Early 2015 MacBook Air External Display flickers in clamshell

[kleetus51]

I have an early 2015 MacBook Air and running via USB 3 to a Dell D3100 dock with the Displaylink drivers. Works great until I shut the lid on the laptop. Once closed, the 3 external screens flicker off and on every 30 seconds or so. I've tried everything I can find (updating Mc OS, redownloading the DisplayLink drivers, changing system preferences to prevent sleeping when connected to power, etc.) My computer doesn't have the dual graphics mode that MacBook pros do (or did), so I can't change that. The fact that the monitors work fine when the lid is open tell me it must be software related. My workaround is to leave the lid open and mirror one of the external displays, but i'd prefer to tuck the laptop away with the lid closed when not needed.

Any other ideas that aren't already posted out there?

 

[xboxbml]

I have an early 2015 MacBook Air and running via USB 3 to a Dell D3100 dock with the Displaylink drivers. Works great until I shut the lid on the laptop. Once closed, the 3 external screens flicker off and on every 30 seconds or so. I've tried everything I can find (updating Mc OS, redownloading the DisplayLink drivers, changing system preferences to prevent sleeping when connected to power, etc.) My computer doesn't have the dual graphics mode that MacBook pros do (or did), so I can't change that. The fact that the monitors work fine when the lid is open tell me it must be software related. My workaround is to leave the lid open and mirror one of the external displays, but i'd prefer to tuck the laptop away with the lid closed when not needed.

Any other ideas that aren't already posted out there?

Well, not sure I can help, but here's my experience.. See sig. I have same model you have. I did about the same thing with mine. I bought a brand new Targus USB 3.0 DV1K-2K dock(DOCK121). It also used Displaylink drivers. While I could get it to work fine, it would not play videos thru it to monitor. DRM protected content. It would not play on the built in lid monitor either while dock was connected. I do not recall if I had tried to operate it in clamshell mode. I wish I could remember.... I had wanted originally to get an OWC Thunderbolt 2 dock, but by the time I wanted to pull the trigger on doing that, they were no longer being sold on their website, so I got the Targus dock. After the DRM issue, I finally found an OWC TB2 dock on FB Marketplace and drove an hour 1 way to get it. That works great. One thing I will say, even with the TB dock, you have to have the power adapter connected for it to be used in clamshell mode. If you disconnect power, it shuts off.

 

[kleetus51]

Cool, thanks. Sounds like a slightly different problem than I have. I too wasn’t able to stream content when the external displays were connected. I updated my MS Silverlight plug-in and it worked fine after that.