Hi guys,

I've got a Mac Pro 4,1 and two Samsung 2243SWX monitors and every so often when the displays wake up from sleep, I get a coloured snow/static on the displays (like the snow on old TV sets when they don't have a signal).

These monitors don't have an HDMI input nor do they have any sort of TV tuner built into them so I'm not sure what's causing the snow. I can sometimes replicate it by hitting CTRL-SHIFT-Eject and waiting a few minutes. It seems to happen one in ten times and it can happen on either monitor and sometimes on both monitors at the same time.

I called Samsung thinking it was a firmware issue and they ARE USELESS!!! No rapid swap or any sort of quick service. They simply mail you UPS stickers and you ship your monitors to them for analysis and they will return them in 14-21 days!! Wow, no monitor for 2-3 weeks. How can they think that's okay? Brutal.

Anyway, I tried googling the problem and couldn't find much but eventually found this thread on the Apple Discussions forum:
Apple - Support - Discussions - Mac Pro sometimes displays static after ...

It seems it might not be the monitor after all since people are reporting this issue with different models and manufacturers of monitors. I realize that a lot of monitors are the same under the skin but I'm starting to think this might be an OS/Apple issue.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Well I don't have a MBP, I am currently using my daughter's HP laptop [ don't ask ] and it does the same thing.

I am off to FS tomorrow to see what can be done and I will let you know when I get the results....it maybe a similar issue.

Tell me does the "snow" go away the longer the machine is on? That seems to be the case with this one, however it occassionally erupts during use.

If I put the screens back into power save and then resume, it usually fixes the problem. Very odd stuff.

I honestly wouldn't worry about this unless the static stays on the screen for a long period of time, disallowing you to actually use your Mac. And it's definitely not caused by the monitors themselves.