Q: display anomalies

Hi brothers and sisters. Until just recently I, like many of you, had a messy MacBook Pro (model 1.1 from 2006, 2.16 Ghz, Radeon X1600). The graphic glitches and freezes that are described in this thread happened about two months ago and I immediatly started problemsolving like mad. I did it all: fan control, external displays, different OS X and so on. I even put the poor machine into the refrigeator to see if it was a cooling issue (it actually lasted longer in there before it frooze for real. it frooze in the freezer yeah I know). OS X was useless no matter what I did. Safemode was working, sure, but that was it.

Anyway: There is a solution if you want to be able to keep using your machine. It worked beautifully for me without any problems at all. I don't know if someone's already been talking about it in this thread but here it goes.
The irony is immeasurable:

Install Windows.

Since the problems never accured when I booted up on my Win-partition from time to time, I turned my Mac into a PC when I finally gave up OS X. With tears in my eyes I put in a Windows XP install disc into my poor unknowlingly Mac, used it to format the entire disc, installed, and then of course used my Leopard install disc to install apple drivers. Everything worked flawless. Best PC I've ever used. Even games like Half Life 2 and similar semi-new games runned smoothly on graphic details set to high. I've tried multitasking heavy apps like photoshop, illustrator etc. No problems whatsoever. Just sold it to a guy who appriciated the power in the machine and who could see past the OS X-problem. It's still a good computer. I got about half the money compared what I would have got if it was a non-broken MBP of the same model, but it's better than nothing. I've got work to do and my girlfriend want's her Mac back so I needed the money to buy the one I'm using now. Life is hard .

I hope I'm not repeating something you've already heard and that someone out there finds this helpful.

Take care
/Ed

now that is interesting... i had already uninstalled Boot Camp from my machine by the time i started having these problems - my HD wasn't big enough really and everything i needed to do i could do using Parallels. i remember at one point considering re-installing Boot Camp because i was curious about just what you describe - but i never did.
so - i'm curious... *anyone else out there have this experience?* it would certainly be ironic - to say the least.
it's not that i doubt you Ed - but we need more than a single case to come to a conclusion re: this issue.
if it is true you may have just given a bunch of us a new lease on life for our machines - of course we'd be making a deal with the Devil but... can't have everything.
;/

cheers,
b

I'm going to try installing Ubuntu and see what happens.

well... I can say that I'm experiencing the same thing. I can't reproduce my problems (wrong color black squares on large pictures and noisy and flickering lines when rendering videos) when I'm running window XP (I have both parallel and a boot partition with XP).

go figure.

eric

I have to say that I have NOT had the same experience with boot camp. When I boot into Windows XP, particularly when I have been running OSX for awhile, the splash screen displays anomalies. I'll quote one of my posts from June 3, 2009 to illustrate:

"The Windows XP splash screen (640x480) displays the anomalies as scattered pixels of varying colors other than the standard black background. This was actually the first symptom I ever noticed and it steadily became worse when it appeared in the Mac OS."

I think what explains the difference between XP and OSX is that in XP the fans actually spin up more. Apple, maybe because they want their computers to be quiet don't set up the fans to spin up as high as they should. I think this is a huge factor in how much the computer overheats and how often the problem shows up.
A firmware update that actually tells the fan to work would be great, Apple!

Well, this is very interesting... i got quite excited at the thought of having a laptop that actually works all be it with Windows (God, did i actually say that, once an Apple fan of many years!)... Anyway, the explanation of XP running fans higher would explain it, and confirms the general consensus that it's GPU and heat related... So, although XP will run the machine for a while, the eventual breakdown is still inevitable it seems as the GPU slowly but surely deteriorates!?!

hi everyone , look this problem i have.
ive send to an authorized technician, and they told me that i have to boot
my system. They do that , and then the problem still exists.

http://img200.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=screencapturecx.png

please give me some feedback about the problem or if it doesnt appear correctly the images

best for all of you

Hi Papablo,

THis looks different to th usual anomlaies with this issue... What are your system specs, year model etc.? Do you have the ATI X1600 graphics chip?

John

So ya I been having this problem for over a year or two now. Next problem is of course I live in Germany now and bought my 17 MBP in Canada. I can only tell you how very sad this really is. For my MBP I can just have the machine freeze up or show stuck pixels, or look like it.
IT is not limited to just the internal display because if I output via DVI to my Plasma I get the exact same dead pixels on the screen. For a moment I almost died because I thought my new plasma might also have the same problems as I seen different dead pixels :-O


It does not matter if it is on the Mac or XP side it is the same crap.
Even running SMC and keeping this thing as cool as I can it will still have graphics issues.
pdf and similar documents can cause this problem to increase.

