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MacBook Pro M1 external screen flickering
- Thread starter EvilHomer80
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I am at my wit's end. I have a Dell u4021qw. Scratch that. I am on my 4th Dell u4021qw. Yes, four times, Dell has sent replacement units. My personal laptop is a Macbook Air running 13.3.1 and my work laptop is Macbook Pro also running 13.3.1. Personal has an M1; work has an M2.
I have changed cables, switched ports, and turned everything off and off. I've let the monitor sit unplugged for hours on end. Changed all the settings ad nauseum. None of the setting changes had any effect. Had it out with Dell, who once claimed in writing that the monitor is not compatible with Macs. Spoken with Apple, who blames the monitor, but of course, demurs when I mention just how many others with different monitors are bitching about this very thing on different forums. One rep suggested I spilled something on my laptop. My babes, that would mean I spilled something on three different laptops, no?
I am ready to chuck this monitor out the window. I can't work on it when it's flickering. I get flickering in various speeds and sometimes, there are stripes, too!
There is no discernible pattern to the madness.
Infuriated, unproductive, and now out $2k for a monitor I cannot use.
I have changed cables, switched ports, and turned everything off and off. I've let the monitor sit unplugged for hours on end. Changed all the settings ad nauseum. None of the setting changes had any effect. Had it out with Dell, who once claimed in writing that the monitor is not compatible with Macs. Spoken with Apple, who blames the monitor, but of course, demurs when I mention just how many others with different monitors are bitching about this very thing on different forums. One rep suggested I spilled something on my laptop. My babes, that would mean I spilled something on three different laptops, no?
I am ready to chuck this monitor out the window. I can't work on it when it's flickering. I get flickering in various speeds and sometimes, there are stripes, too!
There is no discernible pattern to the madness.
Infuriated, unproductive, and now out $2k for a monitor I cannot use.
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The display settings screen is different. Mine doesn't show anything for high res vs HDR. Tried the other setting changes (60hrz, true tone, etc.) already. No impact.
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So its been three years and there is still no fix for this? Awesome
Bought an M1 mac mini and a Dell SE3223Q monitor and they don't work together. I'm experiencing the exact same issue in certain websites ( youtube included ), basically anything that uses darker colors.
I have two 24 inch full hd monitors and they don't work on the mac either ( because their PPI doesnt add up and the wind is blowing right, so fonts are incredibly blurry ), bought a new monitor specifically for that and it ended up not working as well
Bought an M1 mac mini and a Dell SE3223Q monitor and they don't work together. I'm experiencing the exact same issue in certain websites ( youtube included ), basically anything that uses darker colors.
I have two 24 inch full hd monitors and they don't work on the mac either ( because their PPI doesnt add up and the wind is blowing right, so fonts are incredibly blurry ), bought a new monitor specifically for that and it ended up not working as well
Yep. I eded up buying more cables, including a $130 thunderbolt directly from Apple. I plugged it directly from the laptop to the monitor (I'd tried this, btw, with other cables to no avail.) I was desperate after three solid days of flickering. It stopped - finally - on Thursday, late afternoon. I have no clue if it's the result of the new cable, or if the humidity was just so, or maybe Mercury went out of retrograde.
I don't have these issues when I used two smaller monitors, a Pluggable dock, and DisplayLink software. I've been fighting going back to using this set-up because I spent so much d@mn money on this Dell ultrawide.
I spend a lot of money on this setup too. I'm currently using Dell's original HDMI cable to hook up the monitor and a cheap after market HDMI-USB-C for one of my old monitors, which works well.
I'm not planning on spending money on cables because they are pretty expensive and I'm pretty sure the issue will not go away. I noticed that it got fixed for some people temporarily and it came back at later point.
Its incompatibility issue that apple fails to address.
Anyways, my monitor is beyond the return period now, so I'm pretty much stuck with it.
I noticed that the effect is getting triggered based on what is being displayed on the monitor, because I was getting the problem on certain applications or websites and I could trigger it by performing certain actions, like tab switching or scrolling.
When I go to this website ( https://pancakeswap.finance/ - if looking in the future the design probably changed and it no longer works ) and I start scrolling at the beginning of the site it triggers an enormous amount of flicker and if I scroll carefully I can get it in a stuck position, where the flicker effect is always active and it doesnt return to normal.
So, keeping this in mind, I decided it has something to do with the colors, so I decided to check out if any color profiles will make it better or worse.
