screen flicker; freeze in low power mode

Question

Level 1

85 points

screen flicker; freeze in low power mode

Hi,

I suspect that the cause of this is a defective low-power video card, but I find that if I run my late-2008 Macbook Pro in the energy saving settings, the screen periodically has a black horizontal flicker run across it. Occasionally, this is followed by the screen going black, followed by a freeze, and sometimes it just freezes, with a flashing dotted-line rectangle just below the pointer. It doesn't matter whether I am connected to power or running off battery.

None of this occurs in the high-energy mode.

I'm running 10.6.2 with 4GB of ram and a 320GB HD.

Any observations? I hate going to the Apple Store about an intermittent and unpredictable issue, as I live some distance away, and I need my laptop during the day.

Thanks,
Mike

Intel 24" iMac 3.06GHZ; Macbook Pro (late 2008) 2.4GHZ, Mac OS X (10.6.1)

Posted on Nov 30, 2009 1:10 PM

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Answer 1

BocaBoy

Level 1

90 points

Dec 1, 2009 4:46 AM in response to Mike457

I too have recently seen this problem resurface. It had gone away with the release of 10.6.1 but now seems to be back. Here is an extensive thread in this group regarding the same issue and some potential solutions.

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10357219#10357219

Hope this helps.

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Answer 2

S.U.

Level 6

9,601 points

Nov 30, 2009 3:01 PM in response to Mike457

You might try running the extended version of the Apple Hardware Test and see if you get any error codes which might point to the graphics chip.

Also, you could look in the Console and see if you can find any logs for these artifacts and freezes. If so, that would be concrete evidence of this intermittent problem.

If the problem is with the chip, it will likely get worse over time until it happens more predictably. You should be under warranty, and you definitely want to report this to Apple before your warranty runs out. You might also want to consider 3 year Applecare if you don't have it already.

Good luck!

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