display anomalies

You can buy thermal paste at any Radio Shack. It will probably be in the corner with electrical and electronic parts.

Keeping the fans running higher all the time will help. You may find a little tiny table fan outside the computer will be helpful as well. The great thing about keeping the fans running higher is that the computer isn't so hot on your lap.

This is one of those situations where Steve Jobs decided he never wanted to hear a fan, but engineers instisted on them, so the default fan speed is set low enough to please Steve.

I'm guessing Steve Jobs has never used one of theses plauged MBPs!

I've been using SMC fan control on this aging MacBook Pro, and continue to use SMC fan control on my newer Macs as well. The fans are brushless and it doesn't hurt to keep them running a littler faster. I figure it is preventitive maintenance. I usually keep them at 2000 RPM, and with the little tempature reading in the menubar, I turn up the fans if I need to with a different preset.

If you've ever been in a network server room, you will notice all boxes have the fans running at high speeds all the time.

The GPU is only worked harder when you are doing actual graphics work, especially when watching videos. I can use Word all day, and then after two You Tube videos, I'm toast.

Your idea of a file server will work, it's a creative idea to repurpose the laptop.

Download and install a utility to force the fans to run faster than default. This is what you should do for any "server". SMC fan utility. Google it. (Or BIng if you really prefer)

In your desired application, I would run the fans at 2500 RPM. They are brushless and will not wear out.

P.S. Apple confirmed this week no support for ATI X1600 in new OSX Mountain Lion. (Nevermind that I was never even able to get Snow Leopard to run on MBP Core Duo without crashing!).

I tore down my Macbook Pro 2,1 2.3GHz with 4GB RAM and 500GB Momentus Hybrid drive.

I cleaned out all the dust and replaed the thermal paste etc. Clean install of 10.6 with updates to 10.6.8.

Temperature overall is down - but problems persist.

I just removed the ATI extensions as indicted previosly in this thread - though I didn't use sfe mode - I simply made a copy of them in case I want to try putting back - then dragged them to the trash and rebooted.

Seems to have work so far - have not seen a single glitch - although Minecraft 1.2.5 now stops with an error - wheras previously it caused the entire sytem to freeze - which I suppose is an improvement.

Maybe we need to find someone with asssmbly code experience writing device drives to look into this and write workign drivers if neithe ATI nor Apple are able to do so.

Just heat your mainboard carefully with a heat gun in low temperature for 5-10 minutes. It should work again.

Hi folks. I also had a problem with my ATIRadeon X1600 graphics card. I’ve got an 17” MacBook Pro (model A1151) Intel Core Duo from 2006.

Bottom line: I had to replace the logic board. I called Apple and they said it sounded like I needed a new logic board. They said that there was no official “known issue” repair/replacement policy for the ATIRadeon X1600 graphics card.

My local Apple Authorized Repair place told me that a new logic board would cost about $1300, so I bought a used logic board on Ebay for $250 (it came with a 3-month warranty). It cost me $100 to replace it (replacing it is complicated and not for novices like me). It’s been running fine ever since.

NOTES FOR NOOBS LIKE ME

Thanks to all the ideas I got on this and other forums, here are all the things I tried before throwing in the towel and replacing the logic board as Apple recommended. Hope this helps someone else.

1. I’m running Snow Leopard with all software up to date. While using Safari, it started displaying diagonal lines of small squares or rectangles and had a kernel panic. After that, I was able to reboot and use it for a couple minutes before the display glitches reappeared and froze the Mac. Now, it always boots with the diagonal lines and freezes before it can boot to the desktop.
2. Heat didn’t seem to be an issue in my case. The problem occurs cold, warm, or hot.
3. I can do a Safe Boot, but the diagonal lines remain.
4. I did a Disk Repair but no problems were found.
5. I reset the NVRAM but it didn’t help.
6. I ran the Apple Hardware Test from the install CD, but it found no problems.
7. If I delete ATIRadeonX1000.kext (from /System/Library/Extensions/) I’m able to boot normally and the MacBook doesn’t freeze, but the diagonal lines remain.
8. I called Apple and they said it sounded like I needed a new logic board. They said that there was no known issue or repair/replacement policy for the ATIRadeon X1600 graphics card.
9. I made a backup copy of my HD using SuperDuper (free and easy.)
10. I did an erase and install of Snow Leopard and during install, the display was clear for about 20 minutes before the diagonal lines returned.
11. At this point, I gave up and bought a used logic board. To find a replacement logic board, look at the bottom of your MacBook Pro to see which model number you have and just search on “MacBook Pro [your model number here] logic board”. I found a used one on EBAY for $250 (it has a 3-month warranty.)
12. I had it installed at my local Apple Authorized Repair place and they confirmed that it passed their diagnostic tests. It's been running fine ever since.

