Q: Strange vertical stripes

Hey bbanksy --

I second zebras adv. - ask for a replacement immediately - you are well within the 14-day return period.

Direct them to this discussion to view the picture link above ( http://i32.tinypic.com/2v92mqa.jpg ) and the number of others who have the exact same problem - and have been given replacements.

I was asked to erase and install 10.5.2 to check this maybe software related, this I did. As the same issue returned after opening the lid (on battery charge) Apple determined this should be replaced.

Mine goes back Monday.

Let us know how you get on - you really shouldnt have a problem with returning.

cheers,

J.

Thank you both Mr.zebras, and Mr. John Williams

I will call them early in the morning. So is every body in this discussion think it is the hardware problem? If so, is that mean it does not matter how many time it happened, it will still be in the MBP? Am I being correct?

Thank you

Message was edited by: bbanksy

I am also having this issue (2.6 Penryn) and it has happened three times now, all after waking up my comp from sleep.

My girfriend has the Mackbook pro 15" 2.6 Merom since Nov. and it has never done this.

Another issue I am having is in Bootcamp. I have been running Farcry and FEAR with all settings on high and it has been awesome, untill last night. Yesterday morning I played a leve of Farcray and after I was done I put the comp to sleep. When I woke it later last night and booted up Farcry, it played like crap. It was as if I was using my old 1.0 Ghz 15" Titanium. No matter what I did I can not get games to play anymore. I tried Fear after that and same thing, playes like crap. I reboted, powerd down, I even reinstalled the Nvida drivers and nothing. Games still play like crap. It is driving me crazy and I am starting to think that my Video Card is going bad which would explain the game issue and the light issue.

Note, I only get the strange light issue when in Leopard, not in XP, so far.

I have had my comp for less than 2 weeks.

Being a new 15 inch penryn MacBook Pro owner myself i have also experience this ever so common problem. When it first happened i was a little freaked by my new macbook being blemished with a hardware failure and having to go through all kinds of trouble to fix this problem i.e. get a new macbook pro etc. Some of the things that i thought contributed to this problem were: cold weather, tossing my macbook pro around, smacking it on accident, or or just some other form of abuse. But after restarting my computer and having the lines go away i figured that it probably wasn't a hardware issue as much as a software issue. Then i decided to go online and see if others were experiencing this problem i was having. When i saw that there were quite a few others in the same boat as me and they had found ways of reproducing the problem by messing with software i knew that my hypothesis was correct and my hardware was probably fine, and if i got a new macbook the same problem would most likely arise again.

So now that i got all the background stuff out of the way here's some helpful info that i found out.

The problem occurs when the computer is put to sleep and is reawakened from it's slumber within 10-20 seconds. Now when i was browsing around looking at MacBook Pro reviews i stumbled upon Shawn Blanc's review. (found at http://shawnblanc.net/2008/review-macbook-pro/) Near the bottom of his review Shawn describes how he is frustrated by how the macbook pro takes about 30-45 seconds to actually go into sleep mode. He describes this as the point the laptop screen is closed to the point the light in front starts it's pulsing and being actually in sleep mode. This is what shawn has to saw about it: "the reason it takes so long to sleep is because your computer is writing all the information that’s in RAM to your disc. This way you won’t lose any info if your battery dies, or falls out while in sleep mode. But with 2 to 4 GB of RAM it can take quite a while."

My hypothesis is that if you awaken your Macbook Pro from sleeping before it has gone through that 30-45 second period then there is a chance something will get tweaked and your backlight will go whacky.

Now Shawn has a remedy for this as well. It's some terminal code that shawn has that changes the 30-45 seconds to 3-4... here's what he has to say:

"There’s a short terminal command (via Paul) to change the sleep-mode from the default “3″ to “0″ which fixes the slow sleep frustration:

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0
You’ll be prompted to enter your administrator password, and then you’re good to go. And make sure you logout before quitting terminal or the change won’t keep.

What this command does is change your laptop’s sleep-mode from “safe” to “instant”. That means if your battery dies while your laptop is sleeping you’ll lose all your session data."

Now i've used this hack and not only does is safe tons of time putting my macbook to sleep mode but i also haven't had a problem as of yet with the screen going crazy because i don't open up the screen while it's in the process of going to sleep, then again i haven't used my laptop very much since i tried this to tell.

Now i've used quite a bit of space saying all this but it might help, so give it a try and see if it helps your situation too. Maybe this is a solution to the problem...

The three times mine has done this was after being asleep for several hours.

Same here, although I have replaced my Penryn 3 times due to uneven displays. This is my fourth one, and now, after 2 days, I was running it on battery, when it suddenly showed up with stripes!!! No power disconnect, no display fluctuation. Horribly disappointing....Apple obviously has a bunch of lemons and so far they haven't told us if this is software or hardware....

I don't know it this is related, but in addition to my strange vertical stripe problem, my MBP display also does not always light up when coming out of sleep. The computer wakes up and you hear it running, but the screen is dark. I have to hold down the power key and trick it into asking for a restart/shutdown to get the display to come on. If it really is a hardware problem, I think they've got real lemons with these screens.

Mine is doing it too and I have taken several pictures. Even if they replace it there seems to be no way of knowing if my new one will have the same issue.

Another "me too". I created a fully white pic to test this out and see the pattern, you can see it pretty well on this pic:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2284/2342914945_01b9959eeb.jpg

Someone on another thread on this topic is saying

"Disabling "automatically adjust brightness as ambient light changes" in the Display Preferences stops this issue from occurring."

I'll give it a try and see if it works.

Mine's been off since day 1. Doesn't seem to make a difference.

Ha i realized with more use that my original hypothesis were incorrect (changing the sleep time interval etc.). however i have found a quick fix that's worked for me each time the problem arises and it takes a good... 6 seconds.

When i open the lid of my Macbook and the display has vertical stripes because the backlight failed to engaged completely. I simply max out the brightness of the display, close the lid, and wait for the computer to start sleeping (the light on the front to start pulsing, takes like 4 seconds with the command hack i put in an earlier post). then i open it up again and huzzah the backlight completely engages. Now i can't for sure say this will work for everyone every time... but i haven't had it not work and i've done it like 10 or so times in the past week.

Hope this helps.

This morning (after 6 days of use) the same happened to my new 15" MBP 2.4 250 Glossy screen. After a nights sleep I woke it on battery power with screen brightness just two dots under 100%.
Although I do have a picture taken with a cell phone (so quality is low) I will not post it as it just shows the same anomaly as on the already posted pictures.
I bought mine online, so I will wait some days to see what further info surfaces and if it will happen again before I will start calling customer support.

Just to let you know i also have the same problem. I've just emailed the retailer so get there advice as well. hmmm..

I have not had the issue at all after unchecking "automatically adjust brightness as ambient light changes". Can some of you do the same and see if it works for you? it has eliminated my issues completely which makes me believe there may be a software fix.