Snow Leopard Graphics Corruption

I don't think anyone has said that the issue is caused by the 2D dock or 3D dock or Adobe Flash. We (I have at least) been attempting to find a temporary solution until Apple does release a driver fix or the problem is identified as a faulty component. I suggested removing Adobe Flash 10.1 because it uses the GPU as a graphical accelerator for Flash content. This stresses the GPU possibly beyond what Intel intended it to do. The same is true for the 3D/2D dock. The 2D dock requires less graphical demand than the 3D version; so disabling it will help reduce the strain of the X3100.

Now, in your case specifically Arc, if your CPU is 99C then yes- I'd be very much inclined to say there is a hardware failure somewhere in your unit as it should in no way be that hot.

On a larger scale, seeing the issue in such a number of MacBooks all at the same time I don't think it's going to be hardware related in all cases. Probably some. In the case of the user earlier who had an iMac with a nVidia 7300 I think he had a hardware failure (being that he is an outlier to the equation).

Point is, don't assume it is a hardware failure when we don't know for sure yet. And again, these are temporary fixes that may or may not allay the issue.
Lastly, don't discount your (or our) MacBooks to be bricks yet.

I can not express how relieved I was to see this thread. I started my own last night ( http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2420479&tstart=0) about the exact same issue! Until now, people were telling me it could be my GPU going bad but this thread has proven to me it has got to be software. And switching to a guest account won't fix it because it's a driver issue with 10.6.3 It does this when I watch videos on youtube, etc. Surprisingly hard to make it happen when watching Quicktime videos like .avi or .mov files.

I installed SL back in September and right away noticed the glitching shadows. But it went away until a few weeks ago and bam- same thing as everyone else here. I seem to have done all the stuff people have suggested: reset the PRAM, sys management, verified the disk, Apple Hardware Test, uninstalled Flash Player, and use a 2D dock.

I monitor my CPU temp with iStat and it's around 100 degrees F.

Made a Picasa album with screencaps made my bg white to really show off the glitching: http://picasaweb.google.com/nickux/MacScreenArtifacts?feat=directlink

Here's to hoping we get a fix in 10.6.4!!

If you're right about a wide-spread GPU failure in these Macbooks (most seem to be the 2007 variety, I've noticed- like mine) then hopefully there's some way to appeal to Apple for support on the issue. They seem to be good about that kind of thing if it's a wide-spread known issue.

Same problem here:

http://koti.kapsi.fi/shinyjack/podcast/Screen%20shot%202010-05-07%20at%201.43.21 %20AM.png

I've got an Early 2008 2,4 GHz MacBook with Kingston 2 x 2GB Ram. I'd had the problem a few times earlier (first time approx. 2 months ago), but then it became very very frequent after I installed the Adobe Flash Professional CS5 this week. Now it occurs all the time. It may have something to do with YouTube and such, since it became much worse tonight almost instantly after watching something on YouTube (and I hadn't watched anything before that). There had been small black shadows behind the dock icons earlier, but after watching a video on YouTube it spread to every open window (Safari, Skype, you name it).

Same thing with me. I rarely had this problem, but after I installed Creative Suite 5 Master Collection, boom, problem.

Uninstalling "Flash" did not help either. I kinda need CS5, since I'm a graphic designer.

Also curious- has anyone switched from Safari to Chrome, watched youtubed, and encountered the problem? After uninstalling Flash for Safari and then using Chrome exclusively, I have yet to get the scrambles.

This same BS is happening to me everyday now and it is getting worse by the day. APPLE NEEDS TO FIX THIS!

http://web11.twitpic.com/img/98763398-7bb89ebca2adaa7e64acfbaec00c453f.4be89c96- full.png

same here... very annoying.

Message was edited by: maiwald

The same happened to me, I've never had this problem before until I installed the Adobe CS5 Master Collection a couple of days ago. I don't know if this could be the cause, but even if I haven't been using a software from the CS5 throughout the day it still happens and it's getting really annoying.

You should all be relieved to know that Apple is, in fact, aware of & working on the issue. It does appear to be driver related & they are hoping to have it resolved in 10.6.4; I saw it on iClarified... or Ars Technica, I forget which off-hand. None-the-less at least it is being looked into & taken seriously.

do you have the link to that?

So glad I found this, also suffering from this issue since upgrading to CS5

I guess it's this.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/05/mac-os-x-1064-in-the-works-to-address- graphics-issues.ars

Not sure if this problem is somehow related to problems in Leopard as well.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1313995&start=0&tstart=0

I am suspicious of Flash causing corruption of preferences files.

I do believe Apple is aware of this problem. 10.6.4 should fix this as the Ars Technica article states which someone provided a link to a few post before mine. The one thing I have noticed is that I never get this corruption problem if I am running either Camino or Firefox. It always happens when Safari and Flash are running. Somehow Flash running in Safari triggers this corruption. I have ran Camino and played Flash videos for days and I have not had this problem.

Oh well looks like I will be going back to Camino until this problem is fixed. I really enjoy using Safari with the Glims and Safari Adblock plugins. That's why I keep using it though I know at some point this corruption problem will recur.