Desktop icons and folders become distorted and pixelated

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Desktop icons and folders become distorted and pixelated

Hello. I am experiencing a very odd problem. Starting two days ago, after about 20 minutes of use on my mac, some of the icons on my desktop will suddenly have distorted pixels, as well as all of the open windows will have a black box surrounding it. I am almost positive that this has nothing to do with my screen going bad, rather something corrupted in the operating system. This has happened sometime after I had installed the Adobe CS5 photoshop trial. I have recently uninstalled it, but this problem still persists. As soon as I log out, or restart the computer, everything is back to normal. When the 15-20 minute mark comes, all of a sudden everything starts getting distorted.

Here is a screencap of what is happening: http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/637/distoredpixels.png

In the image you can see that the bottom dock is corrupted looking as well but the icons stay in tact. This is very odd.

Any help or suggestions on fixing this problem will be greatly appreciated.

Mac OS X (10.6.3)

Posted on May 9, 2010 1:05 AM

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Answer 1

May 9, 2010 2:25 AM in response to JTCGiants56

It could be a graphics controller going bad. What model Mac do you have?

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Answer 2

JTCGiants56 Author

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May 9, 2010 8:24 AM in response to Malcolm Rayfield

My model number is A1181. It is a 2.4 GHz (Penryn) MacBook 13".

I also don't think my graphics controller is going bad for the sheer fact that the distortion specifically happens to certain folders and occasionally open windows. If the graphics controller was going bad it would distort all parts of the screen. Am I right?

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Answer 3

May 9, 2010 10:05 AM in response to JTCGiants56

Have you tried to restart the dock and finder through activity monitor or Terminal (killall Finder, killall Dock)

Also have you looked in console around the time that this pops up?

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Answer 4

JTCGiants56 Author

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May 9, 2010 10:54 AM in response to fastmacbookpro

I have not yet tried those things but as soon as it happens again I will be sure to and post back here.

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Answer 5

JTCGiants56 Author

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May 9, 2010 12:03 PM in response to fastmacbookpro

Ok, so fastmacbookpro, When the problem happened again, I did what you recommended and the distortion went away. The only thing is now that it has been diagnosed and I know that it is not a hardware problem, I really have no idea where to go from here. Also the console did not show anything out of the ordinary.

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Answer 6

May 9, 2010 12:18 PM in response to JTCGiants56

Ok this is a bit out of my range-I suggest posting in the 10.6.3 forum.
self=fail. this IS the 10.6 forum.
You might be able to reinstall the finder from applications install disk but I am unsure.
I would imagine your best bet at this point is to wait for the problem to appear and leave it in place until you can get to an Apple Store ASAP.
Have you tried Get info while in this state?
Highlight the corrupt looking Icon, hit command-i. What is displayed in the top left corner of the window? And what happens when you perform this procedure in a normal state?
Sorry for all the questions.

Message was edited by: fastmacbookpro

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Answer 7

May 9, 2010 12:13 PM in response to JTCGiants56

Some other things I would try:
Using disk utility, (Apps>Utilities) repair permissions and verify disk
check Activity monitor when it happens, are there any crazy processes
Try using system preferences to position the dock in a different area, then move it back. Also may want to temp. enable hiding.
Sorry for being so long winded!

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Answer 8

JTCGiants56 Author

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May 10, 2010 1:20 PM in response to fastmacbookpro

Thanks for all the tips man. Unfortunately upon doing some more research, this is a fairly common problem and nobody seems to have a definitive answer to how to fix it. Hopefully apple does something about it in the next update.

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