Same issue here.

MBP (07) was totally useless within the timespan of 4 reboots!

Now have the fan controlling app + an external notebook fan in place and making a CarbonCopy a.s.a.p.

The fact that the fan assistance makes it run for a couple of hours already, and it wouldn't run more then a couple of minutes before that, makes me believe this is bad manufactering / excessive wear and tear. This shouldn't happen.

Has anyone had any response from Apple for a service exchange of it's logic board as this is something that won't do them much good (even I am looking eslewhere and I've started with Apple on a Mac II ! ;-))

Regards

Update:

I found how to get the error do go away for a bit, thanks to thread https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1697470 ,

but not permamnent yet.

The issue is overheating.

Adding the fan controller app and setting that to max rpm + adding an external laptop fan, the machine stays up and no errors show.

Talked to Apple Tech support and issues seems to be with the video card, more info to follow once available :-)

(At least I can CC the drive now, as the machgine has been runnign for a couple of hours without a glitch ;-))

I too can be added to the list of those with problems with their late 2006 MacBook Pro. I have a MacBook Pro A1211 Core 2 Duo 2.16 GHz with 128 MB VRAM, and the ATI chipset is exhibiting the scrambled video problem now too. This clearly is a defect in the manfacture of the machine when you look at how many people have developed this issue over time.

I own 20 brand new Macs for my business, and I am really dissapointed as of late in Apple's customer service. Apple really needs to wake up and address this before it becomes a big embarrassing issue.

Hey Everyone!

So, I just purchased an old A1151 for $200, the seller told me that "Sometimes it has a line that goes across the screen and sometimes it freezes up, but nothing big" and me and my computer fix it self (non mac owning previously) thought that I could reinstall the OS and all would be well with the world. Well... I believe that my ATI chip is faulty like other 2006 models.

I followed one recommendation and deleted just one of the ATI drivers and now NO LINES!! And it doesn't freeze up any longer!!! Amazing!

...wait for it...

BUT now there are random colored pixels that show up around the screen. It isn't really that big of a deal, but it bugs me and I want to try and fix it without deleting all of the drivers for the ATI...I want to do coding and build apps with this machine and I'm not sure how deleting all of those would effect that.

Does anyone have any ideas? I debated reflowing the chip, but it looks like that won't do long term. Are there any updated drivers that I can go pull from anywhere that will assist?

I will be honest...I have not read all 74 pages of this thread, but I have gone with quite a few and don't see anything about pixels.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

PS-Attached a shot of some of the pixels.

I think is is likely the fault is a solder joint failure on the GPU memory, though the temperature problem comes from the CPU which is much hotter. So I presume the solder joint would be on the side nearest the CPU. If so, a reflow should fix completely. I thought one person had tried it but don't recall seeing a report back. My machine is quite normal with no ATI driver and flushing out the corrupted bits in prefs files as per my recipe some way back in this thread.

Fans may be brushless but they can still have bearings which can wear out. Maglev fans are apparently fitted to unibody MBPs at least recent models. There are lots of replacement fans about for MBPs which don't have maglev bearings.

I am about to find your recipe now, I am guessing I need to do some additional steps to rid the random colored pixels from my screen. Like I said, I only deleted one .kext file from the drivers. Otherwise, the machine is running fantastically!

Any issues with graphics heavy problems? Photoshop, etc?

Thanks, Ian!

I think these are the relevant posts:

Nov 5

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1697470?answerId=12538979022#12538979022

Nov14

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1697470?answerId=12584182022#12584182022

The problem, is that the hardware problem spreads to corrupt software resources. So we have to clean out all the corrupted resources. Without ATIradeonX1000.kext, the only major problems I recall are no AppleDVD player (use VLC) and Safari crashes on Apple pages (use Firefox). Sketchup 3d rendering was buggy. Didn't use photoshop.

Have since got a new computer and retired the old one to my daughter's use.

Yeah, since I deleted ATIradeonX1000 life has been better, just figuring out the pixel situation now. I am going to try your recipe when I get home this evening and see if that will cure it:)

*I have a qurestion based on being new to mac computers. I am running 10.4.11 currently and want to upgrade...what (in your opinion) is the best upgrade I could make knowing this specific machine? I know I can't do Mountain Lion for sure, but didn't know how far I should or could go up. And do I need to go to 10.5, before going to 10.6...etc?

Ian, you have been a HUGE help and I will report back with what happens after I try your method:)

Thanks again!