Screen Flicker with External Monitor

My monitor was flickering on every resolution except 640x480. Changing it had no effect whatsoever. Using a Dual-Link DVI adapter has been the only solution that works for me so far.

It does for me, yes. I have not yet determined what/when/why it restarts, but it seems related to coming out of sleep, or perhaps to prior operation independent of the monitor (I use a laptop and an external monitor at two desk locations, and the laptop independently at others). I often run the laptop for weeks without actually shutting down, i.e., merely "sleeping" between uses and locations.

DS

Possible fix after 10.7.2

About two days ago I attached my MacBook Pro, core i7 2.2GHz 256 SSD, 8 GB RAM, to my 24" Cinema Display and the screen started to flicker; 10-15 in a minute.I did a clean install with Lion 10.7.1 and the flickering persisted.

In my developer account it was a beta combo update to 10.7.2 (11C40) which address some graphic drivers improvements. After I did the update flickering was reduced considerable, to 2-3 blinks in an hour and increased when a movie was playing (10-20 blinks in an hour) or running flash in Safari.

Also a permanent blank screen occurred. In that situation, the system recognized the display, the resolution could be changed, arrangement of the screens could be switched but cinema display remains blank. After sleep/wake up, everything was back to normal.

In Console was no message at that time.

And I observed that cinema display fans are running very intensive during blinks, for about 1 second.

Today Apple pushed a new build for 10.7.2 (11C43). After I did the update and restarted the system, blink frequency was increased with or without running programs.

I restarted again and boot on Recovery partition, where I ran Safari for about two hours without any blink.

Restarted again in Lion 10.7.2, running a HD movie and no blink for about two hours.

Now I'm running at the same time an intensive render test with Cinebench, 3 X 1080p youtube movies in Safari, 8 x 720p movies in live mix with Modul8 and output results in MadMapper thru syphon server. Also iTunes is running, Mail and iPhoto.

No more blinks and no crash at these intensive tasks.

I will shut down the display and the computer and do some tests after one hour, and repeat the steps.

I don't think is a permanent fix but I hope it will came in final release of 10.7.2

Sounds promising... but what about an update for us Non-Lion users?? It sure is annoying

Has anyone installed the new EFI firmware version 2.1 for the MBA with Thunderbolt in conjunction with the ACD 24" and/or 27" yet?

I was wondering if that fixes the issue. As soon as I get home, I'll try that.

If it's a MacBook Pro it may have a defective logic board. My external 226BW was acting up and eventually went blank. The Store tested my mid-2009 MBP with an Apple Display and it failed there too. I have Apple Care, it didn't cost me $458.

I just installed the Thunderbolt EFI Update that was released today (September 14 2011) on my 2011 MacBook Pro and guess what? Yes, it's still flickering! I'm using a 40 inch Samsung HDTV, model LN40B550 if anyone's interested in knowing.

This is crazy! I'm going to call Apple this week again.

I installed the firmware update yesterday and the new Thunderbolt software update today. I am using a 2011 MacBook Pro and a 2008-09 Cinema Display. No flickering since the software update . . .

I've also installed the firmware update and now the Thunderbolt update today. I've rebooted 3 times and still no flickering... This may be the fix.

I just installed the Thunderbolt Software Updated released today (September 15th 2011) and so far the flicker seems to have been fixed! This is awesome. I'm going to continue to use my Samsung HDTV tomorrow and see if it truly is fixed. I really hope it is.

I just noticed an interesting feature. I'm not sure if this is Lion specific or if the unibody MacBook Pros have been doing this for a while, but when the computer is on and has another display connected while the internal display is active, closing the laptop lid simply turns off the internal display. My 2006 MBP would go to sleep if I did that so I'd have to click the mouse to wake it up again for clamshell mode. And the internal display turns back on when you open the lid. Pretty cool.

I installed the Thunderbird update with high hopes - half hour in massive flicker and kept on flickering till it blacked out completely. So **** disappointed.

. . . not fixed. Flickering continues.

Still flickering. With all the Engineers Apple has, they can't seem to fix this problem.Fix it once and for all Apple. How many more updates till you get it right?

I installed the Thunderbolt update yesterday and my right 24 inch Apple LED went crazy. More flicker and digital artifacting then ever before. However my left 24 inch Apple LED was rock solid.

So I tried performing the resolution trick I read that restting the res had some effect. No luck.

So I tried swapping the arrangement of the screens in Preferences. Moved right to left, left to right. Then put them all back in the right configuration.

So far, no flicker! 10 min strong so far! Perhaps this isn't a real hardware issue!

Perhaps this bug has something to do with the Arrangement in Display Preferences

Try moving around your display arrangement preferences and see what happens. Any better? Same? Worse?

Updated to the latest updates in Lion but still no luck to solv the problem, i have DELL 30'' TFT U3011.