MacBook Pro screen fades to black when inactive every 2 min

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Level 1

4 points

MacBook Pro screen fades to black when inactive every 2 min

Hi. My MacBook Pro screen today has started fading to black. It first started happening when I was streaming a TV show. But then it also did it when I was installing an update. It happens every 2 or so minutes. It hasn't been happening whilst I've been using the keypad, only while the keypad is inactive. Touching the space bar brings the Mac back to life. Anyone experience this before, or know why it might be happening and what I can do to fix it? Many thanks. It's less than a year old.

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 15.7

Posted on Mar 6, 2026 11:11 PM

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Answer 1

MrHoffman

Level 10

159,809 points

Mar 6, 2026 11:37 PM in response to whitewolf76

What air the sleep settings?

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/set-sleep-and-wake-settings-mchle41a6ccd/15.0/mac/15.0

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Answer 2

MrHoffman

Level 10

159,809 points

Mar 7, 2026 5:21 AM in response to whitewolf76

whitewolf76 wrote:

I don't know. I can't work that out.

A few more words around what is happening might help. Is there any particular reason for the difficulties with working that out there, such as maybe the Mac is shutting down hard?

If the Mac is working normally, your screen saver and display-blanking settings can cause an idle Mac to change its display or to blank its display, and can cause it to sleep to save battery power.

Here is the user guide for macOS 15:

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/welcome/mac/15.0

Here are the display lock and screen saver settings:

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/change-lock-screen-settings-on-mac-mh11784/15.0/mac/15.0

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/use-a-screen-saver-mchl4b68853d/15.0/mac/15.0

Sleep:

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/optimize-your-mac-battery-life-mh35848/15.0/mac/15.0

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