Q: display anomalies

Hi Peter Riemens,

is it possible that you transfer the resonse of your case to me (letter contents ect.). I did all the same as you,

- replacing RAM,
- replaced heat conductive paste,
- reinstalled,
- tested external monitors,
- Called apple,
- mailed to APPLE,
- faxed to APPLE,
- wrote emails to NIC-information about apple.com,
- called AMD,
- wrote mail to AMD.

I think we all here are shure that it's the GPU no question but I Got everytime same answer from Apple: Do it yourselve. you are the first one with another solution brougt by apple here.

*Again if you can give me the resonses via mail, i will try the same. i am foolish enought to post my mail here: xcache@gmx.net.*

Please let us know how you did it. Don't let us alone here

regards

have you heared from the thing called external monitor we are talking about, sometimes in that thread?

we all have the error also on external displays too, you can drag the error around.

Also you may have read that a lot of us have been already in the store. Answer buy a new board. buy a new MAC

your guess is WRONG!

Today the first freeze since 04/23.. with quartz extreme disabled..

http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/8726/p4280792.jpg
http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/5439/p4280794.jpg

Look the video: the system seem to work..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQgWW2kk3-o

Add another vote for a problem with the ATI Radeon x1600. I've a 20 in imac (2.16 core 2 duo). Problem started about a year ago beginning with the pixelated horizontal lines and the odd swoosh (both of which would go away if I refreshed the screen by changing resolution and then returning to the native value). It has become worse, lines returning after refresh, and with occasional black screens following graphics intensive operations. The GPU does run hot (>60 C at idle). So I've vacuumed the vents, installed smcFanControl, Temperature Monitor, and iStat Pro. Keeping the GPU temp low seems to help. Here is the big "however" - These chips are meant to run hot! On the AMD gaming forum, the wisdom is that the GPU's can operate safely and well at ~75 for 2D and at 90-100 C for 3D. They probably cranked out a gazillion chips and we are among the few hundred suffering from a thermal fault.
Here are probably more suffers:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7099816
drbob

Maybe there are a few GPU"s that suffer from a thermal fault, although ive found a number of PC user forums where people complain about the the Radeonx1600 suffering under high temps but also not dealing with interlaced video, and thats in a system usually built with air circulation at a premium.

Most people seem to recommend keeping the temperature down, and as the fans in MPB's work overtime anyway and plus the wrong amount of thermal paste being applied on the production line in the first place dont help in the MBP's. I think the choice and initial testing of the ATI Radeon x1600 (no doubt in a completely dust free environment, which i would say is not possible in a normal office environment, let alone the various environments that a laptop would be used in) have pointed out the inherent flaw in the MBP with ATI x1600 card product design and production procedure.

yea ok, i still get the lines across the screen:(

i can confirm also that VLC no longer works

Message was edited by: spagbol23

Holy frack! I've been having these issues on my MacBook Pro as well (running os x 10.4.11, with the Radeon X1600 graphics card). I started noticing them around the last QuickTime update. I've been getting similar lines of randomly shaded pixels across my screen (especially when watching flash videos) and to make it worse, really strange and frustrating things have been happening when I'm running applications which utilize OpenGL. It seems that shortly after I begin playing any newer OpenGL based games (SuperTuxKart, Penguins Arena, the Doomsday Engine port etc...) my machine will (always) completely freeze and the only way to shut it down is to hold the power button down (otherwise it's completely unresponsive in these situations). Along with my MBP becoming completely unresponsive, the screen will sometimes go completely black, audio will frequently loop and in a few instances the screen has actually faded into an unpleasantly bright yellow hue.

I do not utilize any "haxies" and the only third party driver/system extension i have installed is for a usb<->serial adapter (which i have uninstalled to no fruition). I've repaired disk and disk permissions on my main HD and my external HD, cleared system and user caches, ran cron scripts, checked preference files etc... to no avail and to make it worse, console doesn't seem to log anything in these situations because they are always a complete freezes.

The only good that has come out of this, is my newfound appreciation of smcFanControl (which I installed after reading that some people found that utilizing it with increased RPM settings remedied these issues) but it doesn't seem to help at all.

What on earth is going on here!?

This screen shot shows exactly what can happen even at lower temps. I'm not sure if you can seen the writing, but the GPU is only 45 degrees Celsius, or 113 Fahrenheit

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3371/3493574754bc3ba115b1b.jpg

I can't wait for summer to hit.