I bought this Mac out of some of my last cash so that I would have a great working machine well I got up and sorted over here.
I do music, write reviews for a tech/audiophile magazine, and work support for a very popular international software company. Still I can't afford to drop any cash on this machine and Apple really should step up. I really hope people don't rest and continue to make Apple WAKE UP.
From the battery that screwed my mouse pad up from blowing up (almost), to this I can honestly say I will make sure our IT departments avoid Apple. Really this is too bad as outside of this issue and the battery issue this could be a great machine.

crimsonbarbie wrote:
I think what explains the difference between XP and OSX is that in XP the fans actually spin up more. I think this is a huge factor in how much the computer overheats and how often the problem shows up.

Overheating seems to be the main issue, yes. Perhaps the case with my MPB is unusual, but I ran fan control software, told my fans to work as hard as they could and put my Mac in the freezer, and it still malfunctioned. There's no question that the fans were working their hardest - you literally hear them spinning at max. When in Windows, on the other hand, I never heard the fans spinning even half that much. And keep in mind that I had a Win-partition installed from the start (before the bug appeared in OSX) and it never showed any symptoms of the graphic bug. Even when playing games like Fallout 3 the fans ran at normal speed, not making more noise than they normally should.



It feels as if OSX uses the graphics card more/in another way than Windows. And when OSX uses it, it overheats no matter how hard you push the fans. Something like that. I'm no doctor.



For those of you fighting with your MBP's: try different versions of Windows, use the latest leopard disc to install the drivers etc. Let's give this Win-solution (making a deal with the devil) a chance and try all possibilities.

Marcus S wrote:
When I boot into Windows XP, particularly when I have been running OSX for awhile, the splash screen displays anomalies.

Maybe the logic board/graphics card needs to cool down when OSX has been using it? Does you screen display anomalies if you for example boot in Windows the first thing you do in the morning, when the computer hasn't been running for a while?



It would certainly be interesting to see more reports from Windows-experiments out there.

Over and out
/Ed

Just another user with same issue.
- issue predates OSX install (which fails to ameliorate it)
- definitely associated with intense or video use
- attempt to use Google Earth = certain crash.
- yes, associated with high temp, but seems progressive (lower temp tolerance)
- yes, fan speed fix extends run time from seconds to an hour or so
- yes, battery bulged/replaced
- three-day "stress test" at Mac Station failed to replicate issue
- I can replicate issue in seconds (launch Goog Earth or any home video)
- yes ATY video card

Present utility of MacBookPro limited to remote CD drive for MacBookAir.

A disappointing & costly experience. Realistically, a Win laptop would surely be crawling/crashing after 2 years, but the immense user community is responsive & 2-year lifetime is tolerable for a $1000 machine. The Mac problem is instant orphaning once purchased (unless ludicrously expensive "support" is purchased), mute vendor/manufacturer & shallow user community leaving on to grapple with the inscrutable innards of Mac (whereas Win is painfully familiar to heavy users). Not to mention over-promising: Apple consciously projects instant/easy use, disguising need to manipulate with terminal etc. Likewise, the supposedly stable op system is pointless as the hardware is unreliable. I'll probably wind up angrily buying another personal Mac to prop up MBA/iPhone/iPods/TimeMachine/AirPorts, but there's no way I'd dare inflict this nonsense on my business.

Oh yeah. The way the drivers work is different in Windows and actually better. Right now, with a brand new logic board but the same model video card (WHY!) I've been having to run Sims 3 in Windows rather than in Mac and it works a million times better.

I installed Ubuntu, and it is no better than OS X. It's overheating and crashing constantly. Too bad.

A word of advice to all of you with the ATI x1600s, especially if you haven't seen problems. Get smcfancontrol! I got a new logic board with the same video card and to prevent damage I installed smcfancontrol. Mac OS defaults the fans to run too low. I roughly doubled the minimum fan speed and now finally my GPU is under 50 degrees (122 F). Even with a brand new logic board, my GPU and CPU would reach 70 degrees (158 F) when watching video and playing games because the fans don't spin as high with default settings.
I think the reason the problem started showing last year in computers bought in 2006 is because it's heat erosion. If you have been lucky enough for it not to show you may be able to prevent it or delay the offset by making the components run cooler!
I do think it's horrible that Apple won't respond though. It obviously some sort of design flaw. Computers should not run so hot all the time and components should not erode the way they have. To take out a logic board and see the thermal paste destroyed as some posters have said is NOT normal wear and tear, it's the consequence of having your computer run hot enough to fry an egg!