New M4 Max Macbook Pro not supporting multiple displays

Question

Level 1

8 points

New M4 Max Macbook Pro not supporting multiple displays

I just bought a brand new M4 Max Macbook Pro and am connecting it to my work set up that I had for my M2 Macbook Pro. This is just two Arzopa 1080p 60hz portable monitors that I was able to plug into my M2 mac each just via usb-c without HDMI just directly with thunderbolt ports and they both worked perfectly. This no longer works at all with my M4 Max Macbook Pro. Only one display works at a time.

I have tried everything you can imagine: buying new shorter usb-c cables, buying new HDMI cables, one monitor on each side, one monitor through an external usb hub, one monitor on independent power source and HDMI, and even plugging each monitor into its own power source via usb-c and connecting both of the monitors via HMDI but still only one single monitor works while the other always says "No Signal".

I can confirm this happens to my friends with the same setup and can also confirm the monitors are not broken as they still work with my old Mac and alternate which ones are on when i switch out plugs. Im not sure why this would be so seamless on an older generation Mac and a newer more powerful one cant handle it but any suggestions on how to fix would be really helpful.

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 15.1

Posted on Nov 26, 2024 5:01 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Grant Bennet-Alder

Level 10

140,279 points

Nov 27, 2024 7:40 AM in response to lucasTheMan

¿Bus powered portable displays with one cable?

there appears to be a problem with ThunderBolt-5 ports and portable displays:

"I just heard back the from the support people at MNN, which makes the portable monitor that I have been using successfully without an auxiliary adapter power on my 2019 MacBookPro with Thunderbolt 3 ports and yet cannot make work on my brand spanking new MacBookPro M4 Pro Thunderbolt 5 machine.

I asked point blank this question: Does your monitor work with Thunderbolt 5 ports using only one USB-C or Thunderbolt cable and no auxiliary power adapter?

Answer: No. The monitor is not compatible with TB5 ports. It will need an auxiliary power source (adapter) and also an HDMI cable. And even when using the auxiliary power adapter the monitor won't recognize a signal through its USB-C ports if the signal is coming from a Thunderbolt 5 port."

this post exactly(on page 4 of 4) here:

MacBook Pro M4 with thunderbolt 5 and por… - Apple Community

you can navigate from there back to the beginning if you like.

Reply

Answer 2

Nov 26, 2024 6:59 PM in response to Theres_a_worm_in_the_Apple

Theres_a_worm_in_the_Apple wrote:

I'm having almost the same problem. I was using a portable triple monitor (Oiiwak OK14 from Amazon) with no problems on my 2022 MBP M3.

I just upgraded from that machine to a new 2024 MBP M4 Pro, and the displays are no longer recognized. I even tried a genuine Apple Thunderbolt 4 cable to connect the monitors, but still no dice. Apple changed something, but what??

If you were counting on the computer to provide power to the monitor, it is not the same issue. The OP indicated that they could not get things to work even when each attached portable displays had its own power supply.

We also appear to be talking about different chips: M4 Max vs. plain M4, though as long as we are talking about no more than two external displays, that probably isn't the issue.

Reply

Answer 3

Nov 26, 2024 6:35 PM in response to lucasTheMan

I'm having almost the same problem. I was using a portable triple monitor (Oiiwak OK14 from Amazon) with no problems on my 2022 MBP M3.

I just upgraded from that machine to a new 2024 MBP M4 Pro, and the displays are no longer recognized. I even tried a genuine Apple Thunderbolt 4 cable to connect the monitors, but still no dice. Apple changed something, but what??

Reply

Answer 4

Nov 26, 2024 6:44 PM in response to lucasTheMan

were you using BOTH displays as Hardware-accelerated displays? or was on or the other a "fake" DisplayLink display?

did you install the same Driver software you had on the other machine or previous version of macOS?

Reply