A MAX7219 at "off" has Seg pins LOW and Dig pins HIGH.
No one has any idea what your display is since you're having a hard time describing your setup. Segments? Are you using a number display? How many digits? Is it common cathode or common anode? Bar graph? Matrix? What? Without getting the needed information from you about what you are using, I'll venture a guess that all of whatever it is that is on, is on because you have anodes and cathodes backwards.