Argh, I wish I'd taken a picture of the problem--it hasn't happened since Friday, but every so often, when I wake the MBP (Penryn) from sleep, I see alternating bands of light and dark vertical "stripes" along the screen. It looks as if half the LED backlights did not activate.
However, if I shut the lid and then re-open, it goes away. What gives? Is this a hardware or software fault?
If it happens again, I'll be sure to take a photo. This is ridiculous.
I agree that radokim's strategy would be the best global one. Anyway, it's not easy to stay without computer for a long time. I bought a cheap pc-notebook (that works great, doesn't have the stripes 🙂 ) just to be free and send may MBP back to repair as many times as it requires.
Anyway, when I had my second screen and brought the MBP back for repair because of the stripes, the technician called apple.
Apple said NOT to exchange the display because it seems not to solve the problem. They are working on it and they are confident they'll come out with a fix (that's what they said).
Basically they told the technician to NOT touch the computer because they DO NOT know what is causing the stripes.
For Dell it was a simple problem, for Apple it looks like the MBP was designed by a team that flew on Oceanic 815. Or may be they went and work for Dell and caused the same problem (and solved it).
I have now a third screen because the second one was a nightmare and no one complained about me asking for a third one. With this screen, despite my large number of attempts, I have NOT YET seen the stripes.
A further two units can be added to the list. I'm on my third MacBook Pro after my first two exhibited the stripes. Whilst I was still within the first two weeks I figured it safer to get brand new ones. Touch wood, this one (which I made sure was from a newer shipment) has not exhibited the vertical stripes, though the display does seem to flicker when scrolling and it has scrambled after waking from sleep, requiring a forced restart to clear the issue (though I think this was my fault, as I was running the battery down at the time and woke it from sleep in unusual circumstances).
Re my first two:
1. Stripes occur daily.
2. A restart or Ctrl-Shift-Eject clears the problem.
3. This always clears the problem.
4. Not plugged in to AC.
5. Not easily replicated, though it
usually happens when I arrive at work, after unplugging at home and transporting.
6. Matte Display
7. Standard graphics hardware: NVIDIA 8600 with 256mb VRAM
8. Just over one month ago. Each new one arrived at 2 week intervals.
9. Photographs the same as others.
Vertical lines here. Unplugged from power source and then the stripes appeared. I shut the lid and reopened and all was good. I just bought my MBP 15 less than three weeks ago. I was thrilled with my new computer. This is disheartening to say the least. I had never owned anything Apple and decided to make the jump. 2500.00 bucks later and I gotta put up with a back light problem like this. This is unacceptable...Not for that kinda dough. I could have purchased a PC laptop for a quarter of the price if I wanted to put up with BS like this. I certainly won't be touching any more of their products. Especially considering this thread has been running for over three months and the problem has not been addressed by them.
Yes, I did try to reset the smc. It was one of the things Apple told me to do when I phoned AppleCare. Don't you think that it would be very odd if in a so big group no one had ever tried that?
I've been reading the recent news that "every single G84 and G86 GPU in the 8400M and 8600M series of cards is affected."
That's all of the recent MacBook Pro's out there currently uses the 8600M series. It is a thermal issue.
I think we're all stuck with a really serious hardware defect. The vertical stripes for me were very random, but now I feel as if I increase the temperature of the GPU, the vertical stripes will probably be more frequent. I haven't tried it out and I plan on not trying it out.
This cannot be fixed my firmware. Unless Apple releases a firmware that increase our default minimum fan speeds, maybe that they can release. But... this is a serious hardware defect by NVIDIA.
The speculation about the 8600M failures is interesting, but it is probably not related to this problem.
The failure we are seeing is related to intermittent operation of the LED BACKLIGHT, not the LCD display itself. These are two logically separate components (even though they function together as a unit). I admit that I haven't taken my MBP apart, but I would speculate that the backlight is *not controlled by the GPU*. Even if the nVidia chips are bad, this might explain some of the scrambled screens and weird scrolling that are reported in other threads...but I find it unlikely that it is the problem here.
