display anomalies

Greetings from germany!

I have the same problem for more than 1 year now - and i tried everything to cool down my macbook, vainly. Even on low temperatures distorded lines appear on the screen or the whole computer hangs up. Especially under heavy CPU/GPU usage. (OpenGL, MMORPG)

I wonder why the x1900 series will be gonna changed .. If there still will be no statement for the thousands of x1600 "Buyers" from Apple this MacBookPro for will be my last Apple Computer. The "cheap plastic thingy" a laughed about (used by my wife) still works after years and with no problems at all. 2000€ full of garbage as a consequence of this defect. Thank you for ignoring our reports so far.

Message was edited by: vinylger

I have seen graphic windowing errors caused by VLC, wmv files and finder previews (Quicklook server), which propagated to the usual desktop and login window horizontal lines. Resolved after reapplying my last fix recipe. Temps still low. Now not using VLC.

Flash is a horrible CPU hog, still looking to see if this is fixable. Not sure if flash causes corruption.

Can someone who has fixed their hardware or replaced thermal compound please post a Temperature Monitor log?? I'd like to compare to see if my machine still has evidence of a hardware problem despite pretty good temperatures.

(Have sent a complaint to Apple. Trying to accumulate information to make an official trackable bug report http://developer.apple.com/bugreporter/bugbestpractices.html)

Will post a log once weekend is out of the way.
Bear in mind my machine was freezing but letting mouse run still,
I believe this to be caused by GPU+CPU overheating, I wouldn't have anomaly from cold boot.

I did some testing too and like the OP already stated: the lines and glitches disappear if i resize the window and/or the screen resolution. My lucky self don't have the "big problems" during work with MacOSX or other software. Only whilst playing World of Warcraft (lots of OpenGL and CPU usage). The official forums are full with issues only related to the mac-community.

Every 10 to 15mins single textures start flickering, spell-icons are color-miss-pixelated (i hope you can understand what i mean) and the framerate decreases slightly. When shifting back to the desktop and right back into the game everything is fine again. Looping. If i quit the game or the system hangs up the distorted lines on the screen appear. Not as much as on the screenshots i've seen so far but i thing the issue remains the same.

As i started to permanently change the screen-res 1 step lower from native (for me from 1400x900 to 1280x800, for both OS and Game) this lines didn't appear so far. Only flickering textures ingame after a few minutes of gameplay.

Temps are moving around at 65-73 for CPU and 51-56 for GPU. These values are not very alarming so far.

A quick test on Windows 7 for the past few days: Flickering/Glitching or distorted lines are VERY rare - depending on the ingame graphic settings. The bigger the texture-resoltion and view-distance is, the faster the issues occur. Same goes for MacOSX (Tiger, Leo & Snow Leopard, all tested).

Notably: World of Warcraft on Windows-Systems is using DirectX as graphics enginge, for macosx its OpenGL. Forcing World of Warcraft to start with OpenGL on Windows makes the "screen-party" (including random freezes or blackscreen with hang-up) beginn faster. No matter what OS, OpenGL makes the Book much warmer than DirectX does. Drivers used: Apple Bootcamp Drivers 3.1

I hope you can find a small hint for doing more research on our issues.

Greetings from Germany and sorry for my poor english!

Message was edited by: vinylger

Message was edited by: vinylger

I have the same issue with WoW. When you log into WoW enable V-Sync and see if that helps with the graphics. Also get smcFanControl and set your fans to maximum. Ive noticed that even in heavy use the mbp doesn't have its fans at the max rpm of 6000.

Thank you virgilaug,
i've tried v-sync everytime i got the flickering textures, enabling and disabling them one after another the graphic issues disappeared for a few minutes. The same results i get when shifting to desktop and right back into the game.

Yesterday i disassembled my entire macbook (pro2.2). i cleaned it up a while ago and i thought the book should be "clean". Far from it! This time i removed the logic board and the fans. The fins was full with dust, caused by some smooth hairs (i have a little cat which loves the warm macbook). I've cleaned out everything, removed the porose heat transfer paste from CPU/GPU and the heatsink. There was way too much paste on it, i thought they were dipped into it.

