Mac mini M4 screen go black randomly

I tried 50Hz too and couldn't stand how jerky the mouse pointer and scrolling were. When I swapped to the USBC > DP cable, it defaulted to 144Hz and it's been rock steady now for a month. No idea why.

I had the same problem with my Dell monitor. I switched over to a 40 Gbps USB-c cable and it fixed the problem.

Wanted to share that this happens for me too. I have Mac mini M4 Pro and I connect it to a Philips Evnia 32M2N8900/00 display using a 40 Gbps USB-C cable from Belkin.

It works fine most of the time, but seemingly out the blue (seems in conjunction when I switching apps using the apps switcher) I get this total blackout of the video signal for some a couple of seconds. When it happens it usually happens at least twice after each other.

I've been using the display with Refresh rate ”Variable (48-240 Herz)” and someone suggested that I try using 120 Hz instead as that will omit the use of Display Stream Compression (DSC).

I'm trying that now and will see if it makes a difference.

Quite annoying that this is a problem, though. I also have a Windows desktop PC connected to this display (DisplayPort) and I can't remember that I've seen the same problem there. I mostly run that as fixed 240 Hz, though. can try to go variable too and see. But it seems to be a Mac issue.

I’m not sure if this is a cure for the momentary screen blackouts we’ve all encountered, but since I made one change, it hasn’t happened again for about a week. Here’s what I did with my LG dual-screen setup - the left monitor connected via C/Thunderbolt and the right monitor connected via HDMI:

1. Disconnected and swapped the cables that were connected to the monitors (leaving them connected in the same positions on the M4 Mac Mini) while everything was on. This changed the right monitor to the main/#1 of course.

2. In System Settings > Displays I swapped the right monitor to the left side by clicking on the right monitor image and dragging it to the left - rather than using the “Arrange” option.

Per my previous posts, I tried swapping the physical monitors, swapping the cables, replacing the cables, etc. and the left monitor would still briefly go black (never the right).

Again, it’s been about a week, so I cannot be sure it won’t happen again at some point, but so far this seems to have resolved it for my particular setup. Not sure what I’d try for a single monitor other than what folks have already suggested.

It’s above my pay grade, but maybe one of the experts here can make a guess as to why what I did, or for that matter what @ChupacabraZZZ did, that would resolve the issue. It’s clearly a hardware problem IMHO, but there may be a solution?

[Edited by Moderator]

Hi,

Have you tried running diagnostics to determine whether the port itself is faulty? If not, I would recommend starting there. It’s also a good idea to check for any software-related issues. While reinstalling macOS might be worth trying, it’s unlikely to resolve the problem if it’s "Firmware level deep".

In this case, the best solution would be to factory reset the Mac mini using DFU mode. This process will completely restore the firmware and macOS, ensuring that any software-related problems are eliminated. If the issue still persists after a DFU restore, it’s most likely a hardware problem.

Hope that makes sense!

I have the same issue on an Asus 4K display with HDMI using 2560 x 1440. After trying all kinds of things , yesterday I changed from 60HZ to 50HZ and so far, so good.

For what it's worth... I changed from USB-C cable to Thunderbolt 3 cable and so far no glitches... Mac Studio M4 Max. ASUS ProART 5k display.

No Zoom, but I guess I should try swapping out the cable for an HDMI 2.1 one. Grabbing one from Anker before sending doing any warranty stuff. I just assumed that because this monitor worked problem free with a PC that the cable wouldn't matter, but seems that may not be true. Thanks.

The HDMI port does work.

The problem is that it does not work using long cheap HDMI cables like the ones used between DVD players and TV's or the long cheap HDMI cables that are supplied by display manufactures.

There's another fix that only 2 users have claimed to work (me being one of them): that's the Zoom app. A user reported that removing it fixed it for hime. I had Zoom so uninstalled it with AppCleaner.

WARNING: If you use AppCleaner on an app that you have other apps from the same developer, like Adobe, you must be extremely careful checking all checkboxes and deleting.  Some for those files may support other apps from the same developer and deleting them can mess them up.  Adobe apps is a primary example. I know from experience.  For singular apps from a developer it's safe.

That fixed it for me. It's an unlikely fix but if you have Zoom installed give it a try.

You might be #3.

I bought this Highwings HDMI cable and it seems to have fixed things.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NX5CZTF?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1

Or maybe it was the OS update.

Quick update on my life in this burden. I found out that if you shutdown mini overnight and power on in the morning, I can go through out the day without blackouts. I have recently upgraded to 15.4 will see if this update is more stable, its been just a couple days w/o blackouts. Release notes do have info about monitor issue. but the one we are facing in this thread.

Update:

I turned off the Mac Mini M4, unplugged all cables including the mains plugs and rebooted.

Touch wood, I have not had the black screen come up for four days now. Same OS and same monitor firmware. Weird.

I forgot to mention that I switched HDMI cables and tried a USB-C cable that came with the LG monitor. Blanking continued. I am using HDMI right now, still hasn't blanked since I rebooted the LG monitor with the Mac on. Next time it does I'll try rebooting just the monitor again.

That's a good question. I am sure I tried this same USBC > DP cable before when I was having issues. I think I was using the middle port on the back before, so I tried the one closest to HDMI this time. Also I think since the last time I tried this the OS has gone from 15.4 to 15.5.

The cable is just something I got on Amazon, tried to go for a higher quality looking one but I am sure I tried this one before and I still got blackouts.

But it's truly weird how I've gone almost 2 weeks now and not had one single blackout. I even had a few on my old faithful Dell 28" 4K monitor over HDMI, which is what prompted me to try the bigger MSI again. I figured if I was going to have to suffer through blackouts might as well use my bigger monitor - and it's been rock solid ever since I swapped back.

I did shut the Mini totally down when I swapped monitors, so when it powered up it was already using the USBC > DP cable on the MSI monitor.I'm pretty sure I tried powering off though before and it didn't help.

Anyway I've probably jinxed myself now but so far so good.