Q: MacBook Pro screen blinks

I also have the same problem and it seems the problem is about proximity light sensor (screen pulsating).

The ficker, which is another problem, is a graphic card problem.

i don't have apple care anymore and it doesnt matter how many times i try to ask for a replacement, apple care doesnt care!

I have this issue as well, just replaced with the new screen at Genius bar and the problem recurrs. So annoy, hope they get the problem to public and solve it. Mine is MBP late 2008

I contacted Apple's technical support (Canada) today and talked to a senior advisor who took all the info about the problem. I was told that it would be fowarded to check the problem and see if the experts can do something about it. Should have an answer next week. I'll keep you posted when I get the response.

I really recommend to all of you, if not done yet, to call technical support and have them send the detailed problem to whoever they send it to.

Apple messed up bad on this problem but I must admit that the customer service is really great. Hope it will be good news.

I fixed mine by selling it on eBay. Apple completely disavowed my issue and stated that, even if there was a problem with the hardware, it wasn't under warranty anymore. Basically - tough luck. Fair enough. Maybe the next owner will have better luck getting it fixed than I did. And yes, I told him of the issue before the sale.

Here's a little article about the "famous" 9400M"

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1049670/nvidia-heat-causing-macbooks-to -fail

Mine has just started to do this. There is a black bar that blinks on the screen roughly 2-3 inches in thickness across the top of the screen. It's not doing it repeatedly or predictably so I cannot say what is causing it (if anything) and under what circumstances.

I'm going to keep an eye on it and see what happens in the next few weeks. It's not a problem but more of an annoyance at this point. I've already had to send this thing in for repair twice already and a third time is starting to get tiresome.

You shouldn't wait. It won't go away. Contact Apple technical support as soon as you can to give them your problem. It will be one more to the, I don't know how many, complaints. If you read the posts, you'll see that waiting isn't going to solve that issue.

Jashby wrote:
You shouldn't wait. It won't go away. Contact Apple technical support as soon as you can to give them your problem. It will be one more to the, I don't know how many, complaints. If you read the posts, you'll see that waiting isn't going to solve that issue.

Thanks. Ironically, I had my logic board replaced for an unrelated issue (audio jack died) a few months ago. Any idea if they are able to 'fix' it?

John P. wrote:

Any idea if they are able to 'fix' it?

They tried changing every hardware of the MacBook Pro without any success. They now say that they'll try to fix it with a software update... 20 months after the laptop came out!

So no, they can't fix it. They won't acknowledge that they can't and they'll try to make us wait until we give up. Their priority is the iPad and the iPhone 4 customers.

When the iMac had the yellowish issue they fixed it really quickly. So if they didn't fix our issue yet, they just won't.

I'm in the same boat as everyone else here unfortunately Late 2008 unibody MBP with screen flicker when "better battery life" option is enabled via Energy Saver. Basically when the 9400M is in use the laptop is borderline unusable at this stage; but I've put up with it for a little while.

From my perspective it seems unlikely to be a display issue as the issue is not present when the 9600M GT is in use. To me this (logically?) points towards either a hardware issue with the 9400M, some bizarre software/firmware fault, or a peculiar hardware fault elsewhere... but not the display itself. I can't be sure however! I'm no technician/engineer.

Anyway; I finally decided to try and pursue it via Apple Retail (local Genius Bar) myself after reviewing this thread every now and then over the last few months and seeing no obvious progress. As expected I wasn't really able to get anywhere - especially considering my laptop is also out of warranty. I was advised to use the 9600M GT, despite the significant decline in battery life (which is important to me as a student) and carry my charger around if this alleviated the issue. I referred them to this thread, other threads, and multiple other websites/sources and they basically just said they could check it out at my expense if I liked but didn't recommend "throwing money at it".

Apparently it is not a known issue by Apple however and I asked them to confirm this several times, which they did via their system and by checking with someone else.

I find it absolutely insane however that this thread, and issue, has been open for over 2 years without any resolution or acknowledgement of sorts. It seems Apple retail at least are unable to identify anything.

Is there an escalation path that can be followed? It seems no one has done this just yet from the looks of things... If one is outside of warranty, are they able to contact Apple via email/phone and well, politely, pursue escalation/acknowledgement/ensure someone takes ownership of the problem? Having a look at http://www.apple.com/au/support/contact/ it doesn't really seem clear... almost seems like you're not eligible to contact Apple via the phone if I'm out of warranty/Apple care.

Update.

Further research discovered this thread/possible explanation: http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=9679713#9679713.

and... will submitting a bug report via http://www.apple.com/feedback/macbookpro.html help at all?

+knock on wood+, mine hasn't flickered in almost two days of near-constant, heavy use on the 9400M. Hopefully it's just a once in a great while thing. Otherwise, the screen is bright and crisp, no issues with it.

Just curious, does this issue follow the new i5 and i7 models at all?

I've had my i5 replacement MBP for over two months now, and it definitely does not have any problems with the screen blinking. It does not have the 9400M chip - the new models have an Intel graphics chip on the processor for battery saving mode, and an NVidia 330M for performance; the switching between them is seamless too, no need to log out...

To those still experiencing the blinking with the old model, I suggest you keep on at Apple for a fix, even if you are out of warranty. I have followed this thread before and after my ordeal of four repair jobs (and since getting the eventual replacement machine): it's on 37,634 views right now, I think it was on about 14,000 in March, so clearly there are many people with defective machines. It's very frustrating to read of more people being told by Apple that it's an unknown issue, at the very least they have extensive information from the repair jobs they carried out on my machine, and the descriptions of the problem I gave them; plus there are dozens of people reporting repair jobs for the issue in this thread. It is either catastrophically bad information management by Apple, or maybe something more sinister...?

I really got traction in getting my machine replaced after emailing some people mentioned on this page:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080725070602/www.apple.com/pr/contacts/

... it's a copy of a page that no longer exists on Apple's website. My advice is to pick some email addresses appropriate to where you live and write them a short letter of complaint (200-300 words at most): summarise the problem you have with your machine, explain how it is a significant defect in what is supposed to be a high end computer. Something you definitely would not expect from an Apple product...

One of my emails was forwarded to the right person, who really spent a lot of time and effort to sort things out for me.

Apple have given free out-of-warranty support once before with the previous generation of MacBook Pro with the 8600M (http://support.apple.com/kb/ts2377) - if enough people write personally and complain they may well do something similar about this fault in the 9400M.

I sent emails to a couple of Mac magazines and websites this week. I'm hoping for a feedback. If they can just write about Apple's denial or just ask questions to Apple directly it would be nice. After that I have no idea to what I'm gonna do. It will be even longer to get a replacement.

< Edited by Host >

I have an early 2009 MBP. Just had the logic board replaced for another issue and the blinking is happening with my machine also. Yikes!