Mac Pro sometimes displays static after displays wake up from sleep

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Mac Pro sometimes displays static after displays wake up from sleep

Twice already when waking my two displays from sleep, the primary display will show just colored static, not the login window. The external display seems fine and shows just a blank screen. If I type in my password, the static goes away and the primary display shows the desktop. I can't reproduce the problem... it just happens (so far, infrequently).

I recently upgraded from an older Intel Mac Pro to a stock Early 2009 Mac Pro with 2 x 2.26 Quad-Core Xeon using the same two displays (a 19" Samsung and a 24" Dell) I had before. The 19" Samsung is connected via a mini displayport to DVI adapter and the 24" Dell is connected via DVI and is the primary display. My Mac never sleeps; only the displays sleep and I have it configured to require a password when waking from sleep or screen saver. I also have the Flurry screen saver enabled.

I basically unplugged my old Mac Pro and plugged in my new Mac Pro to my existing setup (displays, network, keyboard, mouse). This never happened with my old Mac Pro so I doubt that it's a problem with the 24" Dell (unless it's a huge coincidence that it started happening after I upgraded).

I want to reiterate that the 24" display is NOT connected via the mini displayport to DVI adapter, but through the DVI port. This problem happened once yesterday and once today and I've had the new Mac since Monday. I'd say my displays go to sleep about 6 times a day since I go in and out of my office often. The problem has yet to happen when I wake up the display first thing in the morning.

Early 2009 Mac Pro 2 x 2.26 Quad-Core Xeon, Mac OS X (10.5.6), 24" Dell display via DVI, 19" Samsung display via mini displayport to DVI

Posted on Mar 19, 2009 12:58 PM

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Answer 1

erise19

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Mar 20, 2009 9:47 PM in response to chinhster

I am also seeing the colored static screen when my display wakes from sleep on my 2009 Mac Pro with 2x2.26 Quad-Core Xeon with the ATI Radeon HD 4870. I'm using a Gateway FHD2400 hooked up with a DVI cable to the Mac Pro's DVI out. Unlike your case, however, I see the static EVERY time the monitor wakes up. I'd been using this monitor with the same DVI cable on a 2007 Mac mini for over a year with no problems, so I don't think it's the monitor or the cable. I have to unplug and replug the DVI cable from the Mac Pro, then the static goes away and the monitor looks fine. Needless to say, that is getting annoying fast.

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Answer 2

Mar 23, 2009 6:20 AM in response to erise19

I'm also getting this same issue, if the display sleeps, and but the system is not in sleep. When I move the mouse to come out of sleep I get static. If I switch on the monitor on and off the image comes back. 2009 Mac Pro with 2x2.26 Quad-Core Xeon with the ATI Radeon HD 4870.

Sounds like there is a bug with this configuration.

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Answer 3

chinhster Author

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5 points

Mar 23, 2009 8:28 PM in response to erise19

Enable the system preference for requiring a password to wake the computer from sleep or screen saver (System Preferences > Security). Next time you get the static from waking your display, enter your password and perhaps your display will return to normal. At least it does for me.

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Answer 4

Mar 23, 2009 11:15 PM in response to chinhster

Is this the type of statics?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29134471@N00/3375642019/sizes/l/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29134471@N00/3375641391/sizes/l/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29134471@N00/3376458302/sizes/l/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29134471@N00/3376456964/sizes/l/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29134471@N00/3376456234/sizes/l/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29134471@N00/3376455386/sizes/l/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29134471@N00/3376454496/sizes/l/

I had the issue once. I think it could be defective video cards because I had an old mac with an X1900 Xt with the same issue.

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Answer 5

Mar 24, 2009 6:00 PM in response to chinhster

Yep - Me too - only happened once - GT120 with an LG L246WH 24" - I've since shifted to driving it via the VGA input rather than DVI/HDMI as that also fixed the resolution issue.

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Answer 6

Mar 26, 2009 1:40 AM in response to KenTaylor

This just happened to me today. I came back from a long day and woke up my new Mac Pro 2.26 GHz configured with 12GB Ram and an ATI Radeon HD 4870 graphics card. My Apple LED display turned on with a black screen and two thick bars of static going across the screen. I had to force shut down to restart and then it was normal. I've noticed this before, but with in some open windows, and in small portions. Is it safe to say that this happens only when the display is connected to the mini display port? Or when it wakes up from sleep mode? I can't imagine this is only happening to a few of us. I hope it can get fixed with a software update and it isn't hardware related.

