Q: MacBook Pro screen blinks

Thats what I'm wondering. But i don't think that it's the screen thats dying, its got to do with a bug in the hardware. Apparently Apple doesn't know how to solve the problem, otherwise they would have fixed this issue already.... though I think its total ******** about how they "don't know" about the problem. I have called them many times about this issue and they said that they have never heard of this issue before. I should tell them to go to their forums next time and read all the comments....

Another one. People should use gfxCardStatus to get the issue down to manageable levels.

The way i see it it has something to do with the hardware sync. The 9400m somehow is not able to keep the video in sync, and every now and then it misses a frame or so.
The issue was like clockwork. I could measure the time by how many blinks i had. No hardware fault produces this kind of predictable behavior.

My experience with Apple is that they do everything by the book. I think nvidia just has the chip a little bit out of the spec, and the driver does not "tolerate" the issue and we get to see it.

My assertion is that it is a hardware issue, not a problem, with the way the video system works. Today i've gone 6 hours without a blink, then one. I can live with it until i upgrade. If it does this once a day it's ok. Much better than once every minute.

Message was edited by: basilmir

I've switched back to the 9600M GPU -- the "higher performance" setting on the Energy Saver in system preferences -- and haven't seen a blink or flicker since. But it's only been one day.

You most likely won't see a blink on the higher performance setting- that's been mentioned as a workaround. But it's not a solution and you shouldn't have to settle for that. For one thing, the battery life is rubbish and from my experience the macbook became vey hot and noisy on that setting.

Message was edited by: Terald

When I had mine, the senior adviser basically said it's acceptable behavior for that "vintage" of Macbook Pro, and the workaround is to use the 9600GT. When I heard that, I got the feeling they had _no intention of fixing it._ The unit was finally exchanged (for other issues, not limited to this) but my current one (i7) hasn't been without issues (mainly build quality) yet strangely no flicker/flickering like the previous late '08 model had.

Here's the link to my flickr page if you want to see the video I sent Applecare at the time. I never managed to get a video of black bar across the top of the screen but did capture the fluttering backlight.

http://bit.ly/etrchK

In the end, I threw in the towel and picked up a Lenovo.

I just noticed a new thing on my macbookpro, it is of course still flickering (on the 9400) but sometimes the light of the screen is some kind of unstable. Like if the intensity goes up and down very fast!

That's a new thing I did not notice before ...

I switched to the 9600M GT and flicker is gone but the machine does run hotter and noisier. What is the advantage of gfxCardStatus ?

Yes switching to the 9600 GT certainly makes my macbook get crazy hot,so much so I struggle to have it on my lap for any length of time.

Gfxcardstatus is designed and used for twin graphic card macs as normally you have to log out the user to switch graphic cards,but with gfxcardstatus you just hit the button in the tool bar and it switches cards without the need for logging out.

The main thing discovered by someone who kindly posted on this forum that is by using gfxcardstatus it stopped the "flicker" problems they were having.
I have since installed gfxcardstatus and it has made my macbook pro so much better its nearly fixed,I still get the flicker now and again,i'm not sure if it's something I have done to trigger it off thou i.e remove power source or shut down.

If the flicker does come back I move over to the 9600 GT card for half an hour or so using gfxcardstatus and then back again and that cures it!
I'm currently 5 days flicker free,maybe it doesn't work for everyone,but it's a free piece of software which is worth a try.

Ok. For everyone having problems with their screens. Awhile ago it was suggested that some one put up a web based petition form for everyone to sign regarding their screen problems. So, I did just that. It's nothing fancy but hopefully if we all sign the petition we can send this list to Apple since they don't seem to be taking this forum seriously. It's a basic guestbook form so your private information won't be displayed to others. I'm not going to use this information for anything other than to hopefully show Apple how many people this is affecting.

Go to http://ambiguus.com/applescreens

Try to keep comments as short as possible, but if you can provide your system specs and maybe a short description of your screen problems.

Hopefully Apple does not delete this post.

Ok signed it. Hopefully it helps.

had the same problem on mine until i updated the firmware on my HDD. not sure if its released but once update no more flicker on embedded or discrete card.

Where did you get the firmware from? What do you mean your not sure if its been released yet, is it going to be released in the future?

Cheers

@damer
This is my first time hearing about this. Do you mean the firmware of the stock HDD? How and where did you get it? And how long ago have you update to this firmware?

Talk about "socialistic" behavior. A link was post to let people sign a petition to let Apple know how many people are having this problem and how does Apple respond? They removed the post. So instead of addressing or fixing the problem, Apple pushes us down basically indicating that they don't care to hear our voices.

Lame

They only want us to talk about the technical aspects, my posts have been removed for the same reason.

There are only two possibilities for this:

1) They know about the issue, but don't really know how to fix it.
2) They know about the issue, but fixing it on a large scale would be too expensive, so it's better to handle it on a case-by-case basis.

Either way, removing posts isn't going to solve this. It's a real problem and need attention.