Q: Strange vertical stripes

very strange,..

i had the stripes often when my macbook was new.

then the sripes did not appear for 2 months!!! never seen them again. i thought the problem is gone.

with the photo boot trick i can bring them back.

i will walk into the apple shop as soon as possible.
now i can show them the mess.

Here from Denmark I can report that neither for me the problem was solved by 10.5.3: A quick trip to Photobooth - one shot reproduced the stripes. And what's really strange: The whole screen seemed to have dimmed as well.

But then again: ctrl-shift-eject removed the stripes and the screen was back to normal brightness....

C'mon Apple - listen to your threads

I became quasi-blind, but after 46 shots the stripes did not appear. My MBP was unplugged, running Leopard 10.5.2, running for the first 30 shots in Normal mode, and for the last 16 in "Better battery life".

mac.cardi

10.5.2 here.

I got the stripes again! Yup! Second time in computer's life. It was set to "custom" energy savings, plugged in, with having the battery removed.

Taking pictures with PhotoBooth made the stripes appear although it is not always happening. I took 40 photos without anything happening, while a few minutes ago I managed to reproduce the issue after 4 snapshots taken with PhotoBooth.

*Digg it!* New Macbooks and Macbook Pros are coming out in June. Chances are that issue will be ignored.
http://digg.com/apple/Appleignoring_display_problems_on_latest_MacBook_Pro2008

I've kind of learned to live with it (and the ctrl-shift-eject workaround). BUt now that 10.5.3 is here I hope that it's addressed. We shall see in time.

It's amazing to me that Apple doesn't send an official reply on this discussion board. Like - "we are working on it" "here's what you can do in the mean time."

To some extent I understand this is a "new" issue but as more and more MBP get shipped out, this is going to snowball into a big deal.

I'm sure some apple employees who own the LED backlit screens are going to get the same problem if not now then soon.

I think it takes time to build momentum since the black stripes occur randomly and infrequently for some.

Let's all hope it's a firmware problem not hardware.

10.5.3 did not solve the problem for me either.... :::siiiigh:::

1) Unplug MBP. *
2) Set brightness to max, then dim it by 6 boxes.
3) Run photo booth and start taking pictures.

I found the brightness to be 6 boxes from max to be important to get the stripes in the photo booth test. 5 boxes from max also works sometimes. With brightness set to other values I couldn't get the stripes to show up.

And as you said I needed to unplug the MBP.

In fact with brightness to be 6 boxes from max and unplugged, the stripes were reproducible in about 80% of the photo booth test.

Btw. I haven't seen the stripes in the weeks before I did the photo booth test. But having rebooted the MBP with the brightness still set to 6 boxes from max, I've got the stripes immediately on the gray boot screen. So one explanation, why some user see the stripes rarely or not at all, while others see it more often, might be, that people have set their default brightness differently. Also reports that people have not seen the stripes for weeks and then suddenly twice or more the same day, might be, that they worked with the critical "6 boxes from max" brightness at that day and put their machine to sleep or rebooted.

So come on Apple, now that we have a reliable test to reproduce the issue it should be possible for an engineer to hook up some measuring instrument to a MBP and track the reason for the stripes issue. Then either fix it with firmware or establish a recall program for the affected devices.

Peter

I confirm that this method works fine with my machine. To be sure to remain at 6 boxes from max, uncheck the box "auto adjustment of brightness" for the test in monitor pref panel (I don't know the exact name of this option in english).

Generally after a few shots in Photo Booth, the stripes are there.

I have this problem on a month old 15 inch model. Intermittent and cured by closing and reopening the lid.
Question is - do I live with it or replace it?

It is interesting that my local Apple retailer has never come across this problem!!!

Oh they most certainly have come across the issue. When new apple retail employees get trained out in California, they are specifically told to say nothing negative regarding their products. A genius at the bar will never admit that it is a known problem even if he just sent several in for repair yesterday. Sometimes, if and only if the issue is acknowledged by a recall, a genius will say that he has seen the problem many times. We all know that it exists and unfortunately have to deal with it on a daily basis. Now, the answer to your question is totally up to you depending on what you do. If you use the computer every single day and absolutely need it for a personal reason, then keep it until you feel you are ready to bring it in (if you believe the issue could possible be solved via software/firmware and can cure it for the moment, keep it for sure). If you can live without it for a while, go ahead and see if they will give you a replacement/repair. Sorry I don't find it interesting that they have never come across the issue because it happens all the time. Also, has anyone out there thought of the fact that if it doesn't happen in Windows, then we know it is a quick fix from Apple via Software Update? If the issue is not duplicated in 10.4 or windows, obviously there is a software conflict happening between 10.5 and the MacBook Pro. I hope all of you resolve the issue as soon as possible! Also, if there is a display engineer of any kind or you know anyone who is...see if you can ask them what they think has caused this to happen. We all know this is terrible and we did not pay all this money to see a defect especially when using great applications like Photo Booth. I am pretty sure if more and more people are affected, a recall will be available or a software update will be issued. Thanks everyone and best of luck.

needsomeihelp wrote:
I am pretty sure if more and more people are affected, a recall will be available or a software update will be issued. Thanks everyone and best of luck.

Hmm 30,419 views so far? Are 30000 unhappy customers still not enough to take some action?

I don't get the point where the benefit is for Apple to keep their lips closed about an issue, that's all over the town meanwhile ! ? !

Peter

All,

I just wrote to ADC to query the status of the stripes issue. Their response was that they thought that the issue had been fixed in the 10.5.3 upgrade! This is rather curious given my posting from a month ago and it also seems incorrect based on some of the other recent posts here.

If you installed 10.5.3 and you are still experiencing the problem, could you please post so to the list? I don't need a ton of responses--just 4-5 to make sure that the problem is still happening but without overwhelming the list. I'll respond to Apple and tell them "no dice" if that is the case.

Here was my experience -- I installed 10.5.3, did the necessary reboot, and, upon the reboot, saw the stripes!! So yes, I am still seeing the problem in 10.5.3.

10.5.3 has NOT solved the issue for me