I went in the Display settings of my mac and started trying out different color profiles ( I've attached an image, I'm not sure if I'm supposed to have this many displayed there, but I had an app installed called BetterDisplay and maybe that added a bunch of them ) and lo and behold, they do make a difference.
I'm currently testing on this specific website and some of the profiles don't have flicker, others have less. I'll experiment to see if some of them have a good balance between looks and flickering, because I'm pretty much stuck with this damn monitor now.
I can't believe I spent so much on this crap apple device that has so much compatibility issues with third party vendors. I was really careful picking this monitor and it turned out to not work with the new chips smh
Almost 3 year old issue that is not getting addressed, fk these people for real
And by the way, I'm using f.lux to reduce eyestrain and its set up pretty aggressively so I generally don't care this much about color quality, though some of the profiles look horrible and if you do care about color quality, this will likely not work for you very well, if it works at all. I just figured it out so dont get your hopes on
EDIT: Nope doesn't fixes, one website starts working and another one breaks
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Tried some of the color profiles of the monitor itself, with some its better and with some its worse but none of them generally fix the problem.
I just noticed that the store I bought the monitor from offers refunds within 30 days, so I will be returning this one and gonna try my luck with another monitor
I just noticed that the store I bought the monitor from offers refunds within 30 days, so I will be returning this one and gonna try my luck with another monitor
I had no luck with switching color profiles, resolution, or any of the other suggested fixes. I'm also outside of the return period, but from what I've seen, buying another wide monitor will likely not help. I'm so over Apple on this. The fact that the M1 and M2 couldn't initially handle more than one monitor is head-scratching given how many creatives use their products. Good luck!
Yeah, resolutions don't really affect it.
A colleague of mine has the exact same mac mini as I do and he's running a 32 inch QHD display that's allegedly problem-free. I'll go to his house to check it out and if there arent any glitches, I'll order the same monitor, and if not, I will return the mac mini too.
My two old monitors don't work properly, it has single jack for audio/mic so my headphones don't work and now this third monitor that I bought doesn't work either, this device is a complete disaster and I regret buying it
I was kinda expecting problems like that but still didn't really help the situation. Unfortunately I'm a developer and a lot of software doesnt really work properly on Windows, so it wasnt really by choice that I decided to try an Apple device.
I'm sure they work fine if using only apple devices/accessories ( and everything is hella expensive ) but when it comes to connecting other vendor accessories to it, its a complete hell
Rosebud:
Something else you could try.
Have you tried "forcing RBG mode"?
It can be done "through hardware" IF your MacBook has an HDMI port.
Otherwise, it can be done through software (you will have to research how -- it might even be explained earlier in this thread).
From my archives:
and
gist.github.com
Something else you could try.
Have you tried "forcing RBG mode"?
It can be done "through hardware" IF your MacBook has an HDMI port.
Otherwise, it can be done through software (you will have to research how -- it might even be explained earlier in this thread).
From my archives:
Force RGB Color on M1 Mac
Force RGB Color on M1 Mac. GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets.
gist.github.com
Bought a new monitor, seems to work better, the model is LG 32GN650-B. Unfortunately its QHD and the picture quality is much worse than the previous one, which was 4K running at 2K, but I didn't want to run the risk at buying a second monitor that did not work.
Moral of the story is, before you buy a monitor for these ****** devices, make sure that it is compatible with the M1 chips. But if you are here, you probably didnt do that, my second advice would be to return the monitor and not waste money on adapters, cables or whatever
PS
Well, well, lo and behold. It seems like this monitor is low on the PPI side and fonts on some websites still display blurry, like they do on my old monitors.
Honestly, what kind of garbage is this?
I should have returned the computer, not the monitor
Moral of the story is, before you buy a monitor for these ****** devices, make sure that it is compatible with the M1 chips. But if you are here, you probably didnt do that, my second advice would be to return the monitor and not waste money on adapters, cables or whatever
PS
Well, well, lo and behold. It seems like this monitor is low on the PPI side and fonts on some websites still display blurry, like they do on my old monitors.
Honestly, what kind of garbage is this?
I should have returned the computer, not the monitor
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lmao this monitor is terrible, I'm gonna have to return that as well, gonna get another 4K one.
