Macbook - problems to connect w external screen

Same/similar issues with my brand new '16 macbook and the apple hdmi multiport adapter.

Doesn't work on any of my three monitors of various ages and resolutions. EXCEPT, it does work on my vizio 4k tv ONLY in the single hdmi port supporting 4k @ 60khz. This is funny because the macbook and adapter only support 4k @ 30khz, and won't display at all when plugged into a port with the 30 khz refresh rate.

I personally think this is a hardware thing -- my guess is the display chip in the computer.

But I had a thought: my friend just went through 3 rose gold macbooks to finally get one that didn't have the spacebar break within the first day... We thought maybe it was an assembly line issue on the rose golds of the same batch. I have the regular gold macbook and so does my brother who also has the same display issues... what colors macbooks do you all have with this problem? maybe there's a correlation?

Good point. My is pink macbook'16 (i.e. rose gold). It could be a software issue.

space grey with m7

Sounds like it's a widespread issue not related to particular assembly lines. I've got the m5 gold, and my brother's macbook is a 2015, mine's '16

UPDATE:
Out of curiosity, I grabbed this high speed HDMI 2.0 cable from Amazon. Lo and behold, it works on all my monitors and TV ports. It appears the hardware currently in the multiport adapter and/or computer require more throughput. Perhaps it's designed to have the monitor help power the feed.

It works with the following big caveats:

• I never get the menu icon for mirroring settings even with the pref's box checked
• Don't know how long it will work for. I'm sure it'll stop as other users have experienced
• On my TV, there's real cursor latency with all resolution settings
• On my Asus PB287Q 4k monitor I had the blinking screen problem. An nvram reset fixed that... BUT

  The overscanning is off, and there is no slider to fit the image to the screen like there used to be, so no way to fix it. Looks this way in all resolution settings (cropped menu bar and dock):

Obviously the issues are far from fixed. Not least of which are Apple's advertising and documentation omitting the fact that a brand new, state of the art HDMI cable is required for extended displays to work at all. What's further baffling to me is that none of Apple's support -- all the way to the Engineering Team seem to know about these issues and specs.

I've been working with and on Macs for over 15 years. I've never seen disconnects (no pun intended) like these before.

Hope this helps.

UPDATE 2:

Was able to work around the overscan issue with a setting on my monitor.

UPDATE 3

I now have flickering/black screen problems as many in this thread have described. I'm now almost positive this is a power management problem whether due to software or hardware in the Apple multiport adapter, the computer, or both. Here's why:

• Flashing screen increases when i load media heavy content on my monitor
• When I plug in a USB device to the multiport adapter, my monitor flashes with increased frequency and intensity, depending on how power hungry the USB device is.
  • Charging my ipad eventually stabilized with flashing only occurring every 10 minutes or so
  • Running Duet extended monitor via the USB port on my ipad made my hdmi monitor flash every 2-5 minutes
  • Plugging in a usb 3.0 (unpowered) hub, with only my ipad plugged in, caused this indefinitely

My Analysis : The Hot Plug Detect feature is a communication mechanism that makes the MacBook aware that it has been connected/disconnected to/from the External Display. The MacBook with the Multiport Adapter takes some time to address these multiple Hot Plug Detect interrupts which cause:

• External display to flicker
• Various screen resolution and graphic profile retention issues

No workaround is available for this issue (other than resetting the SMC/NVRAM).

Thanks for the insights Dr.Mac. Any thoughts on why in this scenario different hdmi cables yield different results? I'd forgotten to mention in prev posts that the original hdmi cables i used were version 1.4b. Using those cables I couldn't get any image whatsoever on any of my monitors (said no input) except on the one 4k @ 60khz port. Apple's documentation says 1.4b is the minimum requirement. Only after getting an hdmi 2.0 with 3D support did it start to work but with the flashing issues.

It also seems the Hot Plug Detect has to re-detect every so often, causing the display cut outs? So far this has continued for me every 5-20 minutes through a full day of work.

I've definitely found that HDMI cables make a difference, but don't solve the problem. I started out with no-name cables, then tried Amazon Basics "high speed" HDMI cables. I subsequently bought the heaviest 1m cables that Monoprice sells (their "certified premium" high-speed HDMI and their flat commercial series 24AWG cables). The beefy Monoprice cables have the 'blanking out' problem less often than the lower-specced (thinner conductor) cables from other places, but it's definitely still there. (I should also note that these heavier-duty cables are significantly less flexible than the other HDMI cables I own, which makes positioning the AV Adapter more tricky.) Seems like the best medicine is a reboot in the morning.

Update - I returned the second m7 macbook and exchanged it for an m5. I have not had issues with the m5 - I seen a very occasional flicker when working but they're so infrequent it doesn't interfere with work. However, work just bought me an m7 macbook (the m5 is a personal machine) and it has the flickering issue.

Hi guys.

I have m7, same problem.

Someone can fixed? I read how compressed air, I'll try it.

On the other hand, somebody take the computer to Genius Bar to see the problem? How it work?

Thanks!

I have NO problem - zero problem - if I connect my macbook to Apple Cinema 20" display (old, ~7years, model A1081)

), through DVI-to-HDMI-to-USBc set of connectors.

I had a bunch of problems when connecting to Dell monitor via HDMI cable.

So the good news is that the problem is solvable, you just have to have a right cable and/or right monitor. Bad news - expensive, yet another way to pay apple tax.

I have the same problem, 2016 12-inch MacBook:

MB12.0SPACEGRAY/1.1GHZ/8GB/256GB

PartNumber:MLH72LL/A

Using Apple USBC Digital AV Multiport Adapter -> HDMI to DVI-D cord -> Dell 2560x1440 display, everything works fine except for occasional display going black, briefly.

I bought an Acer H277HU display (also 2560x1440) thinking that the direct USB-C connection without an adapter would be the way to go. Unfortunately the black screen flicker is an issue with that as well.

Resetting the NVRAM fixes the issue for as long as the MacBook remains plugged into the display. But if I disconnect to use the MacBook somewhere else and then reconnect to the display, the problem comes back until I reset the NVRAM again.

I read somewhere that the latest beta of Sierra fixes this issue, and I am hopeful that the next official update will include a fix. In the meanwhile, this is very annoying.

No, unfortunately Sierra didn't fix yet this issue.

In my case I don't need to restart NVRAM each time but I need to restart computer after unplugged from monitor to recover it.