Vertical lines of missing pixels on MacBook Pro screen

Thanks for the reply. I was hoping it wouldn't come to that. At the moment I've just plugged in an external monitor which is working fine, while the laptop display is still looking horrible as I described.

Unfortunately I never fixed the problem. My laptop is still connected to an external display and the laptop display is turned off. Since the laptop display is turned off I don't know how often the problems described occur - from the times when I haven't had the external display plugged in, the problem seems to be temperamental, sometimes the screen is fine, sometimes the vertical lines of missing pixels appear.

I haven't taken my laptop into Apple so I don't know how easy the problem might be to fix. I have a feeling it might be an expensive repair and since my early 2008 model feels like it might be due for an upgrade soon, I've just been holding out and making do with an external monitor for now.

Good luck with your problem. If you find a solution please do post back!

Hi dominic23. Thanks very much for providing that link. I had been holding off going to the Apple Store because I was worried I would be faced with a huge bill and had been making do with an external display. But my laptop is an early 2008 model and is (just) less than 4 years old, so it would seem like according to that document Apple might fix these problems for me even outside of a warranty. Thanks again!

Hi Gavin,

Yes I have taken my laptop to the Apple Store. Initially they thought that it might be a display issue and that there might have been a problem with where the screen connected to the laptop. They suggested replacing the screen which I would have had to pay for.

But I then mentioned the nVidia graphics card issues, as mentioned in the support article linked above. The genius I was with didn't think that this was the problem since only my internal screen was affected and output to an external display was normal (which is apparently rare in the case of nVidia graphics card problems). Anyway, he said that he would check and took the laptop away to run some more tests.

When he came back he said that the tests did indeed show a problem with the nVidia graphics card. So he suggested replacing the logic board (which would be a free replacement since my laptop was just under 4 years old) but he warned me there might be a separate issue with the display which might need replacing. They agreed to replace the logic board first and to see what happened.

I had a phone call from them the other evening to say that they had replaced my logic board and this had appeared to fix the problems. They hadn't needed to replace the screen. I haven't yet had the chance to collect my laptop and see for myself, but hopefully now the problems are fixed. The original problem I had was intermittent and the display could switch between being affected and being normal, so I guess there is a chance my screen just happened to switch back to being normal to coincide with the new logic board, but I doubt it. Hopefully when I collect my laptop later this week everything will look good and will stay fixed permanently.

So to answer your question, yes I did take it to Apple and yes the test they ran appeared to show a problem with the graphics card. The genius originally thought that there might be an issue with the screen (perhaps something coming loose with where it connects to the main body of the laptop) but replacing the logic board appears to have fixed my problems.

Good luck, I hope you manage to get your laptop fixed!

Yes, that looks exactly like the problem I was having. My screenshot above is not so clear because initially every other line of pixels had this yellowish tinge to it. But more recently every other line of pixels was black, just like your photo. Hopefully they will be able to sort the problem out for you.