Thinking about buying this one - LG 32UN650P-W
Is it compatible? Seeing a couple of people successfully using it, but idk. Is there a compatibility table with monitors around this price range, I don't really care about the colors just need it to work
Gonna throw this M1 piece of garbage out of the window. This is the third monitor now that doesn't work properly on this device and I'm going to have to get a 4th one
Thinking about buying this one - LG 32UN650P-W
Is it compatible? Seeing a couple of people successfully using it, but idk. Is there a compatibility table with monitors around this price range, I don't really care about the colors just need it to work
Gonna throw this M1 piece of garbage out of the window. This is the third monitor now that doesn't work properly on this device and I'm going to have to get a 4th one
I'm still having problems with periodic screen flicker with my BenQ monitor (in my case with a M1 Mac Mini). None of BenQ's suggested fixes work for me, and whenever I get it, I just have to stop working for up to 30 minutes until it randomly stops.
Can anyone update on whether the Apple Studio Display ever gets this problem at all?
Can anyone update on whether the Apple Studio Display ever gets this problem at all?
I recently bought a Studio Display in place of BenQ ew2780U, and placed the BenQ vertically to browse website. It happened that when BenQ started to flicker and I moved the content to Studio Display, it appeared normally. BTW not sure if it is coincidence or not, but I hadn't encountered a flickering for a while after setting the resolution of BenQ to 1080p (before getting the Studio Display), but it came back shortly after I retried 2k on it.
Thanks for that.
The flickering has got worse for me since recently updating to Ventura. With Monterey, I was getting the problem about once per month. I'm now getting it 2-3 times per week, and it's seriously disrupting my work.
I use 2 displays. The second display is an old LG monitor (which is getting ready for replacement), and that never flickers. It's only my BenQ PD2705U that has the problem.
I've seen lots of people with various monitors (from different manufacturers) complaining about the same flickering problem with M1/M2 Macs, but I've yet to see anyone complain about it with an Apple Studio Display. Despite the high price, it would be worth it for me if the problem doesn't exist with the Apple display.
I am overall optimistic about Apple official monitors, the only concern for me was whether Apple is planning to upgrade Studio display shortly...But before seeing the thread I thought it was BenQ, knowing that other manufacturers suffer from the same issue is a bad news, feel like there are few options besides getting such a pricy one.
Created an account to add to the conversation - I have a MacBook Pro with M2 Max and the 38-core GPU. Recently purchased a Samsung UR59C (32' 4K display) and am having a serious issue with flicker. Have tried the following as per previous posts on this thread:
1. Played with various brightness/contrast settings on monitor
2. Tried various different color profiles
3. Forced RGB output
4. Disabled TrueTone/Auto-brightness
5. Toggled between dark/light mode as well as disabling/enabling night shift.
5 (a). Experimented with various night shift intensity settings
6. Used USB-C to HDMI adapter instead of built-in HDMI port
7. Tried various HDMI cables including a "premium" cable.
None of these have made any difference and I'm pretty much at my wits end. Interestingly enough plugging an AppleTV into the monitor and using AirPlay to extend to the display works without any flicker whatsoever. I also don't get any flicker plugging my MacBook directly into my TV via HDMI.
I was wondering if anyone has had any luck using a hub of some kind (USB-C hub?) with an HDMI output instead of plugging straight into the MacBook? This was the next thing I was going to try before giving up and returning the monitor. My thinking is that a hub might output to the display in a different format which doesn't cause the flickering?
Thanks
1. Played with various brightness/contrast settings on monitor
2. Tried various different color profiles
3. Forced RGB output
4. Disabled TrueTone/Auto-brightness
5. Toggled between dark/light mode as well as disabling/enabling night shift.
5 (a). Experimented with various night shift intensity settings
6. Used USB-C to HDMI adapter instead of built-in HDMI port
7. Tried various HDMI cables including a "premium" cable.
None of these have made any difference and I'm pretty much at my wits end. Interestingly enough plugging an AppleTV into the monitor and using AirPlay to extend to the display works without any flicker whatsoever. I also don't get any flicker plugging my MacBook directly into my TV via HDMI.
I was wondering if anyone has had any luck using a hub of some kind (USB-C hub?) with an HDMI output instead of plugging straight into the MacBook? This was the next thing I was going to try before giving up and returning the monitor. My thinking is that a hub might output to the display in a different format which doesn't cause the flickering?
Thanks
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FYI I am using a BenQ EW2780U together with Apple Studio Display and tuning off the night tune get the flickering on my BenQ monitor away ( I tested on several scenarios where reproducing a flickering was super easy), at least for now.
I just tried it with my Apple TV with a15 and it's crazy. No flickering and there is pretty much zero latency