Q: MacBook Pro screen blinks

Cerniuk wrote:
Does everyone on this thread have the buggy Cisco VPN software installed? It is a kernel level extension and could cause this sort of thing in theory. Is very buggy so is my prime suspect beyond Apple's NVidia firmware.

You really need to remove the Cisco VPN client since you're running Snow Leopard. It's not supported any longer. Plus, Apple's use of the raccoon open source VPN client seems to work well enough on Cisco VPN's. At least it does with our ASA. Haven't had a chance to test with Cisco's VPN Concentrators, though.

I doubt the Cisco kernel extension has anything to do with the display issues, but I wouldn't be surprised if it caused your system to kernel panic on occasion.

My mac started blinking just today, I noticed it when I was about to log in.
Irregular blinking about every second or so. This happened couple times already some time ago, usually restarting the comp helped.
Today restarting did not help at all, even worse, after the first restart my keyboard and mouse were off…
I reduced the brightness of the monitor and the blinking gone…
Or may be it's a coincidence?

I think you guys need to set up a blog or site and post Model / Date / GPU used and LCD panel of your computers to see if there is a big trend on the hardware affected.

run this in terminal to get your LCD panel model no:

ioreg -lw0 | grep IODisplayEDID | sed "/[^<]*</s///" | xxd -p -r | strings -6

Got my 15” uMBP / 2.66 in November 2009 it has the LP154WP4-TLA1 LCD Panel (LG / Phillips) it does not show any of the problems you guys describe on either the 9400M or 9600M GT

copy, paste, no output. Suspect posting it here mod'd the command line?

Actually, this will likely work better (the sed command was failing to match anything):

ioreg -lw0 | grep IODisplayEDID | cut -f2 -d\< | cut -d\> | xxd -p -r | strings -6

Make sure that you escape the angle-brackets with the backslashes! Mine output:

TN170CT10
Color LCD

which is a Samsung-manufactured LCD (17" MBP C2D 2.8GHz).

Got my 15” uMBP / 2.66 in November 2009 it has the LP154WP4-TLA1 LCD Panel (LG / Phillips) it does not show any of the problems you guys describe on either the 9400M or 9600M GT

Right. This problem seems to only affect the late 2008 models (the initial release).

charlie

Hey there, my name is Wilson Mendes, i am from Portugal, and i also have the same problem =/ pretty annoying ha? =/ it comes even more when you are reading something and it keeps blinking =/ bbbaahhh my screen is a LP154WP3-TLA1... i dont know what to do, nor where to report this problem, when i can i will take laptop to the place where i bought it, but it is almost 200km from my home, anyway, if the problem is software, i am hoping they solve this asap, and i dont have to change any anything! Wilson Mendes

Hi,

I'm french and I'm not sure to understand what you mean by "Make sure that you escape the angle-brackets with the backslashes".

Could you explain what command we have to enter in the terminal app ?

Regards

If you copy and paste the command I listed above, it should be fine. To "escape the angle brackets" means to put a backslash before them. For example:

cut -f2 -d\<

If there is no backslash before the "<" (angle bracket), the Mac OS Unix shell will think that you are redirecting input to the command.

My visit to the apple store was thankfully good. I didn't have to prove to the tech. that the issue exists. He apparently sees people all day with the issue. Unfortunately, he mentioned that all of the solutions that are mentioned in this thread provide no permanent solution. So while he couldn't solve my problem, he at least acknowledged there is an issue.

Apple, please acknowledge the issue and issue a firmware or driver patch to solve the issue!

i've been following this thread for a while. my late 08 macbook pro has the same exact problems. I took it in to the apple store and they replaced the screen and the optical drive under applecare. HOWEVER, the blinking problem persists. I've also submitted this problem to apple on this site. Apple needs to fix this. Its a very annoying problem that does not fit in with this high caliber (and high priced) piece of technology.

I've bought my MacBook Pro Unibody 15" in November 2008, and it has (two)EDIT: three problems.

The first problem is the noise it makes when you move it, I can only describe this noise as the hard drive being switched off... It's like a click. I believe it's the sudden motion sensor that's misprogrammed. I've tried some things which helped for a while but the problem is still happening since day 1.

The second problem is this screen blinking problem. It gives me headaches after a while, which is totally unacceptable from a laptop of this price.

The third problem is that I cannot move the laptop even slightly or the "lid" or screen shakes or moves... I thought that this would not be a problem but after 1 year of usage the hinges seemed to loosen and now I cannot put my laptop even in a slight angle because it will cause it to close or open the lid. I thought with myself "maybe this is not a problem, maybe the hinges on this model are just like this, so I will not take it to Apple", but I pity my decision now. I can't trust Apple anymore. I've had numerous problems with my original iPhone, then various iPhone 3G replacements, and now had problems with a brand new iPhone 3GS. Maybe apple should just keep their business to iPods, at least they seem to last and function well.

I've paid more than £2000 for the laptop, and would expect it to behave and function better.

Apple is probably lauching something new this 27th but I don't think I'll be buying anything else given that Apple has been launching products that are failing too much, lately.

I wish they could fix this problem in my laptop but I think they won't simply because their service has become useless.

How sad, Apple used to be much better before.

Message was edited by: fcar.gbr (added third problem and some comments)

I will be bringing my late 2008 MBP 15" to the Apple store this Wednesday due to the fact that my Superdrive cannot read or write CD-Rs...9 months ago, the screen went dead...now my screen has also begun blinking..that makes three problems within 1 year and two weeks...they don't make them like they used to...

tommybgood

Just like almost everyone else on this thread I purchased my MacBook Pro late 2008. For most of last year (2009) I did not notice any blinking at all and after reading most of what has been posted on this thread I can deduct that it is because I was using it on the 9600m GPU mode. But last December I went abroad traveling so I changed to the 9400M mode to save battery life and that's when this annoying blinking started. It was and still is on a random frequency, sometimes 4 repetitions in a minute, other times 4 repetitions in an hour. Sometimes it would go away for a whole day just to start again after booting the next day. I don't have the slightest idea why is Apple avoiding this issue since it is not an isolated case. I could just add that they don't know where the problem is. Still their silence on this issue doesn't make any sense at all to me.

Lessons learned:
1) don't buy new Apple hardware within 4 months after release
- iPhone ($500, no er I mean 200 yea, 200), this 15", other examples
2) don't buy Apple hardware without the Apple Care protection
3) Calculate the cost of any Apple gear by adding the AppleCare before any other options


not being ugly, just keeping it real