Crazy display artifacts when multiple displays are connected

tasslehawftasslehawf
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014

Just installed Mavericks on my wife's computer (2012 non-retina MBP). She has an external Dell display connected over mDP to DVI. When it's connected it gets this crazy artifact thingy. Anyone seen this?



It does it on both displays equally, but goes away when the exernal display is disconnected.

 

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,324moderator
    They have a whole new graphics system in 10.9. It looks like there's other display setups affected:

    http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/10/os-x-mavericks-breaks-multi-monitor-setups-with-some-usb-displays/

    Do you have a 3rd party adaptor or Apple's overpriced one?

    The artifacts look like graphics card glitches. OS X windows are all hardware accelerated. One thing you can try is disabling automatic graphics switching in system prefs > energy saver. This will only keep the dedicated GPU enabled. If the artifacts still appear, you can try disabling the dedicated GPU and run on integrated using the following app:

    http://gfx.io
  • Reply 2 of 7
    tasslehawftasslehawf Posts: 75member

    The external display is connected with a mini Display Port to DVI cable. I also tested it with my Apple miniDP to DVI adaptor.

     

    The craziest thing is it does it over airplay with our Apple TV.

  • Reply 3 of 7
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,324moderator
    tasslehawf wrote: »
    The external display is connected with a mini Display Port to DVI cable. I also tested it with my Apple miniDP to DVI adaptor.

    The craziest thing is it does it over airplay with our Apple TV.

    If you are mirroring over AirPlay, it will just copy the framebuffer that already has artifacts in it. Are you mirroring to the Dell too?

    What happens if you disable mirroring in system prefs > displays? Also, what happens if you close the MBP, mirror it to the external and wake it up using an external keyboard?
  • Reply 4 of 7
    tasslehawftasslehawf Posts: 75member

    It does it in both mirror and extend. I've just determined that it's happening when the laptop is using the discreet graphics card, which it does whenever powering an external display. I'm not sure why it was doing it over airplay, with graphic switcher it's not switching to discreet and therefore not showing the glitches.

  • Reply 5 of 7
    tasslehawftasslehawf Posts: 75member

    Just tried a clean install and it displayed the glitches during the installation process.

  • Reply 6 of 7
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,324moderator
    tasslehawf wrote: »
    Just tried a clean install and it displayed the glitches during the installation process.

    That doesn't sound good. You're certain this is the 2012 model and not a 2011 model purchased in 2012? The 2011 AMD GPUs have had a number of reported problems with graphics glitches:


    [VIDEO]


    There's a video here with someone who has a 650M from 2012 with glitches too though:


    [VIDEO]
  • Reply 7 of 7
    tasslehawftasslehawf Posts: 75member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post





    That doesn't sound good. You're certain this is the 2012 model and not a 2011 model purchased in 2012? The 2011 AMD GPUs have had a number of reported problems with graphics glitches:







    There's a video here with someone who has a 650M from 2012 with glitches too though:



     

     

    Yep. Definitely a 2012. In fact, my early 2011 with a Radeon is fine with Mavericks install.

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