Display flashes to solid black intermittently

Same prob here; running on a MBA, 3rd Gen/Rev C. Experience seems consistant w/ most others here. Flicker to black for half a second. I may not have it as frequent as some. Indeed, it seems to decline after getting warmed up (perhaps several flickers in first half hour; zero thereafter?). Also, seemingly related, is a "jiggle" or "flicker" particularly in the bottom fifth or so of the screen.

Sigh. Will look for more patterns and report back. I sure like the screen other than that.

My display is back in the shop for the third time. They have replaced the LED panel, not the LCD, and now they are going to replace cables and maybe a power supply. In a way I feel bad for Apple...I don't think they know what the problem is yet. It's obvious that it is fairly widespread. So far Apple is showing good faith and a good attitude in trying to fix the problem. I'm not sure exchanging the monitor will fix the problem. For all I know this could affect all Apple LED Cinema Monitors. So the best solution would be for Apple to nail down what the problem is, replace the faulty part in the monitors that have already been purchased and make the modification to new monitors being built. I don't want to give up this monitor...it is beautiful with a wonderful, clear display. Again....I wish Apple the best in sorting all this out.

Message was edited by: woofer2425

Disappointed by this. I rec'vd call from nathan vanderbyl (product specialist) and he left a message indicating that he escallated the problem to engineer Paul Singleton. Singleton responded to Nathan saying this "was NOT a known issue". (did engineering not read all six pages of people writing in with this problem???) Apple engineer is supposing that my individual macbook air has a bad video connector. Rubbish. This problem with the 24" display is impacting users with macbook air, macbook pro and mac pros. I'm now on the phone with Applecare to give it one more shot to get engineering to recognize all that's been posted in this community. HOLY COW this is frustrating !!!!!

That is total BS! I (and many others) have submitted bug reports on Apple's web site with this issue months ago. They absolutely monitor those submissions and can't tell us that they were not aware of any issue. I can see how they may not monitor user forums as closely, but every single bug report submission is supposed to be reviewed and escalated if appropriate. Sounds like some engineer just tested one in the Apple Labs, didn't have the problem and then marked it as void.

By the way, I posted several comments in this discussion awhile back with the flickering problem on my 24" iMac connected to the 24" Apple Cinema Display (ACD), and had the problem since the first day I got the ACD which lasted for over a month until I upgraded to 10.6. For some reason I have NOT had the problem since. Go figure. I had the 1 second blackouts several times during each working session, but have not seen the problem since upgrading to 10.6...maybe just a coincidence, as others here have stated they are on Snow Leopard and still have the problem.

With that said, the only other variable that I can think of is that about the same time I upgraded to 10.6, my USB powered hub stopped working as no devices connected to it would work. So I replugged in my critical devices directly into the iMac's USB ports on the back of the computer, and just lived without the other devices for the time being, which includes the ACD's USB connector cable.

Now realizing this, I'll connect the ACD's USB cable to the iMac USB port and test it for awhile and report back if the problem returns. Aside from the various Apple Software updates for 10.6 and my iMac, nothing else has changed.

There just doesn't seem to be an easy "common denominator" to nail this down, so Apple definitely has their work cut out for them. Just wish they would have started working on the problem at the beginning of the year when people have made this an issue!

Other peripherals I have connected:

Wacom USB tablet (I do not use a mouse)
Full size Apple USB keyboard
External 1TB USB hard drive (for time machine)
Canon USB inkjet printer

You might be on to something. when I originally posted I told the sad story how my G5 Power Mac failed and Apple recommended not to try to fix it. So I ordered my new Mac Pro which was BTO, but the 24 inch monitor came in a couple of days and I connected it to my 15" MacBook Pro while I was waiting. I set it up without the USB 2.0 hub I was using on the old setup. There was no flickering or 1 second drop outs the monitor worked perfectly.

When the new MacPro showed up and I put the USB hub back into the setup the dropouts started. I am interested to hear if your testing brings the problem back.

