display anomalies

I have the same problem with my 3-year-old Macbook Pro 15" with ATI X1600 graphic card.
As a mac lover, I'm feeling so sad for the quality of the apple products (hardware) now a day. My old powerbook 12" G4 is still good.

The problem persists, even with the cooling pads, I still wonder wether Apple or ATI is the right one to approach ... but as I bought an Apple product, I'm going for Apple.

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delete us all you want you toolbags - it just ****** us off more... see you in court.
b (nufumanchu)

just got back my macbook pro from the apple store. It works fine and like brand new now. But I noticed something it still has the same ATI chip for the display. I think they just replace the LCD monitor because it looks brand new.
I guess in 3 years in time its gonna happen again, hopefully not.

I hope you didn't pay anything for it ... I mean why wuld you pay for something that is supposed to work? Trhe problem is a design flaw and should not be a customers problem. In the end we payd for something we can't use as intended / as advertised. In US law that would constitute as ... I won't go on here or Apple's censorship goes on.

Apple is deleting / editing my too critical messages, I wonder why they don't out that workload on a solution to our problem.

i paid about $310 plus tax. I don't want to complain because at least I don't have to worry about paying more. I also noticed that my superdrive is not as loud as before. It's pretty quiet. It's not as hot as before. I'm just glad I got my computer back.

but I hope they can fix this problem about the ATI chip.

paid about $310 plus tax. I don't want to complain because at least I don't have to worry about paying more.

It's so sad...
- the cost of the initial purchase... plus,
- the cost of all of the troubleshooting... plus,
- the cost of time for all of the reinstalls... plus,
- loss of data for work in process right before crash and burn... plus,
- the loss of yours and Apple's reputation from showing a client work you've done for them while proudly showing off your MacBook Pro, just to have it freeze up, when pulling up that graphic or photo... plus,
- the hours being at the Apple Store... plus,
- the hours being on the phone with Apple Care
- the abuse, patience, frustration of trying to be loyal and understanding while the Apple reps have deaf ears...

yeah, PRICELESS!

And now you've PAID for a DEFECTIVE graphics card repair, many have simply tossed these aside and purchased new computers (I LOVE my new MacBook Pro), so is it only making it less likely that Apple will ever do what's right, or will they just hope this will continue to fade away (WHICH IT WON'T, IT WILL ONLY GET WORSE... hello, YouTube, hello FaceBook, MySpace, etc, etc)...

Why hasn't ATI and Apple come out and do what's right? I have a brick, an old ATI crapped out MacBook Pro... and so I will keep looking for the place to get in line, to form a group, to get Apple/ATI to hear us and somehow cover our loss for these DEFECTIVE ATI MacBook Pros!

I've also been experiencing this problem for a while now not even been 3 years yet... This is really disappointing on Apple's part. I hate getting the "you should have got apple care" like *** I don't think a $3000 machine is supposed to have this high of a failure rate before even hitting the 3 year mark.. Does anyone know how I can get on this mailing list? Also has everyone been able to get the chip replaced $310 plus tax?

Thanks 🙂

you have to send an email to bennettvonbennett for the mailing list.

So far i think you have to be in the USA to get the $310 repair program. So although apple think globally in terms of the recyclability of their products they fall short in reducing the amount of recycling of products by not offering a way of repairing these faulty machines, which may aswell be thrown on the rubbish tip.

Saying that i have no idea as to what level these MBP's with these faulty ATI chips are recyclable. Maybe one of the apple moderators would like to chip in and enlighten us :s

I've just been on the phone to Apple support in the USA. (I'm in New Zealand) To cut a long story short I was advised that they have nothing in their knowledge base about the X1600 problem. So I would suggest you guys and gals give them a call and explain what's going on. Perhaps then they will have a point of reference.

Just got off the phone from Australia support. No $310 flat rate scheme here. Or any solution in fact as apple does not recognise a problem. Now I feel I should say that both support guys I spoke to were very helpful as far as they could be. I'm reluctant to believe that apple would deliberately hide this problem so perhaps it's a case of not enough people with the X1600 telling them that there is an issue. I do wonder what level of response from the NVIDEA users triggered the refund/replace scheme for that unit. If only there was a way of knowing this.
So if indeed it is a manufacturing fault then I urge those with the problem to inundate apple. At the very least I would like them to publish an article saying they've investigated it and concluded whatever they conclude. Perhaps also telling us the level of failures that triggered the other GPUs replacement.

Anyone here of anything on this for people here in Germany. I am getting the dual royal screw here. First of course I moved here to Germany and work for a software company (Windows) and DJ/produce. Lately I been getting the dead pixels and when I was running DVI out to my Panasonic Plasma I almost had a heart attack because I thought it was the plasma. But it also happens on this screen.
The fact you can not even contact these guys is a total sham. I won't even get into my mobile me problems or itunes not opening MP3 files of a certain length. Of course the MP3 files where created out of a world class mastering program Sequoia.

Anyways I need this fixed and wish Apple would get off their arrogant assets and help us out here. We buy Mac for quality, not bad batteries, graphics cards.

I don't even know where I could take this machine for support here in Dresden.

;-(

As far as I can tell, Dresden (Germany) is pretty much a white spot on the Apple map.

Your nearest option for authorized support is probably Leipzig (some 120km north west of Dresden). In Leipzig you'll find a Gravis store and Hansa Computer.

Cheers & good luck!

Hi all, i've had a few posts go... 'astray'... So, if anyone is looking for some non-technical advice and information then take a look at my web site... http://www.johnvlang.com ...Some of the info' might just be useful, to us all. 🙂 Thanks John

Same problem, I suspected that it was a heating problem early on as games and other graphic intensive programs were causing screen glitches whenever smc fan reported above 50C: triangle/pixel pullouts and horizontal banding. I use SMC fan and a large fan on my desk pointed at my Mac to keep it cool enough for normal use. Any sort of useful application beyond firefox (sometimes firefox gets horizontal banding even), will cause the mac to crash or additional pixel pullouts.

I've read through the entire thread and there doesn't seem to be any real fix. My solution is to never buy Apple again if this is how they decide to treat customers, especially the ones that shelled out premium. $2500 for a glitchy crashing tin can after 2 years, even if the logic board is replaced, wouldn't it still be crash when the machine heats up again? Replacing faulty hardware with new faulty hardware doesn't seem logical.

I'm a film student looking to start a studio in the future. I use programs like 3dsMax, Maya, Zbrush, Aftereffects, Premiere, and of course a few games. The Macbook Pro was the first Apple computer I've purchased. I can safely say its the last Apple computer I ever buy, unless they do a recall or offer a real solution. I could have spent $1500 to put together a PC with similar specs, and used the $1000 to upgrade it over the next 4 years, making it a far better investment. Sorry Apple, you guys dropped the ball on this one. I hope a real solution is offered soon, I'm looking for a new computer this month. Just got an offer for an older PC for $100 with better specs than this laptop, so I'll be running that in the meantime.