MacBook Pro M4 with thunderbolt 5 and portable monitor

I have an Espresso Portable Monitor and it was working great with my M1 MacBook. I upgraded to the M4 Pro last week and it would not work at all for me. I really needed a 2nd display for work, so I decide to just upload my newest Time Machine back up onto my old M1 MacBook untill I could find a solution. The portable monitor was working on it until I had to install the new Sequoia 15.2 update on the old M1 since that's what my latest back up was, and now not even my M1 MacBook can detect the monitor.

I was thinking it was something like you mentioned above too till that happened today... Hopefully there is some type of patch in the coming updates of Sequoia because so far it's making my life miserable.

Hello All,

I have been having the same issue with my Amazon Chinese 15inch portable monitor. HOWEVER, my father has a Viewsonic VA1655, and it worked perfectly with a SINGLE Usb-c cable for power and data. It is likely only a problem with the negotiation on software on off-brand monitors. Apple may have tightened their protocol adherence.

Yes, some work, some don't.

Tried two. An Innoview 18" (very nice, btw) potable does NOT work with Mini M4 Pro, yet works with M3 Macs, and probably M4 Macs without TB5. However, A UPerfect 16" DOES work with TB5, so there's that, go-figure

Fix for Innoview is to use HDMI and then a USB-C cable from the front of the Mini to power it. Hopefully, this is a temporary fix, as there's something amiss with TB5 presently.

So everyone, don't even bother except to let Apple know, so they can hopefully patch this. It's pretty clear cut at this point. I'm using Apple's TB4 cables, which are enough, so....

note: Also tried a TB5 cable I had, doesn't work either, which was expected.

Remain calm. Don't get distracted by ThunderBolt-5, it simply is not a factor here.

ThunderBolt-5 cables and ports run differently ONLY when each and every device involved is genuine ThunderBolt-5. Otherwise, they are indistinguishable from ThunderBolt 4 and ThunderBolt-3, which are electrically identical and barely different from each other, except by some arcane support for multiple devices on one cable.

When All devices are Thunderbolt-5, the regular baseband data stream (one bit per signaling interval) changes to a modulated signal (3-patterns per signaling interval) for increased speed. Nothing else of substance changes.

when all devices are NOT Thunderbolt-5, it all works as if it were Thunderbolt-3. If connecting only USB devices, it all works as USB devices.

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Readers here report that main issue for Bus Powered Displays is that they don't get enough Bus-power using one port.

You can check whether the device is getting all the power it needs by invoking:

 menu > about this Mac > (system report) ...

... and checking this display:

...

OK.

That picture shows that the monitor is getting power when attached to the new MBP. It just isn't getting signal. I was under the mistaken impression that the monitor was showing nothing at all, as if it did not have its own power source, and was not getting power from the MBP, either.

That first link leads to a page for several monitors. Yours is appears to be the J5.

The J5 is a 17.3" monitor with 3840x2160 pixel resolution and a 60 Hz refresh rate. It has two USB-C inputs and a HDMI input, plus a downstream Micro USB-B port. The specifications say that it does not have a built-in battery – and that its rated power is 17 watts. The monitor has an IPS panel and 100% coverage of Adobe RGB – both good specifications that don't matter for the purpose of troubleshooting here.

3840x2160 @ 60 Hz is bog-standard and well within the capabilities of your MacBook Pro, whether you use one of the MBP's USB-C ports, or use the MBP's HDMI port.

Here's the manual .

In Chapter 3 of the manual, under Type-C signal transfer, and again under HDMI signal transfer, they say

"Note: 4K monitor needs higher voltage power, for a more stable power supply, it is recommended to use our original PD adapter to power."

In Chapter 6 of the manual, under Q&A, they say

"Q: The monitor keeps switching and flicker, although it connected to outlet for extra power supply.

A: This situation is generally caused by insufficient voltage. Please check whether the factory-packed cables are used, and then check whether an external PD power supply is used. The power consumption of 4K monitor is relatively larger, and an external PD power supply is required."

They also say that the monitor requires at least a 15W power supply, but that their power adapter provides 30W, so that if you use a power bank (external rechargeable battery), one "with output above 30W is recommended."

