Mac Pro sometimes displays static after displays wake up from sleep

Ok - I swapped out the "cable" for an "adapter" and I have not had the problem at all. The adapter was just a cheapo one purchased from Amazon. I used an HDMI cable that I bought at Fry's for $3.

I can let the Mac sleep, open and close the lid, run it in clamshell mode, reboot, and haven't had a single glitch since.

Now I hope I didn't jinx myself and the problem will come back later, but it's never worked this long before without issue, so I'll tentatively chalk it up to an incompatible cable.

Go figure . . . just glad that it appears to be working properly now. 🙂

you realize we're not using macs with lids in this forum, right - just towers. but seems somethings are the same or don't change.

I can let the Mac sleep, open and close the lid, run it in clamshell mode, reboot, and haven't had a single glitch since. https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro

Oops - I apologize the crosspost and not catching it was the Mac Pro and not Macbook Pro or other forum. In my defense there are no fewer than a dozen threads of this nature spread across all of the product forums. I had a bunch of pages open and posted to the wrong one, although, they all converge on HDCP issues so the information could point somebody in the right direction.

Nonetheless, I'm sure there are people in this thread who have devices with lids and a similar problem who could benefit. At the end of the day, the problem seems to be hardware agnostic, so who knows . . . maybe a cheapo cable could be the fix for somebody running a tower? I didn't believe it myself until I saw it today.

Not sure if I'm talking about the same thing, but adapting the HDMI port on the back of my early '09 Mac Pro down to the VGA port on my monitor does indeed get rid of the static problem. I'm just not happy with the resulting display quality. My monitor also has an HDMI port. I want to connect HDMI to it, end of story.

We need to keep demanding that stuff work to spec here. For the money we pay for Apple stuff, we're entitled to it. Even if we don't get it.

This machine is now more than 3 years old, and I've been complaining about the static problem since it was brand new. Not only here, but on a tech support ticket that Apple just dropped after about 18 months without a word of explanation. At this point it's looking like a permanent "design feature" that they won't be fixing.

The really galling thing about it is that the static issue never comes up when I'm running the machine in Windows 7 and Bootcamp, which I sometimes do for weeks on end, so I know this isn't a hardware issue. It's some kind of bug in the OS X display driver that has persisted across at least two major releases and umpteen minor releases. Apple knows it's there, and simply refuses to do anything about it.

Yep - similar problem on different hardware. When you convert HDMI to VGA you are essentially losing the digital picture signal and all of the other things that come with it (HDCP, DDC/CI, Audio, etc). That is why you don't see the static snow with that configuration. Same goes with your bootcamp findings. Windows is not handling the HDMI handshake with the monitor and video hardware the same way OSX does, thus you don't have the problem.

From what I've seen in the past 24 hours since I started looking in to this, the problem lies with how OSX detects your monitor (which is likely HDCP capable) and cannot communicate correctly with it. In the end, it turns out that I bought a cable that was "incompatible" and didn't conform to HDMI industry specifications. Trust me, I'm not the sucker that buys "monster HDMI cables" but there is some validity in not all being created equal. Not saying a simple cable swap will be your savior, but the static/snow is certainly something to do with HDCP, so you either need to strip it out, or get it to work right. Reminds me of the early days of HDMI when people couldn't get their newer DirecTV boxes to handshake with 1st generation HDMI TV sets or receivers.

I agree that there is likely something that could be done in the way that the software handles this issue, but the wheels have been spinning for almost 4 years now on this topic. I wasn't keen on returning my brand new monitor or living with the issue and constant reboots and replugs of cables, so I wasn't going to sit around for an answer.

There is an Apple troubleshooting page somewhere that suggests a variety of different things like creating a new user, swapping cables, and rebooting, but those are just status quo type responses. I get it . . . there are a thousand different monitor, cable, and computer manufacturers and not everything will work 100% of the time, but things like this can be frustrating unless the community figures it out themselves.

Maybe try a cheaper HDMI cable, or a more expensive one. Or look in to the signal boxes that tweak HDMI that others posted about earlier in this thread (they can disable HDCP via a dip switch, but are expensive). Maybe try an HDMI to DVI cable? Unfortunately, without some kind of software fix, the solution will be up to each individual to track down. Hope you get it resolved sooner than later - I was upset after only 24 hours of living with it . . . couldn't imagine 3 years!

