Display won't use native resolution on El Capitan

Question

Level 1

9 points

Display won't use native resolution on El Capitan

Setup: MacBook Pro mid-2010, Nvidia GeForce GT330M, external display Dell U2711 2560x1440, connected with Display Port cable.

Since updating from Yosemite to El Capitan 10.11.3, my external screen cannot be set to its native 2560x1440 resolution. The maximum offered is 1600x1200. The state of the System Preferences > Screens dialog is inconsistent; Sometimes there are three resolutions offered, sometimes more, sometimes none. Even the desired one is listed occasionally, but if I select it, the screen goes black for a moment and then comes up again with the previous resolution.

... after selecting 2560x1440 ...

I tried disconnecting the screen from power and resetting SMC without success.

There is a lot of talk about similar issues in this thread Multiple Displays have problems with El Capitan

but I did not find the above issue exactly.

A MacBook running OS10.7.3 works fine with the same screen and cable.

Any help would be very much appreciated 🙂

Posted on Feb 25, 2016 6:32 AM

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Answer 1

pedro d

Community Specialist

Feb 26, 2016 1:15 PM in response to flschroeter

Hello there, flschroeter.

It sounds like you are having issues with setting resolutions on your external display. The following Knowledge Base article offers up some additional recommendations to review for troubleshooting:

Get help with video issues on external displays connected to your Mac

Change your display resolution

From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences.

Click the Displays icon.

Click Default for display. If you see more than one resolution listed, choose a resolution and refresh rate. If the display turns off when you change resolutions, press the escape key to undo the change.

If you can't change the resolution of your display because you can't see an image, restart your Mac in safe mode to reset the display resolution to defaults.

If starting in safe mode doesn't resolve the issue, reset your Mac's NVRAM and SMC to reset the video ports on your Mac to their defaults.

Check for third-party display software

If your display works only when your Mac is started in safe mode, and you have display-related software installed, check with the software's developer for updates, or try temporarily uninstalling it.

{...}

Get more help

If you've tried these steps and your display still isn't working, contact Apple Support to get more help.

Thanks for being a part of Apple Support Communities.

Cheers.

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Answer 2

JimmyCMPIT

Level 7

29,306 points

Feb 26, 2016 1:26 PM in response to flschroeter

hold down the option key and click scaled with it held.

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Answer 3

flschroeter Author

Level 1

9 points

Feb 28, 2016 10:12 AM in response to JimmyCMPIT

JimmyCMPIT wrote:

hold down the option key and click scaled with it held.

This does not solve the issue.

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Answer 4

flschroeter Author

Level 1

9 points

Feb 28, 2016 10:39 AM in response to pedro d

Pedro:

Thanks for the info - resetting NVRAM did not solve the issue. But launching in Safe Mode does. Now I wonder: What may cause the issue? I am reluctant to uninstall one program after another until I find the culprit - is there a smarter way?

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Answer 5

flschroeter Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 3, 2016 1:34 AM in response to pedro d

Check for third-party display software

If your display works only when your Mac is started in safe mode, and you have display-related software installed, check with the software's developer for updates, or try temporarily uninstalling it.

So, I have cloned my productive system to a different hard drive and poked around a little bit. I believe this has nothing to do with 3rd party software, but is rather a problem with the driver for the Nvidia GPU combined with El Capitan (and this somewhat old and rare screen).

The way I ultimately resolved it was to launch the system in Safe Mode -this uses the onboard Intel GPU instead of the Nvidia one-, so the issue does not occur. I then left some applications (Text Wrangler and Terminal) and some windows open, also on the external screen, and put the system to sleep. After waking it up again I relaunched (not in Safe Mode) with a checkmark on 'On next login open all windows again' and the issue was gone.

Just launching in Safe Mode and then restarting does not solve the issue.

I have reproduced this on my productive system, so the problem is solved for me. I will test extra carefully before updating to the next OSX release, or skip the update if it is not essential for me.

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