Q: display anomalies

I dont know if I'd bother getting it diagnosed. I spent $100 on that telling me what I already knew and everytime I called Apple they didn't seem to acknowledge that diagnosis was on my account even after I mentioned it. In fact, some had even suggested I would need to get it diagnosed before they could look into it. It's a shame a newer logic board can't be swapped in.

jdubphoto wrote:
But I do suggest that every person that is experiencing this issue to take their MacBook Pro into Apple, or even better, an outside certified Apple repair center and have it tested so that you have verifiable proof that you indeed have an issue with the video card, video chip, and or logic board. And then file a case with Apple and get a case number. There's certainly no chance Apple is going to do anything if it's just a bunch people saying that they have the same problem if it's not actually diagnosed and documented.

Meaning we have to spend hundreds of US$ in bills only to have an Apple repair center give us a sheet of paper stating that we have a faulty MBP. They have to run tests, will repair the LB, all this are costs and is money I (and most others) prefer not to spend would Apple have built a proper notebook and done thoroughly tests.

If you call customer care and file a case before bringing your laptop in, they should offer to cover the cost of the diagnostic if you press them. And I am by no means suggesting that you actually have the repairs done, simply have the issue diagnosed so there is verifiable evidence that the issue exists. The only way Apple is going to consider this an issue is if they have a flood of people come in with verifiable proof that they are all experiencing the same problem, not simply saying they all have the same problem. If any sort of legal action is ever taken, you're not going to be able to file a suit with 100, 200, or however many people just 'saying' they all have the same issue. Each and every person is going to have to have a concrete diagnoses that they are indeed experiencing the issue. It's not right or fair, that's just the reality of the situation.
And I think it's best to go to an outside independent certified service center, as they shouldn't be as prone to skew the results in order to keep this issue quiet.

Ddi you have to pay to get apple to call you, or to call apple? Cuz it's telling me that I may need to buy a pay per incedent thing. I am really not willing to spend more money if it's not going to make my computer run. If not how did you go about doing it? I don't know if Canada does things different.
Thanks

I'm not sure if it's any different in Canada, but try 800-SOS-APPL and follow the voice prompts. My unit is out of warranty and I didn't have to pay anything to start a case.

Im in Canada and was prompted for the pay per incident demand as well...but you can override it by selecting an option for exemption; I said it was related to a new product purchase (Snow Leopard) and that allowed me to register a claim for a callback. I included all the links to this and other sites in the message portion. I have done this a couple times without having to pay for an incident. It's the same for both Canada and the US.

Is anyone else having the same issue as me? I had the lines and the random crashes for a while but now my mac will not even turn on anymore.
I can't be the only one whose macbook has gotten this bad right?

geekjutsu wrote:
Is anyone else having the same issue as me? I had the lines and the random crashes for a while but now my mac will not even turn on anymore.
I can't be the only one whose macbook has gotten this bad right?

The is THE place to be to discuss this issue (MBP with ATI X1600)

I'm having the exact same problem: The problem started first when I installed Leopard, it thatn turned worse an brought one year of misery (extreme cooling needed, no CAD sotware, no DVD) usage, otherwise I would crash in an instant) Sine May my MBP is unusable, it won't even start. At the moment I'm stuck with reinstalling Leopard wich crashes at various percentages of installation progress.

I'm in. Same problem. Only able to boot into safe mode. Other than that is black checked line + anomalies. It did boot into Finder normally yesterday, but it doesn't now.

Installed SMC Fan Control. When it heat up over 70˚C screen will freeze and only cursor still move.

Ok, I'm not sure is this any help. I got fed-up and took apart the MBP, remove the logicboard and put a coin in between the ATI chip and heatsink. Re-apply grease. Cause I remember the old G3/G4 iBook clamp fix, seems to works on GPU issue. No harm trying right?

It seems to be fine so far. I've re-install 10.6. I'll try to stress the unit a bit and see how this goes.

Message was edited by: hippo@wei

now this sounds interesting hippo@wei... i reapplied the thermal grease on my machine and noticed a very slight difference (perhaps 1-2°C) - but perhaps the addition of a 'heat sink' in the form of a coin would have helped... did you use a copper penny? that seems like it would be the best solution - copper being such a good conductor and all... but i'm a little surprised that it was thin enough to not have any clearance problems.
anyway, i'd love to hear the result of this experiment... please keep up posted.
cheers,
bennett

hippo@wei wrote:
Ok, I'm not sure is this any help. I got fed-up and took apart the MBP, remove the logicboard and put a coin in between the ATI chip and heatsink. Re-apply grease. Cause I remember the old G3/G4 iBook clamp fix, seems to works on GPU issue. No harm trying right?

It seems to be fine so far. I've re-install 10.6. I'll try to stress the unit a bit and see how this goes.

Now this is hillarious If this does the trick it seems we are some happy campers What coin did you use? If it's a US coin we need to check the worldwide copper coin supplies and their compounding ... if this really does the trick I might even go for some 100% copper from the hardware store along with some thermal grease.

How about squeezing the coin in the gap between the GPU and the sink ... is there enough space or did you have to use force (wich in my eyes would be a no-no)

Well - my fix is considerably less elegant, but it seems to improve things: once summer temperatures subsided, I found that placing my MBP upon a large aluminum-foil wrapped, inverted cookie sheet did the job. The wooden table/desk upon which MBP sits gets so hot beneath it that I figured it was worth a shot. Surprising, because I haven't removed the 1mm rubber "feet" from the MBP.

If heat-sink tricks work, surely Apple could quietly auto-update us with some sort of down-clocking trick?

Schooner

Apple could easily provide an update to minimize the stress on the GPU as the main thing which kills my machine is usage of Quicktime or DVD Player. I never play games on my computer personally and I recon I might not be alone there. I can't see Apple going for it though as they are still repairing this fault for 90% of users. Those of us who don't qualify for one reason or another however would certainly appreciate it.

Interesting how someone has mentioned the penny trick, reminds me of when my Xbox 360 got the RROD. It's interesting how adding the coin didn't cause any clearance issues too, makes me wonder if the GPU's profile is in fact too low for the heatsink. I've heared how the main CPU shouldn't normally go over 80c but mine often does without the SMCFanControl app running.

This is good, people sharing potential fixes, keep us posted.

Count me too!
Since my install of Snow Leopard grrrrrr
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