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macbook pro core i7 high res anti-glare screen garbled graphics

My two month old macbook pro consistently (once every day or two) produces a garbled up screen after using it for a few hours. The only way to resolve this is to restart the computer. I've talked with apple support and have gone into the store for help and so far everyone is clueless and offer no real advice. I can't take a screenshot on the machine once this occurs, the picture just comes up blank, but I did take pictures with my cellphone.

screenshots: http://i.imgur.com/MsUyO.jpg http://i.imgur.com/nhUfi.jpg

Has anyone else had a similar issue and is this most likely a graphics hardware error?

macbook pro core i7, Mac OS X (10.6.4), high res matte screen

Posted on Sep 20, 2010 10:30 AM

Reply
351 replies

Oct 8, 2010 10:36 PM in response to AButo

Oh cool, thanks for your reply.

Forgot to mention mine is a stock standard glossy screen, so no high res display.

Would be good to hear the outcome of your logic board swap.

I'm going to continue down the Flash player track for now (operating on the assumption its a driver incompatibility or bug) as thats when it started happening for me. And I cant be bothered going through the whole AppleCare ripping apart my brand new mbp rigamarole if it doesn't work. Will remove flash plugin for a couple of days and see if there is any change.

Oct 10, 2010 3:32 PM in response to drm31078

Let me clarify...I received a grey screen saying I need to restart and mentioned a kernel panic. This is twice this has happened. This is my first Mac and I am a bit disappointed.

I don't have apple care, but am debating to pay the few hundred dollars to get it. Still seems like a flash sofware problems. Ugh...this is realy frustrating.

Oct 11, 2010 9:49 PM in response to ryanfitz

I have a brand new Macbook pro i7, about 5 months old. I started noticing the scrambled images about a month after use. It seemed to mostly affect me when I was in Safari but spread to basically everything else; numbers, pages, etc; especially when I had multiple programs open. If I closed the laptop and went to wake it up a while after everything would have the scrambled images. It seemed to even affect the quality of movies when they were enlarged, all the images would slow down. About two months ago I spoke with Apple and they had me do a reinstall and then an archive and install but that didn't work. I set up an appointment with genius and took my laptop in, I took images with me incase I couldn't reproduce it but, luckily, or unluckily the scrambled issue reared its head. The tech said the logic board would need to be replaced because the graphic chip is integrated into it and that if its not it could fry the logic board overtime (Which is exactly what happened on my last macbook, and why I purchased a new one, if you get this fix make sure you check your airport card after fix!!). Today, I received my computer back and everything seemed to fine until I tried forwarding a message in Gmail, using Safari and the same scrambled image popped up!! I'm not sure what to do now as my livelihood depends on access to my laptop and not having it for a week while it gets repaired is bad enough. I'll update when I find out what they ask me to do next but this is quite a serious issue and I wouldn't be surprised if another lass action lawsuit pops up. What the **** are you doing Apple?!?!

Oct 11, 2010 11:09 PM in response to bkbaracus

Have you tried ditching Safari?

I removed Flash and rebooted the PC and the problem didn't reappear for two days. Then I decided I couldn't live without Flash so I ditched Safari for FireFox and installed Flash and all seems to be well last couple days (no restarts in between, except when I removed Flash originally - I had to restart to make the graphics artifacts go away).

Quite a strange problem. I think it could be a bug with Safari or the Intel graphics drivers and Flash compounds the problem. Once the graphics artifacts are introduced, the only way to get rid of them is to switch to Nvidia chipset or restart the machine. If I switch from Nvidia back to Intel, the problem reappears.

My assumptions are based solely on my observations so I could be barking up the wrong tree.

Would be great if anyone has any suggestions as to how to fix the problem because I'd like to go back to Safari whether it is the cause of the issue or not.

Oct 13, 2010 1:12 AM in response to drm31078

Cool. I have two questions.

1. Can anyone else replicate the issue as described? I reckon if we have at least 5 examples then we have a confirmed pattern.

Where:
There is garbled graphics output when using the Intel Chipset and Safari together, and switching to Firefox or another browser (a non-webkit browser to make things easier) and restarting resolves it.

AND

The problem does not occur when using the Nvidia chipset

2. What is the best way to submit a bug report to Apple? I found a very nondescript feedback form and also the developer bug report form (which I'm hesitant to use for lack of actual debug logs).

Oct 17, 2010 1:58 PM in response to huiwen Ji

MacRumors Forums member Chemical1 is reporting Flash as the cause of the problem.
"Flash 10.1 Problem. I had my logic board and RAM replaced by Apple before I found it's Flash that causes a memory leak. Subsequent effects are the blocky graphics and kernel panics. My solution was to google and downgrade to Flash version 10.0.45.2."
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=11244478#post11244478

Oct 18, 2010 12:58 AM in response to powerbook1701

have filed a bug report with apple. having issues getting back into their webapp to update/track my report unfortunately.

the flash issue fits, but i think safari might be the root cause as i've observered glitches on a smaller scale without flash plugin (quick flash when switching to topsites) and i have no problems at all with flash+firefox.

funny thing, i'd say having a flash player that causes a memory leak which in turn corrupts graphics memory could potentially fall into a security issue territory.

macbook pro core i7 high res anti-glare screen garbled graphics

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