Result CPU: temperature range increased up to 95 degrees but cools MUCH faster down. Min-Temp reduced by about 15degress to 45-50° degrees.
Result GPU: temperature range reduced by 10° to nearly constantly 45-48° degrees while playing World of Warcraft (still on low graphic settings, i'll turn them up step by step)
Summa summarum: Much cooler system, i can hear it breathing again. 🙂

No more glitches seen so far, i keep on testing.
Btw with the cleanup i installed a fresh copy of Snow Leopard (which i've had the issues before too)

Message was edited by: vinylger

So your partially agreeing to the fix.
Which is to re-apply the thermal paste.

Partially, yes. For me it worked since a few hours so far. Without any anomalies.
Cleaning the dust out of the fans' fins may also have to do something with the lower temperatures especially for the GPU-temperature.

I ordered Arctic MX-2 thermal paste and i'll do some tests with it. I was having lower temperatures without any thermal paste because the old one accumulated the heat instead of "giving" it to the Heatsink. (way too much paste on all elements)

Maybe thats all, maybe not. I'll increase the graphics settings step-by-step for World of Warcraft and i will see if any anomalies occur.

Noteably i have to say: i've never had huge problems with distorted graphics lines or freezes while only using MacOSX and/or "normal" Software like other people reported. I got them only after heavy usage of CPU/GPU and the following heat.

As others already stated - no anomalies after cold-start so far.

I found a link with pictures that underlines my "way too much thermal paste" very good, like this your logicboard could look like: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=199840

As you may now imagine, i know why my book got so hot.

As a sidenote, my fans now come up very late. Tools like SMCfancontrol will be your best friend.

Message was edited by: vinylger (spelling)

The fans are a secondary concern (unless they are not turning at all) if the heat is not being properly transferred from the CPU/ GPU chips to the heat pipes then the fans are merely pushing cold air across cold heat pipes, causing the chips to climb to an even higher temperature, which logically would cause freeze and graphics anomalies.
If the heat is being transferred correctly to the heat pipes then the fans can push this out of the back of the unit and remove heat.
If you look at Apple and logic board history throughout the time they have used PASTE and not PADS it might be logical that after applecare finishes (3+ years) the machines become slow, hot and weird (freeze) some people might not be so lucky and actually burn the GPU out through over heating, resulting in the no video on LCD and no video on external, classic " oh thats your logic board gone "
You cant replace the GPU, so the whole logic board has to be replaced.
I wonder if the thermal paste has a shelf life ? possibly after 3 years it stops being efficient even if applied correctly ( not too much, not too little)
Still beggers the question, how could apple allow the production line to over apply the actual amount of paste required to be efficient.

Here are my results from temp monitor, running quake3 ( i know its old, but its open GL) VMWARE Win 2k3 server, MS office 2008, safari, firefox, terminal, remote desktop, itunes,

1) SMART Disk FUJITSU MJA2500BH FFS G1 (K94FT9B29HJK) (℃)
2) Ambient Air (℃)
3) CPU A Temperature Diode (℃)
4) CPU A Proximity (℃)
5) Graphics Processor Heatsink 1 (℃)
6) Graphics Processor Chip 1 (℃)
7) Graphics Processor 1 Analog Sensor (℃)
8) Main Heatsink 1 (℃)
9) Main Heatsink 2 (℃)
10) Main Logic Board (℃)
11) Left Palm Rest (℃)
12) Right Palm Rest (℃)
13) CPU Core 1 (℃)
14) CPU Core 2 (℃)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------