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Answer 7

chinhster Author

Level 1

5 points

Mar 26, 2009 9:06 PM in response to Thomas Hayes1

No. Imagine your TV turned on with no cable connected but instead of black and white noise, you get multicolored noise. The first time it happened, I rebooted the computer because I had no idea what had happened. The second (and last time) it happened, I figured the password dialog was up so once I entered my password, everything returned to normal.

It's been about a week and it hasn't occured since I posted about it.

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Answer 8

Mar 26, 2009 9:23 PM in response to chinhster

Hi there.

I have gotten it a few times myself. Seems like most of you have the ATI card, but I have the nvidia stock, and I've seen it. Usually I can just turn the monitor (connected over dvi) off and on. My solution was to kill the power save and just turn it off manually.

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Answer 9

Mar 27, 2009 7:09 AM in response to chinhster

I have the same problem on my new MacPro. I have other machines that use this monitor fine. It only happens waking from black screen before the system has gone to sleep and it clears itself up on its own after about 30 seconds. Still, it is very annoying.

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Answer 10

np0531

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0 points

Mar 31, 2009 12:54 PM in response to Noah Robbin

I have this problem as well. I set one of the expose corners to "sleep display" and just move the mouse there to reset the monitor.

Completely random...

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Answer 11

erise19

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Apr 2, 2009 6:33 PM in response to Thomas Hayes1

No, that's not the kind of static that I'm getting. It looks like this for me:

http://www.macscene.net/forums/download/file.php?id=84

I got a new ATI Radeon 4870 card from Apple, but it does the exact same thing. Everytime I wake the computer from sleep, it displays the static until I replug the DVI cable. 😟

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Answer 12

dfuerpo

Level 1

14 points

Apr 4, 2009 4:48 PM in response to chinhster

Me too! Got my Mac Pro Quad 2.93/Nvidia GT 120 about a week ago. The only thing I did that was not "vanilla" was that I used Migration Assistant to move my account from the Mac mini. Prior to that, used my Dell 2407 monitor with a Mac mini and never had this problem. I have the MP set to sleep but not require a password when waking. I don't remember this happening the first couple of days, but for the last few days it happens almost every time I wake the Mac. Pressing a key or moving the mouse doesn't help but a single mouse click has given me the desktop every time. This doesn't seem to be a monitor or video card issue since as reported here it is happening with both the ATI and Nvidia cards and with several brand/model of monitor. Mine is connected by DVI, but it looks like people have had problems with either DVI of displayport, is that right? Apple, is there a bug in this model?

Message was edited by: dfuerpo

Message was edited by: dfuerpo

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Answer 13

mocsrox

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0 points

Apr 7, 2009 3:40 PM in response to chinhster

I'm seeing this as well.. I'm running 2 monitors (30" Dell, 24" Dell) - 30" connected to DVI, 24" connected to mini-dvi.

Is anyone at Apple looking into this?

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Answer 14

Apr 7, 2009 6:20 PM in response to chinhster

Add me to the list with this same issue on my new MacPro dual 2.26. I have 3 of the GT-120 video cards running 6 monitors, and I have seen this happen a couple of times when waking from sleep, but only affecting 1 or 2 of the monitors (both 24" Samsung). I get rid of the static either by turning the affected monitors off and back on, or by opening Dashboard and closing it.

I am guessing this is a problem somewhere in the system software that will hopefully go away with the 10.5.7 upgrade. Is anybody here involved in testing that beta release, who can determine whether that problem goes away with the upgrade?

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Answer 15

dfuerpo

Level 1

14 points

Apr 8, 2009 5:37 AM in response to chinhster

I have been thinking some more about this. Unlike the Windows world where ATI and Nvidia write the universal drivers for a wide range of their GPUs, I remember reading that Apple writes their own drivers for their video systems. Since this problem is occurring with both cards, I wonder if Apple introduced the same bug in the drivers for both of these cards? Again, in the Windows arena a few years ago there were many examples of device drivers (not just video) that had problems with sleep/suspend. How do we bring this issue to Apple's attention? Is there a mechanism in this forum to do that?

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