As to the other new postings, since I installed Snow Leopard, the frequency of these one second outages has decreased a lot. Also when I first saw the problem and before I first called AppleCare I found an old support article from the release of the Cinema displays with the exact same described problem which was eventually fixed with a firmware update. AppleCare acknowledged that, but said there was no trail of the problem in the tracking system with the new displays and there was no noted firmware updates.

Steve

So Steve, just so I understand what you're suggesting. You're thinking that by having devices plugged into the 3-port USB hub located in the lower right/rear of the ACD this could possibly be causing the "flicker to black" screen problem on the display itself? I do in fact use all 3 of these USB ports myself (because I have the macbook air which has only 1 port and is used by obviously having the ACD connected). Plugged into my ACD's rear USB hub/port are: ext. HDD for Time Machine, MBA superdrive & external wired apple keyboard.

Apple product specialist (nathan) called me back with information from their engineers. He said the fix is to reduce the display brightness 1 level if the setting is at maximum brightness. My display has been set to maximum brightness so I've dropped it down 2 or 3 clicks to the left.

I'll update this message board and advise Nathan at Apple if (or if not) this simple setting change fixes the intermittent black screen syndrome. fingers are crossed.

Black flashing screen due to NVIDEA 9400 overheating. This is a problem with all machines with this video card.

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

My macbook has the same problem unless I unplug the power supply.
I guess that the 9400 is for running without a powersupply only then.

Running my baby in the 9600 video mode, it runs fine, also in bootcamp in PC which only uses the 9600.
So it has to do with the 9400 Nvidea card, replacing the led screen will not help. I have been to more then 10 macshops and they all did not know the problem. All they asked me is to make a video of the problem.
The only resolution is replacing the 9400 NVIDEA card with a new one

It's been exactly 1 hour since I dropped the display brightness of the ACD down a couple of pegs. So far, not one black screen has occurred. Could this simple brightness adjustment be the fix we've all been waiting for??!!

Could it be?!!

Yes I'm suggesting something like that. That was the difference with my setup. But I've noticed some other comments too:
First of all the more recent posts that say turn the brightness down, isn't going to work for everyone, I'm only on the 4th bar from the left, no where near max brightness so it's not my solution.

Secondly there are a few of us that have this problem NOT on a MBP in my case it's a MacPro, so I'm not buying the 9400 overheating solution yet. I also would point out that when mine goes black it's not simply the loss of video from the card, my backlights go out. Just like when Energy sayer cuts the screen off.

Finally if I connect my MBP to the monitor it's fine. The only difference in my setup has been the USB connections.

Steve

er...no, I'm only on the 4th from left notch...no where near max.

Ditto here -- have never used the full brightness on my ACD (the LED technology makes it MUCH brighter than my iMac screen so it is always turned down a couple notches).

And ditto with the video card issue since my iMac doesn't use that chipset.

Message was edited by: janericster

Well it's Tuesday morning and UNFORTUNATELY the intermittent black screen is back and popping up again. Obviously the simple adjustment of reducing the brightness didn't work. (and I note the others who also have had their screen's brightness well below max and also having the black screen too)

I'll ge word to Nathan at AppleCare to advise him of results.

Checking back in on this after a month ... I had the monitor replaced and things have been much better. (It's connected to a 3.06ghz 24" iMac for a dual-display setup, so I'm ruling out explanations that link the problem to macbooks.) I now strongly suspect that this is some sort of power supply issue. The one time I noticed a reproducible black-flash was when someone down the corridor turned on a large vacuum cleaner. The monitor and imac are on a simple surge protector, but not any kind of facy power regulator. In any event, the drain on the circuit from the big vacuum seemed to cause the screen to go blank, FWIW. The iMac was unaffected.

{quote:title=kjhealy wrote:someone down the corridor turned on a large vacuum cleaner}{quote}

I reported this problem a month ago and, lucky me, I did not have any interferences or blackouts since that evening (I only watch TV on that monitor). But on that day I remember that I heard that someone was working with an heavy machine, somewhat like an electric saw or so in the neighbourhood, when the interferences occured.