Pixelated text - HP 27er, MacBook Pro 15" early 2013 using HDMI port

[keone9]

I have an HP 27er hooked up (HDMI-HDMI) to a late 2013 15" MacBook Pro running macOS Catalina. The graphics are fine, but text is pixelated; looks like text from a 1980's game. 

I've tried upscaling and downscaling from the default resolution, changing color profiles, and searching the web for solutions. 

I simply want to know if this is normal for this monitor, so I can decide whether to replace it.

Thanks.

[IronBadger]

There are a few different troubleshooting steps you can try.

1. Open displays and hold down the Option key.  The Gather Windows button at the bottom will switch to Detect Displays.  Select Detect Displays and see if the resolution adjusts.

2. If that does not work.   While still in Displays, hold down the Option key and select Scaled.  This will expand the Scaled list to give you all possible resolutions rather than what was auto detected as supported.  See if you can select the appropriate resolution in the list.

3. If all that fails you can try Resetting the SMC on the macOS.  The instructions from Apple are here.

4. You can also try using SwitchResX  it is a shareware utility that aids in fixing resolution issues as well as offering some other nice features.

If none of the above simpler solutions work then you may have an issue with macOS being able to read the EDID of the monitor properly.  The EDID is metadata that tells the OS all about the monitor to which it is connected (resolution, sound, color, etc).  Most of the solutions for this are pretty involved.  But you can read more by simply searching the web on "macOS EDID".