Macbook Pro External Display Flickering Issues

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Macbook Pro External Display Flickering Issues

As many others have reported, the external monitor (in my case, BenQ PD32OU), constantly loses/regains signal whenever connected to the MacBook Pro (15" 2017 (Radeon Pro 560 4 GB, Intel HD Graphics 630 1536 MB)) via a USB-C <-> HDMI cable. "Flickering" is an understatement.

It's not the cable. I've tried many of them.

I know Apple doesn't care about a 2017 computer anymore, but I'm sort of shocked they never fixed this issue.

I post this to let others know that there is no solution; EXCEPT to use a different connection type. In my case, the monitor accepts Thunderbolt 3, so Thunderbolt 3 <-> Thunderbolt 3.

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.14

Posted on Sep 16, 2021 12:03 PM

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Answer 1

Sep 16, 2021 12:24 PM in response to 1drum2

I recommend you change to DisplayPort family cabling, and live happily ever after.

Your display:

Connectivity

HDMI (v2.0) 2

DisplayPort (v1.2) 1

Mini DisplayPort (v1.2) 1

HDMI was invented for HD displays. Its use has been pushed far beyond that, but it has not aged well. Using HDMI at higher resolutions has a lot of black magic to it.

The cables you want for HDMI-only Monitors (higher resolutions than 720p TV sets) are marked as Certified with an anti-counterfeiting tag and are labeled:

"Premium High Speed HDMI cable" or that + "with Ethernet" --OR--

"Ultra High Speed HDMI cable" or that + "48G"

Cables with No Certification tags are good for your standard TV set, and not much more.

This display has TWO HDMI inputs because users have so much trouble getting HDMI to work at this resolution, they often have to fall back to two cables at lower resolutions (and Picture-by-Picture to re-assemble) to get it to work.

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Macbook Pro External Display Flickering Issues

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