Message was edited by: DHD_03

Yea thats what i get most often, also at low temps. I run electric sheep screensaver, which now causes these lines, and i know the MBP aint running that hot.
Summer has already hit here, maybe thats why this has now started to happen to me, or maybe its just the problem has been going on for so long that the GPU is now starting to fail even at low temps.

I feel like ive been conned by apple

So I take it that the X1600 has a MTTF of 2 years? I've been having various problems playing games on my mac since I got it (c. August 2006). If I try to play for more than 30min or so the performance degrades noticeably; i.e. computer may freeze for a second or two, screen glitches (this is more recent), and the computer locking up completely which leads to a very rude power button cold reboot with nothing in Console to point to the problem. Recently I've been playing X-Plane 9 and that so far has been the worst. I tried today to replicate my issues and have included screen shots of the worst that I got. I don't know if it is related to this forum, but X-Plane frequently hiccups (i.e. locks computer for 1-15 seconds) after about 20-30min of playing. Heat issue? HDD too full and fragmented? ::shrug::

X-Plane gets random glitches that range from triangular shapes to black lines. These lines are usually vertical and can't remember if they've ever been horizontal - I usually try to ignore them and keep playing. I take good care of my "little" guy: forced daily/weekly/monthly scripts, repair permissions, clear caches and PRAM/PMU resets every now and then, Griffin Elevator, FanControl with strict settings, etc. However, since it's the only computer I have at school, it's always on.

I didn't get AppleCare and I've already voided my warranty by upgrading the HDD. I wanted to replace the HS paste with ArticSilver, but never got to it. Now I don't know if that would be a good idea in the event that Apple decides to "fix the glitch". Point being, my HS temps differ from core by ~60°F as seen in the screen shots. For reference, ambient temp is 75°F, clamshell is closed (though i still have issues when it's open), external LCD @ 1920x1200.

http://img66.imageshack.us/img66/6411/artifactscreenshot1.png
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/1637/artifactscreenshot2.png

Feel free to ask for anymore info.

Hi you,

as I wrote earlier, i did like Riemens and wrote a complaint letter directly to apple germany. Now they called me back. They phoned half an hour with me.

- no repair for free as in netherlands
- no repair for fair costs <300€
- i caused a entry in the system for now, nothing further
- it seems that they are litely aware of the problem there

it was a 30 minutes long "we are so sorry, but no refunds" with gently voice. I am close enough throwing the mac out of the window.

we must organize and do something official about that problem, this private crying around is getting us nowhere.

Hello,

Maybee its not the best solution, but why you dont try sell your broken mac?
I selled my one on ebay as broken for 680€ and get a used 15" macbook pro 2,4ghz eraly2008 still in waranty for 1040€. On ebay you get apllecare for arround 100€.
I was to bored from all this and i need a 100% operative mac to work. This was the fastest and cheapest solution who i found.
For the next 2,5 years i will go for evry little fault thing to the store and they must PAY!

cheers!

Same exact problem for me.

I had my logic board replaced and that resolved the issue. I actually had it replaced due to a different problem (which Apple had acknowledged years ago and agreed to replace the boards.)

Had it done about a month before AppleCare ran out.

My post, for reference: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1928582&tstart=0

Add me to the list as well =/ I purchased mine around June 2006 and I've had these problems, including other issues unfortunately ( can't burn any DVD+Rs with my SuperDrive ), for several months.
Same horizontal lines, more frequent lock ups etc. I agree that it must be heat related and with the ATI Radeon X1600!
Although I don't have Apple Care, I received a 3 year warranty from Gravis ( Apple Store ) when I bought my MBP.
I brought the MBP to the store last Tuesday, explained everything and they took it to have it checked. About two days ago they sent me an email, claiming although they gone through several hardware and memory tests, they couldn't find any problems! I was furious after reading this. The issues are clearly there! I replied to them, poiting out that they obviously didn't really check everything because the problems do exist. Furthermore, poiting out, that I can expect a lot more from Apple and their service, after purchasing a 2000 euro product!
There's not much I can afford as a student and when I bought the MBP, how could I have know there'd be so many issues!
My warranty ends in about a month and I have no clue what I can do... I definitely cannot afford a new one.
Cheers