MilesH

Q: New Mac Pro, Multiple displays not all coming on at startup

New Mac Pro cylinder (late 2013 model) 8 core, 3 GHz, 64 GB Ram

OSX 10.10.1 Yosemite

3x Apple 23" Cinema Displays: 2 connected using dual link DVI to TB adapters, 1 connected using single link dvi to tb adapter

1x Sony HD TV using HDMI

 

I have a 4 monitor setup on my new Mac Pro.  3 Cinema Displays and a HD TV. 

 

All monitors are correctly connected per Apple instructions, spread across the TB busses as directed, and using the necessary adapters as indicated:

Mac Pro (Late 2013): Using multiple displays - Apple Support

 

The monitors do not all boot up when I boot up the system.  Several remain black/inactive, while 1 or two come on.  It's trial and error, I have to restart the computer over and over again until they all come on.  Eventually they do, but only after multiple restarts, every day.  And it's always different.   I've tried turning off a couple of the monitors at boot then turning them on after boot, sometimes that works better but not always.  Always requires at least 2 restarts, today it took 6 before they all came on.  No rhyme, no reason. 


Known issue, a colleague with similar multi-monitor setup reported the issue to me before I purchased the MP.  It's a bug/glitch in the new mac pro design/TB busses I assume. But wondering if there is a way to make it work every time as it should.


Never an issue using this 4 monitor setup on previous mac pro under any OS.  All displays and adapters work fine.


Any help is appreciated, thanks.


Posted on Jan 8, 2015 1:29 PM

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Q: New Mac Pro, Multiple displays not all coming on at startup

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  • by Grant Bennet-Alder,

    Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder Jan 8, 2015 4:48 PM in response to MilesH
    Level 9 (60,909 points)
    Desktops
    Jan 8, 2015 4:48 PM in response to MilesH

    This writing is not a defense of the current problems of multiple displays not becoming active at Startup. To get action on that item, you will need to make Apple aware that you consider it a problem, such as by calling telephone support.

     

    The Mac uses a single, highly-paramerterized driver for every display. The parameters for the driver are set and reset in response to the display's answer to the EDID query sent at certain times. If the query is not answered for any reason, the display will not be illuminated.

     

    The times when the query is sent are:

     

    1) at Startup

    2) at cable insertion at the Mac-end

    3) at wake from sleep

    4) at invocation of the Option- ( Detect Displays ) button is the Displays Control Panel

     

    I recommend that after you finish telling Apple how unhappy you are with with this bug, you try 'sleep and wake your Mac' to detect the rest of the displays.

  • by MilesH,

    MilesH MilesH Jan 8, 2015 5:05 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 8, 2015 5:05 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

    Thanks for replying.

     

    Suppose I will need to contact tech support tomorrow.

     

    Interesting about #4: the "detect displays" feature.  I do not see that as an option in my display preference window.  (Yosemite 10.10.1)

     

    detect displays.png

  • by Grant Bennet-Alder,

    Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder Jan 8, 2015 5:33 PM in response to MilesH
    Level 9 (60,909 points)
    Desktops
    Jan 8, 2015 5:33 PM in response to MilesH

    in direct contradiction to the Apple Human Interface guidelines, you must hold down the Option key to see that button.

  • by MilesH,

    MilesH MilesH Jan 8, 2015 6:47 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 8, 2015 6:47 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

    Thanks Grant, unfortunately detect displays does nothing.

     

    Just had a tech support chat with Apple, their recommendation did not work, going to try again.

     

    Any additional advice is appreciated...

  • by Grant Bennet-Alder,

    Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder Jan 8, 2015 8:14 PM in response to MilesH
    Level 9 (60,909 points)
    Desktops
    Jan 8, 2015 8:14 PM in response to MilesH

    Some displays, especially multi-input HDMI displays, do not always 'pay attention' when the Mac sends its query -- especially if they are set to a different port (or automatically set themselves to a different port at power-on).

  • by MilesH,Solvedanswer

    MilesH MilesH Jan 8, 2015 8:19 PM in response to MilesH
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 8, 2015 8:19 PM in response to MilesH

    SOLVED.

     

    Helpful chat with Gabriel at Apple.

     

    We did this:

     

    1. Rebooted computer in Safe Mode (hold down left **** key while booting)

     

    2. System preferences/users groups/Login Items

    (deleted all unnecessary login items from this list- I had a third party app that may have been the culprit: Native Instruments Hardware scanner--an audio-related app)

     

    3. Checked the following folders for unnecessary/odd plist files and trashed them:

    /Library/LaunchAgents

    /Library/LaunchDaemons

    /user/Library/LaunchAgents

     

    (only culprits here were a com.google plist and a com.spotify plist)

     

    /System/Library/LaunchAgents

    /System/Library/LaunchDaemons

    /System/Library/StartupItems

     

    Nothing out of order in any of these folders (Apple did a screnshare to check these ones).

     

     

     

    Rebooting normally after these 3 steps yielded all four monitors activating properly for the first time since purchasing the new mac pro.  Another reboot confirmed the same.  Was likely a conflicting startup item, or a pref file needing to be trashed.  Thanks!

  • by MilesH,

    MilesH MilesH Jan 9, 2015 9:15 AM in response to MilesH
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 9, 2015 9:15 AM in response to MilesH

    CORRECTION.  THIS DID NOT SOLVE THE ISSUE.