2010-11-01 10:04:15 +1100 35.00 26.00 nan 60.00 53.00 58.00 54.00 58.00 46.00 42.00 51.00 35.00 36.00 58.00 50.00
2010-11-01 10:05:15 +1100 35.00 26.00 nan 60.00 51.00 57.00 54.00 58.00 45.00 43.00 51.00 35.00 36.00 57.00 51.00
2010-11-01 10:06:15 +1100 35.00 26.00 nan 59.00 52.00 58.00 54.00 58.00 45.00 42.00 51.00 35.00 36.00 58.00 52.00
2010-11-01 10:07:15 +1100 35.00 26.00 nan 61.00 51.00 58.00 54.00 58.00 46.00 42.00 51.00 35.00 36.00 57.00 50.00
2010-11-01 10:08:15 +1100 36.00 26.00 nan 59.00 52.00 58.00 54.00 59.00 46.00 43.00 52.00 35.00 36.00 58.00 52.00
2010-11-01 10:09:15 +1100 36.00 26.00 nan 59.00 53.00 59.00 55.00 60.00 46.00 42.00 52.00 36.00 36.00 58.00 52.00
2010-11-01 10:10:15 +1100 36.00 26.00 nan 60.00 52.00 58.00 54.00 59.00 46.00 43.00 52.00 36.00 36.00 58.00 52.00
2010-11-01 10:11:15 +1100 37.00 26.00 nan 59.00 52.00 58.00 54.00 59.00 46.00 43.00 52.00 36.00 36.00 59.00 51.00
2010-11-01 10:12:15 +1100 37.00 26.00 nan 60.00 52.00 59.00 55.00 59.00 47.00 42.00 52.00 36.00 36.00 58.00 51.00
2010-11-01 10:13:15 +1100 37.00 26.00 nan 60.00 53.00 59.00 55.00 60.00 47.00 43.00 52.00 36.00 36.00 58.00 52.00
2010-11-01 10:14:15 +1100 37.00 26.00 nan 58.00 53.00 58.00 55.00 59.00 47.00 43.00 52.00 36.00 36.00 57.00 51.00
2010-11-01 10:15:15 +1100 37.00 26.00 nan 59.00 51.00 58.00 54.00 58.00 46.00 43.00 52.00 36.00 36.00 57.00 52.00
2010-11-01 10:16:15 +1100 37.00 26.00 nan 59.00 52.00 58.00 54.00 59.00 46.00 43.00 52.00 36.00 36.00 58.00 51.00
2010-11-01 10:17:15 +1100 37.00 26.00 nan 63.00 51.00 59.00 55.00 60.00 46.00 43.00 52.00 36.00 36.00 63.00 54.00
2010-11-01 10:18:15 +1100 37.00 26.00 nan 65.00 55.00 62.00 56.00 63.00 47.00 43.00 53.00 36.00 36.00 66.00 59.00
2010-11-01 10:19:15 +1100 37.00 26.00 nan 67.00 57.00 63.00 57.00 65.00 46.00 43.00 53.00 37.00 37.00 67.00 60.00
2010-11-01 10:20:15 +1100 37.00 26.00 nan 63.00 56.00 63.00 57.00 64.00 48.00 44.00 53.00 37.00 37.00 64.00 57.00
2010-11-01 10:21:15 +1100 37.00 27.00 nan 68.00 57.00 63.00 57.00 64.00 47.00 44.00 54.00 37.00 37.00 67.00 59.00
2010-11-01 10:22:15 +1100 37.00 27.00 nan 63.00 55.00 62.00 57.00 63.00 48.00 44.00 53.00 37.00 37.00 62.00 56.00
2010-11-01 10:23:15 +1100 38.00 27.00 nan 64.00 56.00 62.00 57.00 63.00 47.00 44.00 54.00 37.00 37.00 63.00 56.00
2010-11-01 10:24:15 +1100 38.00 27.00 nan 62.00 56.00 62.00 57.00 62.00 48.00 45.00 54.00 37.00 37.00 62.00 54.00
