Macbook Pro 16" 2023 M3 built in display failing randomly- no backlight/colors, only very dark blurry images.

hello, My macbook pro m3 from 2023 (purchased 6 months ago) has started to have very regular display failures. The BUILT IN display is beginning to randomly go completely dark, however I notice the screen does get brighter when I turn the brightness up, it's just that the screen becomes extremely dark and blurry with no color.


I have videos of it happening, sometimes closing the macbook and reopening the lid brings the screen back, sometimes temporarily and other times for a long time. The screen has been functioning properly for a bout 5 minutes at the time of writing this, but had just failed a few minutes ago.


Restarting the computer seems to work well, with about a 20% chance of restarting the built in display.


One instance of a rather strange colorful bugged screen did appear but otherwise it's been consistent- can faintly make out the shapes of windows and the apple logo, but the screen is 99% black/grey depending on brightness level and I can't read any text or actually see anything.


Updating to OS 15 at the moment, hopefully that helps? I have a apple store appointment scheduled but I'm REALLY not trying to exchange this computer for another one given that I have almost 100 software licenses active on THIS machine specifically and will have to deactivate all of them and relicense all of my software again...


This was a problem on the forums like 8 years ago, I'm really hoping it can be fixed easily....



MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 14.4

Posted on Sep 29, 2024 6:15 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Sep 29, 2024 6:44 PM

It does sound like a hardware issue, and will need to be addressed as such. Assuming it's just the display, Apple can replace the top case (basically everything above the hinge) and leave the rest intact, meaning you may not need a replacement Mac. Having said that, before your appointment I strongly recommend you buy an external drive (HDD is fine) and back up your Mac using Time Machine. Aim for a drive that's ~2x the size of your internal storage for a proper TM backup, and whether or not they wipe your Mac, back up regularly. A 2 TB HDD is <$100.


Use a computer long enough, it will fail or get lost/damaged/etc. If you don't have a backup, you are SOL. If you have a current TM backup, you simply connect it to the replacement computer, set the new computer up from the backup, and you just pick up right where you left off.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Sep 29, 2024 6:44 PM in response to ColinJLong

It does sound like a hardware issue, and will need to be addressed as such. Assuming it's just the display, Apple can replace the top case (basically everything above the hinge) and leave the rest intact, meaning you may not need a replacement Mac. Having said that, before your appointment I strongly recommend you buy an external drive (HDD is fine) and back up your Mac using Time Machine. Aim for a drive that's ~2x the size of your internal storage for a proper TM backup, and whether or not they wipe your Mac, back up regularly. A 2 TB HDD is <$100.


Use a computer long enough, it will fail or get lost/damaged/etc. If you don't have a backup, you are SOL. If you have a current TM backup, you simply connect it to the replacement computer, set the new computer up from the backup, and you just pick up right where you left off.

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Macbook Pro 16" 2023 M3 built in display failing randomly- no backlight/colors, only very dark blurry images.

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