Q: Strange vertical stripes

My MBP bought last month started having it the first week, then it went away for a week or so and has re-appeared 5-6 times intermittently. 10.5.3 doesn't seem to have done anything since it happened again today. I took it in and the Apple genius said he hadn't heard of the issue, but later the manager said he had seen it before and that Apple was aware of it. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a solution right now. Since not all machines have it, a replacement may solve the issue.

It's not such a big deal, as long as its not indicative of something bigger. Still, it really shouldn't be happening. I'll report back when Apple gets back to me - they were sending a note to engineering apparently to see what's going on with their investigations.

If you get the stripes: Control-Eject-Delete

If you don't want to get the stripes: Turn brightness to five boxes or HIGHER before shutting down.

I haven't seen the stripes since. (Note: I never got the stripes at wake up, only start up).

Any people had their LCD monitor repaired and still have the problem or was it solved?

I recently got my macbook pro back with a new LCD monitor. So far no stripes. BUT I will not be surprised if it comes back.

It took 4 weeks before I got the stripes on my first monitor but so far it's only been several days with the new monitor.

Unless it's been 14 days since your purchase, apple care will not replace your monitor unless they reproduce the problem.

I kept telling them it's not reproducible with a specific method but it's random.

I got lucky and it happened while they had the computer.

I just upgrade to 10.5.3 today.

I'm not happy with how Apple is handling this issue. However, it's still relatively early.

I bet you, when their own employees start having the same issue, this will finally get looked at intensely and hopefully resolved with a firmware upgrade.

I really don't want to be part of a massive recall. It took applecare about a week and half to return my mbp and that was too long to be without it. I had to go back to my crappy dell.

Given that my local Apple Retailer (in Exeter - UK) denies that this problem exists how can we resolve the issue?

I echo the comment about hoping this is not indicative of a bigger (or worsening) problem. My MBP exhibits this problem only very occasionally, so it doesn't bother me +per se+. My concern is it might be a prelude to a bigger failure with the backlight.

Of course Apple's Geniuses and tech support staff know about this issue, even if they're told by management to deny it until (and unless) Apple comes up with a fix. I just hope it's fixable in software or firmware and isn't truly a hardware defect.

spoke to applecare uk told me on the last week, they told me that apple were aware of the problem, but had not come up with a fix.

I've got it too. It happened for the first time tonight after a couple nights of my display "breathing" - varying brightness levels as if in sleep mode... I have a pic I took with my iphone but don't know how to post the image. I'm sure you all know all too well what it looks like, however.

Just chalking another MBP onto the list. Mine is 3 weeks old.

Right now, I'm at 100% reproducability with the "six from the right" trick. If the display initializes that way from sleep, off, or during PhotoBooth, it comes up with stripes. This is true for me on power or battery.

If it's always been like this, then yeah, the ambient is the reason for intermittent behavior. It depends on whether it was sitting on the six from the right zone when I shut it down/it slept. That would explain why unchecking it works perfectly for some people.

Ctrl-Shift-Eject does work to bring it back. I've also turned off ambient, and set the brightness so that neither on or off battery lands on it. I'm hoping that works around it.

Day 14 is tomorrow. I may punt and get a replacement (though reinstalling yet again doesn't sound great) My guess is that this is systemic, however.

Quick followup, I saw similar behavior at 7-out with ambient turned on, but not with it off. I think it's the ambient adjustment bumping it into the problem zone. I'm sure the actual zone isn't as simple as 6-out, that's just the gross adjustment that gets in the middle of it.

I also don't know how machine-dependent it is, but on mine, it's 100% consistent. Disable ambient, disable the "dim on battery" so nothing's messing with your lighting, and restarting/waking at 6-out gives flood lights every time.

geoelectric wrote:
Quick followup, I saw similar behavior at 7-out with ambient turned on, but not with it off. I think it's the ambient adjustment bumping it into the problem zone. I'm sure the actual zone isn't as simple as 6-out, that's just the gross adjustment that gets in the middle of it.

I agree, at 6-out I get the highest "success rate" for the stripes. But at least once I've got them at 5-out as well. So it seems to be a zone with the peak at 6-out but extending to 5-out and 7-out. The peak might shift a bit between machines as well.

Btw. I'm not wondering, why the 10.5.3 update didn't fix the issue. When you get the stripes on reboot, they appear at an early stage, before there is any HD activity, thus the OS has not started yet. So if there is a fix via software, it can only be with a firmware update, not with an OS update.

Peter

Yeah. Well, everyone seems to either be on MBP41.00C1.B00 or MBP41.00C1.B03. Of course, that just means that they're all MBP 4.1s.

Hopefully it'll be fixed in firmware. I think I'll probably stop by an Apple Store tomorrow and see if the demo units do it. If they don't, then maybe an exchange makes sense. But I suspect it's pointless, that it's either a ubiquitous hardware design flaw or firmware.

Well been to the Apple Store in Kingston upon Thames. They'd never heard of the problem ! Astonishing really when you can see how well documented it now is. They are going to take my computer in for investigation whilst I'm on holiday but frankly I don't hold out too much hope until Cupertino takes a real interest in this problem.
My machine shows the stripes almost continuously now, making it difficult to use for picture editing etc.
I have found nothing that seems to cause the problem nor anything that makes it disappear and Ctrl-Shift Eject makes absolutely no difference.
Just about to try the update to OS 10.5.3 but with no hope of success.
Playing with the brightness control of the screen also seems ineffective.
Ho Hum - will let you all know what happens when I get my machine back after my hols (June 21) but hopefully you may have solved the problem by then

I've tried this with my replacement MBP (was replaced for bad DVD drive) and it's never shown the problem. I now have over 250 photo booth photos of myself, but more importantly, I feel confident that my MBP does not suffer from this problem. The problem is that it's the same specs as others on here that do have the problem, so I don't know why it doesn't suffer from this problem.

First post here...

I can tell you without a doubt that 10.5.4 did NOT fix this problem.

In fact, after 2 months of heavy usage, my new MBP gave me NO problems whatsoever, until I installed 10.5.4 yesterday. I just experienced my first stripe problem this morning, but only once about 2 hours ago.

I cannot reproduce it with PhotoBooth. I am a Mac Groupie, I confess. The good things about this machine FAR outweigh this annoyance and I'm not too put off by it for now. I think from reading this entire thread that this is likely a soft/firmware problem, and it will be fixed. I'll wait to see what happens.

i got a call today from the apple shop in austria. they told me apple dont know about this problem.

they want to replace my display next monday,..

hmm,..we will see if the stripes come back.

i will let u know.

greetings from austria.