Thin vertical line on Apple 24" LED Cinema Display

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Level 1

88 points

Thin vertical line on Apple 24" LED Cinema Display

I am seeing a thin, single-color vertical line on my Apple 24" LED Cinema Display. It seems to be 1 pixel wide. It changes neither position nor color, regardless of what the monitor is displaying, which of my two MBP's (13-inch and 17-inch) is driving it, and whether it is in mirrored or extended desktop mode. I first noticed this about two weeks ago, when it appeared purple, but subsequently (i.e., after about 1 hr.) either disappeared or changed to a color that made it less noticeable. Today, I noticed it again. It is now cyan. It does not appear in screen grabs. When connected to the MBP 13" it seems to run behind windows which use the same pixels, while with the MBP 17" it runs right through them (i.e., seems to be superimposed on them).

Has anybody encountered this problem?

Thanks,
Richard

MacBook Pro 13" Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz, MacBook Pro i7 2.66 GHz 17" glossy screen, Mac OS X (10.6.4), 8GB RAM

Posted on Nov 4, 2010 3:14 AM

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Answer 1

BSteely

Level 5

7,643 points

Nov 4, 2010 9:45 PM in response to Richard Liu

Yes, unfortunately a not uncommon type of hardware failure. Hopefully it will go away but likely it won't and more likely more lines will begin appearing. It's typical of a failure in the connection between the column driver "tab" board and the LCD panel. The only solution is replacement of the LCD. Is the monitor under Apple Care because it will get fixed for free if it is?

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Answer 2

Richard Liu Author

Level 1

88 points

Nov 5, 2010 2:23 AM in response to BSteely

I bought the monitor used two weeks ago. To my knowledge it is not under AppleCare. Do you happen to know how expensive repair might be? I live in Basel, Switzerland. The nearest Apple Store is in Zurich. There are Apple dealers in Basel who could repair it, but I suspect the Genius Bar might be more inclined to do the repairs for free.

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Answer 3

Richard Liu Author

Level 1

88 points

Nov 14, 2010 3:37 AM in response to Richard Liu

End of story:
I took the monitor to Ingenodata in Basel, expecting that they would tell me, too bad about the monitor being no longer under warranty. Instead the technician asked me whether I had another computer with Apple Care. Yes, I have two MBP's, both with APP. He suggested asking Apple whether the repair could not be performed under APP, even though neither covered the monitor. It also turns out that the person from whom I bought the monitor bought an MBP with APP a month before the monitor. Ingenodata mentioned this to Apple, even though the APP for that MBP did not cover the monitor either. Apple decided that the repair could be done for free.
Moral of the story? The monitor is working fine. Apple has YAHC (yet another happy customer), and it did not cost Apple anything, in the sense that a monitor +could have+ been covered by any of the APP.

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