Q: MacBook Pro screen blinks

Looks to me that this issue is going to be with us till we upgrade. New MB and MBP with new video cards are now out. With 8 to 9 hours battery life compared to our 2.5 or 3 hours ( because were forced to keep it on higher performance to stop that constant annoying huge DEFECT THAT APPLE HAS IGNORED FOR PEOPLE WHO PAID 2800 DOLLARS FOR A LAPTOP THATS DEFECTIVE ) its time to pull out that wallet and replace our machines. It sure would be nice to be able to use this thing on battery mode for more than 2.5 hours, if were lucky.

i agree with you, as i told it's incredible that Apple don't help anyone of us!

We had pay a lot of money for a "PRO" product (it means that someone use it for work maybe...).

They say us "make the AppleCare"...what?! 400 euro again!? The blinks appear after one (1) month that my MBP goes out of warranty and for this reasone they say me "you have to pay if you want to use your extraordinary machine "

I buy Apple from a long time...now i'm very confused about my "tecno-future"...

I thought the 10.6.3 update would fix it too. I've had the blinking since upgrading though, and it happens during the most mundane things. The other night I was reading digital comics, no other apps open, airport off, and it still blinked.

Whats proving to be a pain is finding out how to prove the blinking happens to my local service provider. I personally doubt they'd sort it out unless they see it themselves.

I have a MacBook Pro that I bought 5/09. It started blinking. Drove me nuts. In March 2010, Apple took it for 11 days for repairs. They replaced the display. Still blinks and is increasing in frequency. Apple store said they would have to take it in for repairs again and replace the logic board.
They can't guarantee it won't swipe everything clean which, even though I have everything backed up on an external, would require me to spend lots of time getting the settings back, etc.
I use it for my business and this is a big pain.
I am so frustrated! Going without my computer again will greatly impact my business!

Pulsing/flickering backlights at low brightness is nothing new. In fact, it's the same on Windows PCs with LED backlights...

[Lenovo|http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=363528]
[Acer|http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=443944]
[Dell|http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/p/19262314/19537 294.aspx#19537294]
[Dell XPS|http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=456104&page=7]
[Dell Studio|http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3519/p/19263299/194 46428.aspx#19446428]
[Dell (again)|http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=351674]
[HP Tablets|http://www.paralaptop.com/hp-compaq/fixing-flickering-display-on-hp-271 0p.html]

That's an interesting thought, but what most are talking about with the PowerBook Pro models is more a blanking of the top 1/3 to 1/2 do the built-in display. A solid flash from normal to black and then back to normal, even at full brightness.

Amazing that Apple would waste their time and yours trying to fix this rather than acknowledging the actual flaw.

BTW - Before taking your computer back for repair use SuperDuper to make a mirror image of the drive to another external drive. With this backup you can do a full restore back to the exact state before the repair. No need to recreate any settings.

Nope. Not even close to the same thing with the defect on these MBP.

As others have pointed out, this thread is about a "blinking" problem. Even AppleCare became confused about this, so I put up a page for them that very clearly shows the fault:
http://jtrotman.tripod.com/mbpro.html

It is a hardware problem, as demonstrated earlier in this thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=11034320#11034320

I got my MBP back from it's fourth repair last week, with yet another new logic board. (Apple would not carry out four costly hardware repairs if they could fix it with software.) It worked well for two days, then started blinking again on the third day, almost as soon as I woke it up from sleep. It got really bad, blinking at least every minute, so it was easy to video again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlQUOUURbiM

(There's a slew of videos like this on Youtube - the problem is widespread.)

I called Apple again and they offered a replacement, which is still being sorted out, looks like it is going to take a week. My new contact at Apple is someone in Executive Relations, because while I was waiting for the latest repair I wrote a formal letter of complaint and sent it to a few PR-related Apple email addresses - they soon called me to apologize and asked me to contact them directly if I had any more issues.

Every time it's sent back to me, the technician calls me to say it's fixed and has passed all their tests. To me, this proves that Apple do not have a test for this issue. They could devise one, but they have not, so do not for one minute accept your machine back if Apple say their tests find no fault.

My advice to people still suffering with this issue is to get some proof: video the problem, and keep complaining, on the phone or in an email: keep it short (200 words), state the facts.

Apple and their shareholders are the people who should be worrying about this issue, not us, the customers.

The big pain is actually recording it though. It flickers once and I take out the mobile phone to record it. It flickers again. I press record. Then I wait and wait and wait and it never flickers! I'm taking it in to a service center on Saturday but I'm expecting the worst. It hasn't flickered in 2 days now (mainly because I haven't used it as much) so its gonna be hard to prove it.

It just did it again! I was reading comics and it flickered. Whipped out the phone to record, kept at it for 30 minutes and not a single flicker. All I get is a numb arm for my troubles.

I took a movie for 2 minutes on my camera and got 3 blinks no problem! That's how constant mine is.

Some people earlier in the thread were talking about the pulsating backlight which is what I was referring to.

Is the blanking 1/3rd of the screen happening despite a replacement logic board and/or display? Did a fresh install help? Sorry, not questioning anyone but just curious is all.

I just bought my white macbook three days ago and I am having flickering problems but it isn't just a fast off/on flicker, it is continuous, almost like a strobe light and the light projected is a reflection of the toolbar to the bottom of the screen, I thought it was happening when my iPhone was docked, playing the ipod, but after I unplugged it, it still strobed briefly. I am also wondering if it is due to the machine resting on my lap, I had a late model 2008 and never had a prob overheating, it was LCD not LED.
I may have to take it back but sheesh! What a drag.

Oso Grande wrote:
Some people earlier in the thread were talking about the pulsating backlight which is what I was referring to.

Is the blanking 1/3rd of the screen happening despite a replacement logic board and/or display? Did a fresh install help? Sorry, not questioning anyone but just curious is all.

The first time it flickered, I ended up with dead pixels on my screen. This, along with a bluetooth issue, led to my display being replaced. I was flicker free for about 5 days before it started up again and progressively got worse. I started at 1-2 a week up to 1-2 everyday/every other day.