2010-11-01 10:25:15 +1100 38.00 27.00 nan 62.00 54.00 61.00 57.00 62.00 48.00 44.00 54.00 37.00 37.00 60.00 54.00
2010-11-01 10:26:15 +1100 38.00 27.00 nan 69.00 58.00 65.00 58.00 67.00 48.00 45.00 55.00 37.00 37.00 69.00 63.00
2010-11-01 10:27:15 +1100 38.00 27.00 nan 73.00 58.00 68.00 60.00 69.00 48.00 44.00 55.00 37.00 37.00 71.00 67.00
2010-11-01 10:28:15 +1100 38.00 27.00 nan 73.00 61.00 69.00 61.00 70.00 49.00 46.00 55.00 37.00 37.00 73.00 69.00
2010-11-01 10:29:15 +1100 38.00 27.00 nan 75.00 63.00 70.00 62.00 72.00 49.00 46.00 56.00 37.00 37.00 75.00 70.00
2010-11-01 10:30:15 +1100 38.00 27.00 nan 73.00 62.00 70.00 63.00 71.00 49.00 46.00 56.00 38.00 37.00 75.00 70.00
2010-11-01 10:31:15 +1100 38.00 27.00 nan 69.00 61.00 67.00 61.00 67.00 49.00 46.00 55.00 38.00 37.00 67.00 63.00
2010-11-01 10:32:15 +1100 38.00 27.00 nan 70.00 59.00 66.00 61.00 67.00 49.00 46.00 55.00 38.00 38.00 69.00 63.00
2010-11-01 10:33:15 +1100 38.00 27.00 nan 68.00 60.00 66.00 61.00 67.00 49.00 46.00 55.00 38.00 38.00 69.00 63.00
2010-11-01 10:34:15 +1100 38.00 27.00 nan 68.00 58.00 65.00 60.00 66.00 50.00 46.00 55.00 38.00 38.00 67.00 59.00
2010-11-01 10:35:15 +1100 38.00 27.00 nan 65.00 57.00 65.00 60.00 65.00 49.00 46.00 55.00 38.00 38.00 65.00 58.00
2010-11-01 10:36:15 +1100 38.00 27.00 nan 66.00 59.00 64.00 59.00 64.00 49.00 46.00 55.00 38.00 38.00 65.00 58.00
2010-11-01 10:37:15 +1100 39.00 27.00 nan 64.00 57.00 63.00 59.00 64.00 50.00 46.00 55.00 38.00 38.00 65.00 58.00
2010-11-01 10:38:15 +1100 39.00 27.00 nan 65.00 58.00 63.00 59.00 64.00 50.00 46.00 55.00 38.00 38.00 64.00 57.00
2010-11-01 10:39:15 +1100 39.00 27.00 nan 65.00 56.00 63.00 58.00 64.00 50.00 46.00 55.00 39.00 39.00 64.00 57.00
2010-11-01 10:40:15 +1100 39.00 27.00 nan 64.00 57.00 63.00 58.00 64.00 50.00 46.00 55.00 39.00 39.00 64.00 57.00
2010-11-01 10:41:15 +1100 39.00 27.00 nan 66.00 58.00 63.00 58.00 64.00 49.00 46.00 55.00 39.00 39.00 64.00 59.00
2010-11-01 10:42:15 +1100 39.00 27.00 nan 63.00 56.00 63.00 58.00 64.00 49.00 46.00 55.00 39.00 39.00 64.00 57.00
2010-11-01 10:43:15 +1100 39.00 27.00 nan 64.00 58.00 63.00 58.00 63.00 50.00 46.00 55.00 38.00 39.00 64.00 57.00
2010-11-01 10:44:15 +1100 39.00 27.00 nan 65.00 55.00 63.00 58.00 63.00 49.00 45.00 55.00 38.00 39.00 64.00 57.00

