and am having an issue with screen flickering. I haven't had a MAC in a long time, so it was exciting to get a new one to play with.

I have an LG 27GL850 1440 144hz monitor, works just fine with my PC desktop. I went to Best Buy and bought a USB-C to Displayport cable to use on the MAC. But when I hook it up, I get terrible screen flickering to the point it's kind of like a blinking. I've tried various refresh rates and all the same.

Then I tried it with an HDMI cable I had laying around, but was only able to go up to 100 hz refresh rate, which I guess I could live with for now. It pretty much took away the flickering, but I think it might still be there a little bit because I found I was getting a little nauseated after a bit of web browsing. Oddly enough, if I set it to 60 hz with the HDMI cable, I get a little bit of flickering, but not as bad as with the USB-C to Displayport cable.

So I do what anyone else would do, I Googled it. I noticed that this seems to be a MAC issue in general going back awhile for some people, and especially with M1 MACs. Yes I know not everyone has this issue with their monitor, but the issue is still there for a lot of people.

On a PC, you can connect almost any monitor, even really cheap ones, and never have this issue, but it seems more prevalent on the MAC for some reason.

Any advice? I'll give it a week and try to see if I can solve this issue, but if not, then I'll just return the MAC Studio. I don't technically need it, my PC works just fine. I just bought it to have a MAC to mess around with.

Anything like this...I've been dealing with this for at least a year. I thought it fixed itself but the last OS update (Sequoia 15.0.1) it's a whole lot worse...

 

[howdytom]

@thomasdavis79 It looks like a broken cable or faulty HDMI connection. Does it occur with the right display model only? Did you you replace the cables and did you also try to change how all 3 displays are connected.

Since replacing the USB-C cables with the insanely expsensive cables from Belkin, my DELL 3023E no longer flickers.