Second Display won't Wake Up...Mac OS X

[JB Rasor]

Hi everyone. I hope your weekend has gone well.

I recently upgraded to the NEC PA322 UHD as my primary monitor, and I'm running the standard Apple Thunderbolt Display as a second monitor. My main machine is a Mac Pro Trashcan, 8 Core.

Whenever the computer goes into sleep mode, for an extended period of time, the second monitor (Apple Thunderbolt Display) will not wake from sleep. It just stays black. The peripherals run fine (external backup drives plugged into it). They are mounted on the desktop. The display is plugged directly into the Mac Pro.

I am at a complete loss here. I've trouble shot everything I can think of. Unplugged peripherals, reset PRAM and VRAM, SMC reset, etc. No matter what, if the computer sleeps for 20 plus minutes, that second monitor will stay black until the computer is fully restarted. Then it turns on just fine. 

Does anyone have a thought here or experienced a similar issue? It started occurring prior to my NEC upgrade, with another monitor. I'm thinking it's a recent bug, but definitely underreported. Any help would be great!

Thanks, as always, guys!

JB Rasor
 

[Andrew_S]

I have a similar problem.  I have two Eizo monitors.  One wakes up immediatly and the second will after turning the screen off and hitting the return key a number of times.  Wondering if this is related to the graphics card
problem referenced here:

http://www.macrumors.com

[hokuahi]

Wondering if this is related to the graphics card
problem referenced here:

http://www.macrumors.com

I couldn't seem to find any specific reference to graphic card fixes in that article. However, for a long time I had issues with OS X 10.* failing to recognize my second display (both NEC Spectraview monitors) after a reboot. It would take a second reboot in order for the OS to recognize it.
Subsequently, I spent quite a bit of time with upper level tech support where the issue was finally forwarded to the hardware engineers. I received a reply that they did have something to report but for what ever reason, I was never able to reconnect with them to find out what it was. Anyway, eventually the issue resolved over time and now any reboot does find my second display right away.

[JB Rasor]

Thanks guys! I think I may have isolated the issue, but it'll take a couple more days to make sure it is what I think it is. It appears to be related to peripherals plugged into the Thunderbolt display (second monitor). Odd, because that fix didn't work a week ago. At any rate, I'll report back with my findings. Are you both running peripheral devices into your displays? Drives, speakers, etc.?

[mgrayson]

Extremely useful but poorly documented feature:

Under System Preferences, choose Displays. Hold down the Option key and a "Detect Displays" button appears in the lower right. When my second display stays asleep, pressing this button wakes it up.

Annoying, but it beats rebooting.

Matt

[hokuahi]

Thanks guys! I think I may have isolated the issue, but it'll take a couple more days to make sure it is what I think it is. It appears to be related to peripherals plugged into the Thunderbolt display (second monitor). Odd, because that fix didn't work a week ago. At any rate, I'll report back with my findings. Are you both running peripheral devices into your displays? Drives, speakers, etc.?

I have an ImagePrint Dongle running from the secondary display, but the problem started before I attached it.

[JB Rasor]

Unfortunately my fix didn't work. I won't tie up the forum with this issue, as I think it only effects a small number of us, but it is a rather annoying situation. Matt, I did try the option key, find displays...I came across that suggestion during a Google search to diagnose the issue. I'll try again and see if it works, but it did not the last few times I tried. At any rate, thanks for the feedback guys. I'll stick with it and let everyone know if something does work. Hopefully I'll find a solution soon.

Thanks again!
JB
 

[Christopher Sanderson]

This exact problem plagued me for months. (Trash Can w/ twin D700 GPUs)

I would find what I believed was a fix and then have the problem recur a few days later. I was running two NEC monitors. It drove me nuts.

I eventually gave up and sold one  of the NEC monitors and replaced it with a used Apple Cinema display. I have never had a problem since.

I believe there to be an incompatibility between the D700 (& D500??) GPUs and multiple non-Apple displays. Graphics problems have abounded with the Mac trash can since its 2013 release. There is currently a new Apple repair program to address some of these issues and apparently a new TrashCan in the works for this year.

Personally I lost so many hours with this machine, I wish I had gone with the 5K iMac. But I also believe there is so little Apple skin in the pro game that a dedicated video workstation would be far better off on the PC platform. High-end workstation providers to the video production world seem to agree.

[rdonson]

Just FYI Apple is fixing video card issues with certain Mac Pro trash cans....

http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/apple-quietly-rolls-out-2013-mac-pro-video-repair-program

http://9to5mac.com/2016/02/06/apple-mac-pro-repair-program-graphics-video/

[JB Rasor]

Chris, I definitely agree that Mac needs to get their graphics card scenario straightened out. Since I've owned the 2013 Mac Pro, several issues have arisen concerning the D700 cards (the set I have). Remember when Adobe and DaVinci couldn't render video due to an apple software update? That was a mess!

But, without getting into all of that, I think I have finally, fingers crossed, found a solution here.
1: No peripherals can be plugged into the second display (Apple Thunderbolt Display)
2: Before waking the computer, turn on the NEC display
3: Wake the computer

In this order, and with these variables, both displays wake up just fine. If I forget to turn on the NEC manually, and let the computer wake it, no go...gotta do a restart. But so far so good.

Thanks again for the feedback and help guys! Thank you for the article update @rdonson. I hope, down the road, these kinds of issues become even rarer.

JB

[vjbelle]

Personally I lost so many hours with this machine, I wish I had gone with the 5K iMac. But I also believe there is so little Apple skin in the pro game that a dedicated video workstation would be far better off on the PC platform. High-end workstation providers to the video production world seem to agree.

Apple has left the photography/video arena.  You are very correct in that if performance is a goal then the PC platform is the only real solution. 

Victor