Lynuss, please can you record a temperature monitor history graph. I find the patterns interesting, hard to decipher the table.

After another crash, i found another thread - otehr machines on Leopard with same graphics driver have problems, but probably got a card swap to fix it:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1399404

I found a log entry for a kernel panic, which suggests ATIRadeon problem:
Nov 2 11:38:19 macbookpro kernel[0]: ATIRadeon::wait for_rbspace: Overflowed block waiting for FIFO space. Have 2, need 5. RBBM_STATUS 0x10000140
Nov 2 11:38:31 macbookpro kernel[0]: ** ASIC Hang Log Start **

Cheong, Sorry, the discussion board munges the output of the temp monitor ....here are the extreme values taken over THREE DAYS.
This is with laptop placed on wooden bench top.
Minimum value at the front and maximum value following after.




Ambient air: 21ºC 28ºC
CPU A Proximity 47ºC 63ºC
CPU A Temp. Diode 53ºC 75ºC
CPU Core 1 53ºC 75ºC
CPU Core 2 46ºC 70ºC
Graphics Proces. 1 analog 55ºC 72ºC
Graphics Proces. chip 1 51ºC 63ºC
Graphics Proces heatsink1 54ºC 70ºC
Left palm rest 31ºC 40ºC
Main Heatsink 1 43ºC 51ºC
Main Heatsink 2 40ºC 47ºC
Main Logic Board 48ºC 57ºC
Right palm rest 32ºC 40ºC
SMART Disk FUJITSU 32ºC 40ºC

Still no further anomalies after cleanup (including disassembling the whole macbookpro and especially the fans) and reapplying new thermalpaste (arctic mx2).

Even with (now possible) higher graphics settings in World of Warcraft (OpenGL) still no glitches, artifacts or distorted lines. The Book stays "pretty cool" all the time.

I highly recommend re-applying the thermalpaste on your macs, you don't need to be a technical genius to do it, the "hardest" part is to seperate the feeled 100 different types of screws. :-p Have a look at ifixit.com

I've posted before here, on page 53. I'm also a WoW player, and Ian's second to last fixed worked great for me. My iMac (I notice lots of people here are talking about MBP's, my iMac with x1600 has the same problem) wasn't glitching or hanging while playing WoW for about 3-4 days after. When the problems eventually returned, it were just graphical glitches at first, worse than before though, and about a day later the hangs followed. I applied the latest fix now, and the glitches are gone once again, but the hangs still occur regularly.

I've already re-applied the thermal paste and cleaned the fans/air inlets a while ago, because I thought that might've been the problem, but it didn't help much. Saved about 5 degrees Celsius.

I think something that was left out on the last fix are causing the hangs, and maybe something else that was in the last fix is causing the glitches. It could be two different .kexts or something like that. It definitely seems it's OpenGL or at least graphic driver related.

Been fiddling with fix recipes, since my system has been made unstable by using Pacifist to install.

My machine definitely has something corrupting system software resources. I'm now wondering if failing PRAM battery underlies this sometimes....

Still playing with recipe. Had to do an erase/install, which fell over and have been reassembling my system. (a pain) I find the temp monitor history graphs really useful. I still think corruption causes overheating, since when all corrupt resources are OK, system runs much cooler.

I have experimented putting some plastic cards under the middle of the back of the MacBookPro and encouraging the body to bend up a little in the middle as opposed to drooping on the feet - hoping to put a bit of pressure on the heatsink to make the thermal goop thinner! Interestingly, some CPU sensors are now cooler than the GPU.

(in a laptop, where is is harder to ensure pressure between the heatsink and CPU/GPU, there may be some sense in having thicker thermal paste that an stretch a little. Also found interesting article on thermal goop experiments http://www.dansdata.com/goop.htm)



Observations from experimenting with fixes:
* assume corruption in system.kext or boot cache or similar that is hard to get rid of, because need a clean system to install new files cleanly - having a spare drive to install a clean system from DVD would help
(that's next, since I do have a spare drive knocking about)
* $ sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions is the recommended method for rebuilding kext caches according to developer documentation
* horizontal line artefact on login screen is worse
* horizontal line artefact on desktop appears to go away by deleting corrupt prefs and logging in again - a test of 50 logins revealed a cyclic pattern of glitches then returning to normal after several re-logins
* system often starts cleaner on auto login rather than manual login
* deleting suspect prefs, logging out and logging in helps clear up desktop horizontal line glitch
* single user boot is obvious when kexts are loading from scratch (not cache), because there are several lines of progress dots

So the latest recipe modifications:
* deep clean with applejack may be optional, but doesn't hurt, just takes a long time
* safeboot
* replace corrupt kexts using only Apple installers without deleting any - latest OS combo update mostly does it, else archive/install first
* delete corrupt prefs - last list is close but perhaps not complete - assume prefs with current modification dates could have have been messed up
* use "$ sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions" if you think you haven't got a clean boot, then reboot to permit boot/kext caches to rebuild


More later.