Gradient / Highlight / Glow at Bottom of Screen (15" i7)

I'm with you, have the same issue. It has been getting progressively worse. I have switched back and forth between the 9400 and 9600 graphics cards... makes no difference which one I use. I have also adjusted automatic light dim/brightness settings... makes no difference.

For me, this issue has been occurring right from the beginning. It has gotten steadily worse. I originally thought it was just a software glitch, so I did not return it, expecting an OS update to take care of it.

I see like marquee lights all along the bottom, casting spotlights up the screen from like 7 or 8 spots. Also, the screen has begun to flicker ever so often. Seems worse right when I open it up, gets better a few minutes after I have been working on it.

About 95% of the time I use my laptop it is plugged into an external monitor via DVI adapter. I works great that way, zero probs. Just the laptop screen itself seems to be screwed. Like a loose connection or something.

I bought it Nov of 2009, will be contacting Apple support in the next day or two if I can find the time. I cannot afford to "send it in", I run a business off of this computer.

Webmaestro, would you please give us an update? What did apple say?

Webmaestro and feznizzle: What you are seeing is a display backlight defect, and its repair (or the replacement of your computer, if it's still within 14 days of purchase) should be covered by your warranty.

I have a new 15" i7 MBP and I do not see the issue you are reporting. My display seems just fine (at the present time!).

Call Apple Customer Relations at 1-800-767-2775 and ask to have your machine repaired or replaced. The display backlighting should be even throughout the display area, not patchy, blotchy, streaked, or brighter in any area than in others. The effect you report has been described many times before here as "stage lighting" or "streaking" at the bottom of the display, and has been repaired or replaced by Apple many times, particularly in the first-generation unibody machines made in late 2008. Be polite and calm but persistent. An unevenly backlit display is unacceptable, and you shouldn't accept it regardless of how many other machines are affected.

Thanks so much for your post eww. I have a built to order en route and this thread was causing me some concern. I wasn't aware of the pre-history of this issue... seems there's no replacement for experience (-: My new machine will have a calibrated screen and be used for proofing when I'm in the field so there's no room for uneven screen illumination.

Al.

For what its worth, my new MBP 15" i7 with the matte screen has the exact same artifacts. My co-workers machine purchased only a couple of days earlier does not. I do need to give Apple a call, I just can't afford to be without the Mac even for a day at the moment.

Andrew

This is an example of backlight bleed.

My 15" High-res AG does not have this bleed problem... but then I do have a strong yellow tinge at the bottom of my screen (but that is a completely separate issue).

i got my 15" i7 HR glossy macbook pro yesterday, just like Webmaestro, i noticed the EXACT screen back-light bleeding behavior on my machine during it's first boot up.

however, beside this back-light bleeding, the screen is beautiful, very bright & crispy color, no yellow tinge , no dead or stuck pixels.

been going through several 27" yellow iMac nightmares in the past few months. right now i am struggling and worry if i'd get a replacement macbook pro which would come up with something even worst than what i am having now.

did some researches on the internet and found this :
http://www.anandtech.com/Gallery/Album/649#

those images also show some subtle backlight bleeding at the bottom of the 2010 macbook pro screens which makes me think that there's actually no perfect apple laptop screen that ever exist. (…i got a 5 years old dell and a 3 years old sony laptop both are with the same resolution and their screen has zero backlight bleeding, very even back light illumination. )

i am wondering if it is just me being too picky for a perfect apple screen that will never exist?

the apple stores lighting here in ginza is just too bright that i could not check and see if there's any backlight bleeding on those macbook pros on display. Genius are nice but i know what exactly they are going to tell me if i ever ask them if my machine's screen is normal.

maybe there are many many other 2010 macbook pro owners who got the same backlight bleeding screens but they just don't ever care about that much?

if ALL macbook pro has this kind of "subtle" backlight bleeding behavior. i am cool with my machine; but if this problem belongs to the apple QC department, i am not sure if i want to get myself into another never ending replacement/return loop again after the very bad 27"imac experience.

here's the data of my screen: 9CB6, LTN154MT07.

thank you for reading, just wanna share some thoughts…

cheers.

I have read that this is a hardware design problem:
The ventilation slot of the laptop is blowing heat at the hinge and therefore at the base of the screen, this is the reason why these shadows only appears at the bottom, extending vertically mainly from the center of the base.
This is a design flaw which is particularly annoying when doing anything with a dark background, like watching/editing pictures or movies/videos in a laptop that supposedly excels in these tasks.
I will try to find the sources where I read this.

okay, i'm a total mac noob, but i am gonna throw this out there: i noticed a thin line at the bottom of my screen that was not from the webpage (for example) i had open. i realized it was actually my desktop after i put my desktop to change every day. the page just won't go all the way to the bottom no matter how hard i try to drag it. so one day i was playing around with the dock and moved it to the left side of the screen and voila, the thin line at the bottom disappeared. if i put the dock back to the bottom, the thin line of desktop reappears. could this be what's happening to some of you? the line looks different depending on what picture is on my desktop.

iinami: No, that isn't what this thread is about.

accept my apologies.