Apple uses a bunch of different types of backlighting in its MBP screens (if you count the 17" models). The GPU also needs to be able to handle a wide variety of displays and screens (since it's not just used in Apple products). The GPU should internalize the common subset of tasks that ALL displays need (figuring out how to render graphics instructions into pixels, 3D operations, BITBLTs, etc.), but the DISPLAY-SPECIFIC components (how to initialize display model ABC, how to enable backlight, and so forth) are all likely different from display to display, which makes it unlikely that they are handled directly by the GPU. I would be willing to bet that the backlight is actually controlled by dedicated circuitry (perhaps part of the Macbook's power management hardware and/or firmware).
Furthermore, if the backlight control were somehow handled by the GPU and if it were really failing, we would likely be seeing these failures in many other non-Mac machines in high quantities. So far, we've only seen a tiny handful of reports of supposedly-similar issues on PC hardware, and it's hard to say if it is even the same problem. This points to the source not being a bad batch of GPUs.
In short, while this article is cause for concern, I don't think this means that we're screwed, nor does it necessarily mean that a firmware fix is impossible.
Well I dont think that it's a thermal problem. I have been playing NVW2 and after quiting the game there are no vertical stripes, actually, it when it has happened to me it has been in the first tiI just me I turn on the computer in a day, it can be in the morning or the afternoon. When it happens to me I just restart and then its gone, Im really ****** off with YOU APPLE, because this computer its 1 month old and welll it seems its not good idea to take it to replacement because they will probably give you a bad display as well. I hope and trust that they will care and will realese a fix ASAP, otherwise go and open a rgeneral replace machine or something, but do something, APPLE your customers are not only people ho buys iPhones.!!!
Unfortunately I was wrong with my prediction, Apple would wait with a fix for our problem, until the thread will reach 50000 hits. 😟
What will be the next threshhold? 😉
Today I decided to participate in the other high on the rate topic the 16000 hits "Weird Screen/graphics glitch after update " thread, which my MBP is showing since the 10.5.2 graphics update. Seems to be a failure of the NVIDA graphics processor.
There are parallels to this thread: A vast number of MacBook Pros are affected, no fix for over 4 month now and not a single word from Apple, whether it is a hardware or software related. Just wild speculation from Apple support all over the world.
For the first time since about 1990, I'm currently holding back in recomending people to buy a Mac due to the ongiong unfixed hardware issues. Really, really sad. 😟
Well following on from my last posting on the 25th of June when I reported that Apple had indeed FIXED the problem by replacing the Logic Board and the Display clamshell (under warranty I'm happy to add): last Wednesday, 9July, the display failed again !!
This time completely - there were no vertical stripes, just a dead screen.
Whilst this appeared to be a failure of the display only I think there may have been some other things going on but without a screen to show what was happening it is hard to be sure.
Anyway, went steaming off to my local Apple Store (KIngston upon Thames UK) Thursday morning where I was prepared to shed blood. Met by charming "genii" who booked in the machine and massaged my fevered brow.
Next day (yes next day !!) they called to say they had fixed it by replacing the logic board. Picked it up this morning and once again it's going well.
So far my problem has cost Apple £1529.84 GBP - at least that's what the invoices add up to.
Full marks to the guys at Kingston though - they ppreciated my need of the machine for my work and organised a priority service for it. (Fortunately the parts were in stock). Perhaps Apple HQ could learn something from its footsoldiers.
Oh and if it fails again I'll let you all know.
PS - a little warning: when the logic board is replaced the computer no longer recognises the backups you have made on Timemachine - so it is necessary to start again.
For what it's worth, my MBP ALWAYS shows vertical stripes if I startup or wakeup with brightness less that 4 squares from the top; but I never get the stripes if the brightness is set to, say, 2 squares from the top.
It's a pain to have to remember to reset brightness before sleeping or shutting down (that's too bright for me to work with) but it is reliable.
I admit, though, that I rarely use the MBP on battery, so results could be different in that situation. So far, so good, though.
Well I use mine on battery whenever it is full, and im suspending often. I have however noticed that the first time (and only time) i experienced the lines was about 2 weeks after i bought my mbp. I hadn't yet played around with the screen brightness. I do however like a bright screen, and since i upped my screen brightness to the upper end of the scale, i have not experienced the lines since.
So it seems to be a problem, only when your screen brightness is around the middle levels.
I have been following the posts on this closely and have posted myself. Recently I have been getting the stripes even on ac power after waking from sleep. Putting it back to sleep and waking it again clears it. So, it seems for me it is not just related to battery power.