     

    Issue persists.

     

    Only people I know with 4 monitors on new MP have this issue.  I'd like to know if anyone is using 4 monitors and DVI adapters on new MP without issues.

  • by FP Manetti,

    FP Manetti FP Manetti Jan 19, 2015 6:01 AM in response to MilesH
    Level 2 (210 points)
    Jan 19, 2015 6:01 AM in response to MilesH

    Your current issues with multiple monitors is not a new one.  I too have the all most same setup as you except, I have (3) duel link active display adapters attached to the TB display ports and the use of the HDMI direct to monitor, with the same results.  Prior to updating to Yosemite, Maverick with the same hardware operated without any issues.  Once Yosemite was downloaded (10.10.1) the problems started.  Apple had no resolve to this issue.  However, its been rumored Yosemite's requirements upon the GPU (500 or 700) cards pushes these to the limit.  There are threads on this issue with the pro community while editing with 4K monitors.  You did not mention the type of card (500 or 700)?

     

    The only resolve is to boot your system, and what ever monitor does not startup, unplug the TB or USB connector and replug same, this will startup the monitor.

     

    This is really a problem.

  • by MilesH,

    MilesH MilesH Jan 21, 2015 7:49 PM in response to FP Manetti
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 21, 2015 7:49 PM in response to FP Manetti

    Thanks for your reply.  My GPUs are the AMD FirePro D500 (two of them).

     

    Frustrating to hear from you that even with 3 dual link adapters you are still having the issue...


    Also very frustrating that Mavericks does not cause the issue as you say.  I didn't want Yosemite, but unfortunately bought the new Mac Pro the very week they released Yosemite and despite my pleading, they refused to send it to me with Mavericks installed.  :/  I never had the issue with the same monitors on my old Mac Pro using Mountain Lion and 2 GeForce 120 GPUs.  Old hardware/software worked great, new doesn't.  Way to go apple.

  • by FP Manetti,

    FP Manetti FP Manetti Jan 22, 2015 6:41 AM in response to MilesH
    Level 2 (210 points)
    Jan 22, 2015 6:41 AM in response to MilesH

    Yes it is!  With the Mac Pro 2013 running Mavericks, I had no issues with the displays.  In fact, simply removing Maverick and replacing with Yosemite all the issues displayed their compatibility problems.  It is rumored the 500 cards were pushed beyond their stats under Yosemite.  There maybe a resolve to this, with replacing the 500 cards with the 700's,  It seems there is less problems, yet some have indicated similar poor results under Yosemite.

     

    It would be of interest to know when the Mac Pro 2015 will be out, this will have a different CPU.

  • by Reinfeld,

    Reinfeld Reinfeld Jun 1, 2015 11:51 AM in response to FP Manetti
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 1, 2015 11:51 AM in response to FP Manetti

    Same issues, nothing works reliably.  Unplugging not a good idea as at some point you will compromise the integrity of the connector ports. My best workaround is to use USB hubs with an on off switches and Monitors with an on/off switch.  For startup, turn off the hubs, and see if all monitors turn on.  If not, recycle either monitor using the on/off monitor button.  Works every time without wear and tear on the connect ports on the MacPro.  This is at best an inelegant solution but at least the ports won't wear down.

  • by bxz,

    bxz bxz Jun 28, 2015 7:53 AM in response to FP Manetti
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 28, 2015 7:53 AM in response to FP Manetti

    My 2 month old late 2013 Mac Pro started to show the problem since last week with Yosemite 10.10.3, and it got worse by waking up not even one display on. ( I have 6 monitors, one TB, 4 display port, one displayLink USB), initially I didn't realize the Mac woke up already so I have to hard reset every time, later on I found the Mac Pro was reachable thru other local computer as the share function is on, I can even SSH to it, the only problem is no display is waken. Only work around under yosemite is to reboot, but with 50% chance success, in fact I have to boot multiple times too to get all monitors up, I'm surprised this is not thoroughly tested in apple, why should people buy a 6 TB pro without apple even testing connect 6 monitors? So frustrated that I can't even use sleep, tried all kinds of setup in pmset with no effect, it woke up randomly sometimes reboot with a error message, sometimes mac just on but no display on like I mentioned. Searched high and low and found there's a lot issue with the sleep/wake problem, on all mac platform! Seems such a fundamental function works like a crap in Mac, worse than PC!

     

    Surprised I didn't find many wake/sleep issues on Mac Pro from the community, but anyway I rolled back to Maverick and so far so good, at least I can put the Mac to sleep now, I can't confirm 100% it will be working as it's only been a few days since I downgrade. Hope it helps anyone who's frustrated with the issue.

  • by Grant Bennet-Alder,

    Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder Jun 30, 2015 2:57 PM in response to bxz
    Level 9 (60,909 points)
    Desktops
    Jun 30, 2015 2:57 PM in response to bxz

    10.10.4 available today, 30 June 2105, supposedly with fixes for display problems.

  • by bxz,

    bxz bxz Jul 14, 2015 7:52 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 14, 2015 7:52 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

    Just tried and same old problem, waking up on its own with no display signal. Downgrade to 10.10.2 now. The issue started on 10.10.3.

    Re: Yosemite 10.10.3 Second screen big problem

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