Replacing the DVI cable solved the problem for me. The guy at the Genius Bar said even without stress on the cable they often fail. Lots of electrons flowing through.

Just to add to this one:

I have an early 2009 Mac Pro, and I have used it with a Dell 3007WFP 30" monitor with never a problem.

I was getting board of waiting for the new Mac Pro so I decided to 'pimp my ride' somewhat. I added an SSD for the boot drive, some more RAM, and picked up a second user ATI Radeon HD 5870 1Gb to replace the old Nvidia card that was shipped with the machine.

Straight away I am getting this problem - and it's really annoying. all I have to do is flip the display on and off and everything comes back - but it can be really frustrating. This problem can happen at any time in OSX. I can work for hours with no issue, and then it will come back every minute or so for five or six minutes. It never happens when running Windows in Boot camp however.

I haven't tried changing the DVI cable yet - but since the one with the monitor is fairly long - I wonder if a new shorter one would improve things.... Hmmm ?

Mike A

Message was edited by: Mike Antrum to correct his absolutely appalling spelling.

Hi Mike Antrum, what was the exact model of your old nvidia card? Just curious. Was it a GT 120?

I bought a replacement cable that appeard to make some difference but not 100%.

I'm curious if a really short cable is the trick too.

Same behaviour on a new 2013 13" MBP Retina, two monitors, different makes, three cables, different makes, all aftermarket.

One is Displayport->DVI, the other is HDMI->DVI.

Almost fails every time it comes out of screenlock. Sometimes it corrects itself after 15 seconds or so, sometimes I need to turn the monitor on and off.

The HDMI->DVI does it almost 100% of the time.

I'm setting my monitors to not turn off when the screen locks. Waste of power, but it's a workaround.

What works for me is when the snow shows up after sleep I put the computer to sleep briefly by clicking on your keyboard Option, Command and the Eject key on an Apple keyboard. Once asleep click your mouse the computer wakes up with a perfect screen again. This now works for me EVERY TIME! I have been dealing with this issue for years and stumbled on this very quick solution. Best Of Luck To All!

Apple does not give a crap about this or many other issues reported. Unless it affects a senior member of management, we are nothing to Apple anymore. The only thing they care about is iOS and PowerPoint-style effects. This issue affects almost every single Apple customer that has a non-Apple-branded external display. MacPro 2006 up to 2013, MacMini, iMac and MacBookPro. Countless people have reported it in many places, both on this site and many other like sites.

I reported this issue in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, and last year. The only thing I get is that it is a duplicate issue and they close the ticket. I have called them on these practices of not caring about real issues and the only thing they say is it is not their fault. Eighty percent of the issues I have documented have been duplicate issues and closed as such, so they can have a clear queue. Meanwhile, we have to live with and work around issues like this. I would argue the people on this thread have more time, energy and resources put into this than Apple, a company that has more talent, more resources, more time and more money than almost any other tech firm on the planet.

Phil Schiller suggested I send the issues to him via email and I have done that to no response at all. I promise that when I document these issues, I do it respectfully and honorably. But, after decades of working to help Apple on Beta Seed teams, reporting through Bug Reporter and appealing to the perfectionist mentality that once made a great operating system, I have completely given up on Apple. Their hypocritical commercial of wanting to achieve perfection and their sloppy execution is no better than Google.

Mike,

Good thinking, but tried all of that. Short cables, long cables, new cables, old cables, connecting via different ports, cards and connecting via different machines, I have tried it all. It is a problem with the Mac. Windows does not have the same issues on the same hardware.

Solar Media.

Nice rant, truly!

Unfortunately for tech nowadays it's all half assed and nobody truly cares.

I have many Macs, PC's, digital cameras etc.

They all have bugs now.

It just seems to be the new way of tech.

Get the product out the door and worry about the issues/bugs later.

Release new updated versions and hope they fix some of the older issues.

Today I tried to wake my Power Mac up from sleep without restarting and crashing the applications running

that took me 5 minutes of unpluging, pluging etc.

Fortunately the car companies seem to have most of the bugs worked out.

Wait till they have to all get connected then there will be some new Great issues.

BTW did you try my idea above when confronted with the Snow screen?

Thank you for that tip Mark! It works for me with a Mac mini that has this problem.