Extremely Distorted Display Colors

I can almost reproduce this effect on my display by going to Universal Access>Seeing> and sliding the "Enhance Contrast" slider to Maximum. Your screen shot is a little different, but this might still be worth checking. Be sure the slider is all the way to the left.

Good luck!

I have a brand new macbook pro. and I have had that same exact issue. when I first started it up it was great, then after I updated the OS it started up and the graphics were distorted. I have not done anything with any settings or anything. could their be something causing this distortion related to the most recent upgrades? oh and being reletively new to mac computers how do I find Universal access? thank you for any help you can give me. oh yeah and P.S. the graphics clear up after a couple of minutes.

Welcome to Apple Discussions!

You will find Universal Access in System Preferences. Click on the  in the upper left corner and then on System Preferences. Universal Access will be in the lower left corner. Click on it to open it.

For some reason, some of the Universal Access features seem to get turned on accidently--I don't know why. Once somebody's cat walked across the keyboard and turned on "White on Black"--try that if you want to see something weird! But usually you don't know what does it--it just happens and people are bedeviled trying to find out what's wrong. It's probably worth playing with a few of these features, just so you will be able to recognize them should they ever happen to get turned on.

Also, if you are new to Macs, be sure and repair permissions before and after installing any software--it will prevent many problems. To do this, go to Finder (lower left corner of dock) and then to Applications. In Applications you will find a Utilities folder, and in that you will find Disk Utility. Drag Disk Utility to your dock where it will be handy. To Repair permissions, open Disk Utility and click on your hard drive by brand name and then on the First Aid tab. Then click on "Repair Disk Permissions". Repeat until there is nothing left to repair.

As long as the graphics clear up on their own, you can probably not worry. If they don't, always check under Universal Access to see if something got turned on accidentally. If all is OK in Universal Access, then you can go on to working on calibrating the display. You just want to eliminate Universal Access as a factor first.

Hope this helps.

Norm,
I've been experiencing the same problem for about a year now (I posted it under Psychedelic Screen Display), and I've heard from others with a similar situation. To date I have no idea what the cause is, but I may have a temporary fix.

If this happens again restart holding the alt/Command/P & R keys down. Allow it to boot twice (two chimes) and then release the keys & let it continue booting. This clears the PRAM. The video should now come up normally. It always does for me, but I have to do this about every 4th to 6th boot. Otherwise my video is perfectly normal.

This has nothing to do with DVI to your TV. And, it has nothing to do with Leopard. Mine has been doing this since Panther. I contacted Apple & they suggested software incompatibility? But, I'm very skeptical given the comments from other owners. They also suggested a bad video card & that I should stress it to the max & see if I could get it to fail. No luck there either. It only does this at boot.

So, let me know if the above helps. And, maybe if we can get more people to chime in we can figure out what's really causing it.

One question: Are you using BootCamp?

Regards,
Jack

Your temp fix worked. Thanks alot. To add to your bootcamp question. I had just installed bootcamp 2 hours earlier, for a networking job I had. Work fine at the site, returned home and this happen. Prior to the BC install I have never experienced any issues with video. So my money is on BC on this issue. I have leopard installed with all updates. Thanks again, Coelacanth64.

Ive,
I'm glad this helped. And, thanks for the BootCamp info. I'll be truly unhappy if BC is the culprit, given that I'm a Mac IT guy in a PC work environment.

But, I'm going to keep collecting data on this until some definitive pattern emerges. Then I'll have a clearer understanding when I contact Apple again.

If I come up with a final solution I will be sure to let you know. And, if anybody else out there wants to chime in, please do!

Regards,
C64 (aka Jack)

Update:

1.)I posted this problem under BootCamp and requested confirmation by others having the same problem. So far no replies.

2.) I have refrained from booting into XP. To date I've booted into Leopard over 15 times & the problem has not resurfaced, so BootCamp may be the culprit. Eventually I'm going to look to see if I have a display resolution setting that differs between Windows & OS X. However, if BC is the cause I/we may just have to live with it.

I had the exact same issue.
I had BootCamp installed when the issue turned up.
Zapping the pram fixed the issue.

Returning to BootCamp thereafter so far is ok.

Thank for you help.

So as I said above, all was ok - well it does return after another reboot.

One workaround that seems to be helping is to shut down Windows, and not reboot back into OS X. Not sure if that little Reboot Back To OS X app is the problem, but shutting down from Windows seems to work for me.

Jack,

I had the same issue happen after getting my Macbook Pro back from Apple Care. They replaced the Screen, HD, Main Logic Board, Battery, SuperDrive, & a regular service. Pretty much a main overhaul. I took a disk image of my HD before taking it in for repair. I booted up a couple times just fine when I got it back from Apple. When I went to restore the disk image, is when it started happening. I wouldn't even begin to think that the disk image boot software could even be the root of this issue. I wanted to at least say thank you, since your solution worked... and also give you some more data to compile on your side.

On a sidenote---
The Technology Director at my firm says that it is more than likely caused when the video card settings in PRAM are corrupted after booting from a "bootable CD" (which I was doing with the disk image software to restore). When pressing "C" on boot, with the "bootable CD", it is more than likely messing with the PRAM, thus a reset is in order:)

Thanks again,
Dustin