Part of USB-C Power Delivery is that the power supplier negotiates with the power consumer as to what voltage to offer. The original standard allowed power transfers of up to 5A at up to 20V (up to 100W); the current one allows power transfers of up to 5A at up to 48V (up to 240W).

If I look at the fine print on the bottom of a 29W Apple USB Type-C power adapter, I find the words "Output: 14.5V === 2.0A (USB PD) or 5.2V === 2.4A." Both my MacBook and my iPhone charge off this adapter, but if either was picky enough that they would not accept anything less than 20V, they would be in trouble.

So the highlighted parts of the monitor manual raise some follow-on questions:

• What "higher voltage" does the monitor expect?
• What voltage is the old MBP offering?
• What voltage is the new MBP offering?
• Could the voltage that the new MBP is offering be high enough to let the screen come on and display that "No signal" message, but not high enough to let the electronics to receive a signal work properly?

AndrewBergman wrote:

The particular external display I've been testing with has 2 USB-C ports - I've tried with and without separate power and signal - with the same results. I've been using an Anker 4-port 100W GaN adapter to be able to power multiple devices simultaneously.

It appears that the OP and you are dealing with different monitors and different root causes.

The OP's portable monitors displayed video when connected to a portable power bank and to a M4-series MBP at the same time. The OP posted a picture that appeared to show that in this configuration, the monitor was drawing 50 watts of power – far in excess of the amount that the monitor manual said that the monitor required. On top of that, the manual for the OP's monitors recommended the use of a separate power supply!

You are seeing no signal even when you are providing separate power to your monitors. That would seem to point to the video signal negotiation / connection rather than to the Power Delivery one.

yskandar thaddé wrote:

Because I recently bought my display (one with old firmware) they send me a replacement one which was flashed for the new Mac USB c ports( took a coole of weeks to arrive) And the new display works fine now. This shows that the problem is a software one. That a company as espresso display managed to solve the problem in a couple of weeks after the new MacBook pro’s came on the market and with the right firmware it works perfectly. I think that Apple should react as quick and decisive to solve this problem for their users.

If it took a software update to the external monitor to change the behavior – wouldn't that suggest an issue with the code in the external monitor?

If the other monitors likewise are in need of software fixes, wouldn't that be their manufacturers' responsibility?

Yes, some work, some don't.

Tried two. An Innoview 18" (very nice, btw) potable does NOT work with Mini M4 Pro, yet works with M3 Macs, and probably M4 Macs without TB5. However, A UPerfect 16" DOES work with TB5, so there's that, go-figure

Fix for Innoview is to use HDMI and then a USB-C cable from the front of the Mini to power it. Hopefully, this is a temporary fix, as there's something amiss with TB5 presently.

So everyone, don't even bother except to let Apple know, so they can hopefully patch this. It's pretty clear cut at this point. I'm using Apple's TB4 cables, which are enough, so....

note: Also tried a TB5 cable I had, doesn't work either, which was expected.

The displays people are complaining about DO NOT claim ThunderBolt 5 compatibility.

If the displays were even Thunderbolt-5 compliant, they would be working just fine.

The one display-maker that has revised their display firmware has allowed their displays to work fine.

Nice discovery. I've been unable to get my existing 18" portable monitor to work unplugged and found that plugging in the auxilary power works with the TB cable. I did come across this 4k portable monitor works with TB5 without having to plug in the auxiliary power.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B083ZFG1PF/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

All of this is rather frustrating but at least we have a workaround.

Just received this response back from Arzopa about their portable monitor.

We are sorry that our monitor models are not currently compatible with Thunderbolt 5 ports. You can connect via HDMI+power cable or connect the monitor to other devices.

Arzopa Customer Service Team

This works if your monitor has two USB ports:

1. plug portable monitor into a charger so it can get power.
2. Then plug it using a second cable into the M4 (thunderbolt) so it can get signal.

Mine kept saying "no signal" when I guess it really meant "help no power!"

dragos-florin wrote:

Both laptops offer or the monitor accepts at the highest ~ 12W/5A

That photo shows a voltage of 4.84V and a current of 2.48A for a power level of 12W.

That almost sounds like Power Delivery negotiations failed, and the monitor is trying to draw traditional 5V power on the assumption that the USB-C cable can support 5V @ 3A (15W).

