So I've been tweaking and Googling and dealing with this for a while now. Figured I'd see if the MR collective has any bright ideas...
Issue: My external displays both will randomly flash to black for a few seconds and come back. They most often do this independently of each other, and I've found no correlation to anything or any way to reliably reproduce it on demand. macOS does not seem to be affected by this; my windows aren't rearranged + the displays are always detected by software. If I have the OSD of a monitor pulled up when it happens, the OSD disappears too.
Hardware: MBP 14" 10/16/16GB/1TB with macOS 12.3 -> OWC TB4 Dock -> OWC TB3 Dual DisplayPort adapter -> DisplayPort to HDMI cables -> dual Dell S2418H monitors (which are HDMI or VGA only).
Things I've tried, thanks to both OWC Support and lots of Googling:
At this point, I'm thinking it's a combination of buggy Dell monitor firmware, Apple Silicon teething issues, and maybe residual effects of macOS not liking the Realtek 8153. My last ideas: try DisplayPort > VGA cables instead since I'm only pushing 1080 at 60hz -OR- sink a bunch more money into a CalDigit TS4 when they restock to see if that does it -OR- break down and replace these monitors I'm otherwise completely happy with.
OWC says I'm the only one reporting this symptom to them, which makes me think it's something specific with my setup. Any better ideas out there? Or anybody else with a similar symptom?
Issue: My external displays both will randomly flash to black for a few seconds and come back. They most often do this independently of each other, and I've found no correlation to anything or any way to reliably reproduce it on demand. macOS does not seem to be affected by this; my windows aren't rearranged + the displays are always detected by software. If I have the OSD of a monitor pulled up when it happens, the OSD disappears too.
Hardware: MBP 14" 10/16/16GB/1TB with macOS 12.3 -> OWC TB4 Dock -> OWC TB3 Dual DisplayPort adapter -> DisplayPort to HDMI cables -> dual Dell S2418H monitors (which are HDMI or VGA only).
Things I've tried, thanks to both OWC Support and lots of Googling:
- Changing the color profile for both monitors
- Setting both monitors explicitly to 1920x1080, 60Hz
- Disabling input auto-select (potential Dell firmware bug)
- Disabling DDC/CI (potential Dell firmware bug)
- Unloading the kext for / not using the Realtek 8153 Ethernet in the dock
- Reducing the number of other devices plugged in to the dock
At this point, I'm thinking it's a combination of buggy Dell monitor firmware, Apple Silicon teething issues, and maybe residual effects of macOS not liking the Realtek 8153. My last ideas: try DisplayPort > VGA cables instead since I'm only pushing 1080 at 60hz -OR- sink a bunch more money into a CalDigit TS4 when they restock to see if that does it -OR- break down and replace these monitors I'm otherwise completely happy with.
OWC says I'm the only one reporting this symptom to them, which makes me think it's something specific with my setup. Any better ideas out there? Or anybody else with a similar symptom?
