Unable to connect a display to my MacBook Pro M3 Max

Question

Unable to connect a display to my MacBook Pro M3 Max

I'm now on my second M3 Max 16' MacBook pro and both exhibit the same problem with two different Dell U3224KB 6K monitors. The problem shown below happens about 1x per day, in this case, with the new laptop within 4 hours of use. Power cycling the monitor can sometimes fix things, but not always. The problem happens randomly on screen wakeup. I took my first laptop to the genius bar and they said it was a hardware problem and that I should return the laptop for a refund, which I did. I ordered a new machine and now 3 weeks later, the same problem is happening again. I've tried with two different monitors and both exhibit the same behaviour. Has anyone else seen anything like this?

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Posted on Jan 13, 2024 07:50 PM

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Answer 1

Mar 19, 2024 10:23 AM in response to cosmos nicolaou

ThunderBolt cables required to support such a high resolution must be genuine ThunderBolt with the ThunderBolt symbol stamped or the cable. Cable lengths are limited to 0.8 meters for genuine Apple cables, and 0.5 meters for Brand-X cables. That's strictly under twenty inches.

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Answer 2

Feb 25, 2024 06:29 AM in response to cosmos nicolaou

Same problem on my side with a different configuration; MBPM3MAX 14 in with a U3224KB. I found a strange workaround, go into "Control Center" >. Displays and change the refresh rate. I switched the configuration to 30Hz, the green screen disappeared, then I restored the 60hz setting.

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Answer 3

Mar 1, 2024 09:49 AM in response to ronaldfromguaynabo

Yes that works for me too, but does the problem recur? This generally happens 1 or 2x a day for me. Power cycling the monitor is the most reliable way (to date) of resetting the display, but sometimes just sleeping the monitor using pmset displaysleepnow or waiting for it to sleep and then waking it up also works. I'll see how well the 30-60hz trick works. I have an escalated support case with apple ongoing but I haven't heard anything from them for a couple of weeks now.

As an aside, beware of changing the pro-motion setting since if you attempt a macos upgrade with pro-motion disabled you may brick your laptop! That happened to me last fall and I saw others posting a similar experience here.

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Answer 4

Mar 1, 2024 11:13 AM in response to cosmos nicolaou

EXACTLY what cables, adapters and docks are you using to connect to this display?

if this is the "shipped in the box" cable, does it have the Genuine Thunderbolt symbol on it? any other symbol suggesting a CERTIFIED cable?

how long is the cable?

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Answer 5

Mar 1, 2024 12:15 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

I've used the dell cables that came with the monitor and other high quality cables with the "thunderbolt 4" symbol on them. I've tried active (the dell ones) and passive cables, 2ft and 1ft lengths etc. This happens with different instances of M3 max devices, different instances of the same monitor type. It does not happen with the same cables, monitors, and M1 max devices. So it's pretty clear it's a low-level hardware or firmware problem with the M3 Max. I don't think Apple tests against 3rd party monitors, so this is hardly surprising, just disappointing.

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Answer 6

Mar 1, 2024 12:25 PM in response to cosmos nicolaou

That just does not resemble a Video defect. I have never seen a report of a Video issue that looks like yours.

[in my opinion] somehow the Picture-By-Picture feature (cousin of Picture-in- Picture) in the display has been turned on, and the available data is being displayed only in the left half of a two pane display, and the right pane is left green, because it has no signal.

if that particular display does not offer picture-by-picture, then the display is failing (or getting into a wonky state).

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Answer 7

Mar 1, 2024 12:48 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

If you look closely at the photo, you'll see that the 'green' is an overlaid distortion of the underlying screen image. A screen capture captures the image correctly. If you look even more closely you'll see that the distortion is actually in rectangular tiles, but this is easier to see if you change the image (e.g. switch spaces). Anyway, it's not the case that half the screen is pure green pixels. The display does support pbp, but it's not on.

I suspect that the low-level tb/dp hardware/firmware in the new M3Max chips is tickling a bug or causing a misconfiguration of the monitor, or, the video signal being produced by the mac includes the distortion. Again, these monitors work flawlessly with the older Macs.

I'll post back here if I ever see an update to the support ticket I filed with Apple, last thing I was told was that it been escalated to their engineering team some weeks ago now.

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Answer 8

Mar 1, 2024 04:19 PM in response to cosmos nicolaou

<<. A screen capture captures the image correctly. >>

That says that the defect is not inside the Mac's screen buffer, but possibly in transition to the display, or more likely in the display itself.

Generally speaking, when you see artifacts that contain true Verticals, that suggests that the defect is in the display. The image as it is transmitted is a sequence of slices corresponding to ROWS of display data. The rows are never put together into a coherent image with anything Vertical except by 'accident' of being stacked, in absolutely perfect registration, one over another on the screen.

Wonky errors in transmission typically result in rows of uneven length, which do not stack into true verticals -- sometimes not into anything recognizable at all.

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Answer 9

Apr 29, 2024 06:33 AM in response to cosmos nicolaou

"the other way" to connect very high resolution displays that have:

Multiple Inputs

Picture-By-Picture (cousin of Picture-in -Picture)

is to use TWO data cables.

Each half display is configured separately, then the display puts the two halves back together.

in the Mac, you use 'Extended Desktop' and 'Arrange displays' to set up the two virtual half-displays as if they were one.

Users report this works extremely well, providing the equivalent of one seamless display without the headaches of the stupidly-high data rates and their extremely short cables.

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Answer 10

Mar 19, 2024 08:56 AM in response to cosmos nicolaou

I’ve just got a 16 MacBook Pro m3 max and upon set up the second of my monitors keeps flicking on and off randomly either every minute down do every 6 seconds. All apple products and cables

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Answer 11

Mar 19, 2024 02:10 PM in response to Darrensouth

Failed on technical support (they did try everything) and will have to send it back.

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Answer 12

ijn81

Level 1

8 points

Apr 29, 2024 02:37 AM in response to cosmos nicolaou

Do you have any updates on this issue? I am thinking about getting this exact combination (MBP M3 Max 16 inch + U3224KB), but it seems like I might encounter the same issue.

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Unable to connect a display to my MacBook Pro M3 Max

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