(Note that USB-C Power Delivery requires the use of cables that have embedded chips to tell the two sides that it is safe to transmit >5V and >15W of power. If in the process of measuring power, you changed out a PD-complaint cable for non-PD-compliant cabling, that may have forced a fallback to traditional USB power that would prevent you from measuring what you were trying to measure.)

This StackExchange Electrical Engineering thread says that according to USB specifications, "the 5V is supposed to be +-5% under load, which translates to 4.75V to 5.25V." If that's true, the 4.84V is within normal variance for 5V power. But this doesn't sound like the "higher voltage" power that the monitor manual talks about in Chapter 3, or the "at least 15W power supply" that the monitor manual talks about in Chapter 6.

ToddGeorgeKelly wrote:

every single one of my cables works with thunderbolt four on the M4 Mac mini. But again, as has been said, not a single of my 27 cables works when using the thunderbolt five ports on the M4 Pro Mac mini.

The M4 Pro Mac mini is a different machine than the "MacBook Pro M4 with Thunderbolt 5" that the OP has. (Assuming that the OP is correct about having TB 5, that implies that the MBP has a M4 Pro or Max chip; one which had a plain M4 chip would only have TB 4.)

In the OP's case, it looks like the portable monitor works fine with the new MBP – as long as it is given its own separate power source, as the monitor manual recommends. The last set of power measurements show that monitor drawing an enormous amount of power (50W) from an external power bank, relative to specifications claiming that it uses 17W, and a manual saying that a 15W power source would be sufficient.

I don't know what monitor you are using, or what its manuals say, but I suspect that the M4 Pro Mac mini is not designed to offer huge amounts of power to external devices.

For that matter, I doubt if the plain M4 Mac mini is intended to supply 50W of power to external devices. Maybe the two have the same power supply, and you just got lucky with the plain M4 Mac mini because it did not need quite as much of the power from its own supply to run its own internal circuits.

BigSnuffy wrote:

Sorry for the confusion Grant, I seemed to have hijacked dragos's original post with my own different one.

I was just wondering why my M4 Pro Mac mini can't do what my M2 Pro Mac mini does, i.e. power the same 15 inch portable monitor on its own without requiring external power, I'm using the same cable on both. Could it be something to do with the Thunderbolt 5 port.

Here's my understanding of the specifications. I could be wrong.

USB 2.0 – A host port should provide up to 2.5W of 5V power (500mA @ 5V).

USB 3.0 – A host port should provide up to 4.5W of 5V power (900mA @ 5V).

USB-C – Cables should be capable of carrying 15W of power (3A @ 5V), however this requirement in and of itself does not obligate a USB-C host port to provide 15W of power. (If I look at the fine print on the bottom of my 29W Apple USB-C power brick, it says "Output: 14.5V == 2.0A (USB PD) or 5.2V == 2.4A" – that is to say it offers only 12.48W of non-negotiated 5V power, which would be within a generic USB-C cable's safety margin.). If you were to plug a USB accessory that only speaks USB 3.* (not Power Delivery) into a USB-C port, that accessory should not expect to be able to draw more than 4.5W from that port.

USB-C – Power Delivery allows provision of up to 240W of power (5A @ 48V) in either direction – if both devices agree, and the cable has embedded chips to indicate that it is safe to use it for USB-C Power Delivery. (The first version of Power Delivery only supported delivery of up to 100W (5A @ 20V), which is why the 16" M1 {Pro / Max} MBPs can fast-charge over MagSafe 3 but not over USB-C.)

NOTE: If you connect two devices that support USB-C Power Delivery with a USB-C cable that does not, the negotiation of high levels of power delivery should, and likely will, fail. This is a safety precaution to keep you from, say, running 100W of charging power into a laptop over a cable that can only safely handle 15W.

Thunderbolt – On devices that support Thunderbolt 3 and USB4, one Thunderbolt port should provide a minimum of 15W (3A @ 5V) of power; others can provide as little as 7.5W (1.5A @ 5V) of power. I believe that Thunderbolt 4 (and 5) may raise that minimum requirement to 15W (3A @ 5V) on all Thunderbolt ports. A host with Thunderbolt ports may offer more power / higher voltages to accessories (via PD negotiation), but is not required to do so.

I'm not sure if the 15W or 7.5W minimum applies if a port is operating in a NON-Thunderbolt mode, such as USB 3.* mode or DisplayPort Alt Mode.