Display blackout on HDMI connection

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Display blackout on HDMI connection

Friend of mine got a Mid-2012 Air (10.10.4) and it's running awesome with just one weird issue.

Hooking up an miniDP to HDMI adapter (Rocketfish) will cause the laptop display to go black and not recover.

*hard power off*

If I plug in the TV and then boot up, it will work after booting normally, blacking out and then showing a tiny loading bar in the lower-left hand side of the screen - (it looks like a tiny Yosemite boot progress bar) - right before the login screen appears.

The adapter works great on my other Macs (they don't have this issue) this Air is having trouble initializing the connection on-demand.

Is there a fix for this?

MacBook Air, OS X Yosemite (10.10.4), Mid-2012

Posted on Aug 1, 2015 2:43 PM

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Answer 1

jeremy_v

Community Specialist

Aug 3, 2015 1:28 PM in response to chattphotos

Hello chattphotos,

Thank you for participating in the Apple Support Communities.

It sounds like when you connect a Mini DisplayPort adapter to your friend's new MacBook Air, the display goes black until you force restart the Mac by holding down the power button.

I'd recommend trying these hardware resets first (from Apple computers: Troubleshooting issues with video on internal or external displays):

You can reset the Mac's parameter RAM and SMC.

Next, try these steps to help isolate the behavior to the Mac or the specific adapter:

Try unplugging the video adapter or cable and then plug it back in.

If available, try using a different display and or adapter

All the best.

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