Monitor is flickering after upgrading to Mavericks

Hi all,

I have a macbook pro 15" early 2011, just upgraded to Mavericks. NO external monitor. The "horizontal flickering" problem started when I was scrolling a page in Safari, getting worse when hovering the dock — exactly as many of you described.

Then I rebooted. The problem went away, but then all of the sudden the mouse pointer got drawn in a weird way. Instead of rebooting, this time I tried to change the screen resolution as a way to "reset" the graphic card. The problem went away.

My first thought was that my graphic card was broken – you know, it's a 3 years old computer working almost 24h/day... – but after reading your comments it sounds more like a Mavericks' bug!

I solved it: I did a clean install (no Timemachine restore) of Mavericks and the flicker is gone!

I tried Zackdul's solution and it worked for me. I also did a clean install of Mavicks and then a restore from Time Machine just for my personal documents/movies/music and pictures. No more flickerings in de Dock or while opening a window from the Dock (the twist).

So far only on my internal monitor (13" MBP mid 2012). Tonight i'm going to use my external monitor/tv. Fingers crossed.

Thank you Zackdul!

kind regards

Bart

I have same problem on my MBPro Retnina 15" 2012, Tried all the solution found on web but in vain.

Sadly, my computer died all of the sudden immediately after that flickering problem. So, at least in my case, it was a hardware problem.

I had the same problem after installing Mavericks, from Lion, on my iMac . I found changing the scrolling type to "with Inertia", visually, helps slightly but doesn't fix it.

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System Preferences --> Accessibility --> Mouse & Trackpad --> Mouse Options -->

In drop down menu, change to: Scrolling "With Inertia".

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Tried the AutoCad thing with the 2014 free trail version and strangely it seems to have worked. I was still wary so I did a Verify Disk, then did a "command, option, P, R" on start up and it was all right, but reinstalled Mavericks anyway. This time around everything seems okay so far.

I used this to fix the blinking/flashing issue on my external display monitor:

I noticed that when I switched the refresh rate on my display, the blinking/flashing stopped but the screen appeared distorted. It's perfect display works at a refresh rate of 60Hz. So I asked myself what would happen if I knocked it down a notch?

I installed SwitchResX (trial) and created a custom refresh rate for my desired resolution of 58Hz. After restarting my computer the blinking/flashing screen on my external display montior stopped!

Hope this helps!

(I'm not sure when Apple will create a solution so I may have to pay and register for SwitchResX. But it's only 14 euros so not too much...)

Mine has been resolved. I dont know how but its gone by itself. I suppose with an update it resolved itself.

Hey guys,

I have the SAME issue with my Macbook Pro 13" Retina Early 2013. After Updating to Mavericks my screen starts to flicker in irregular intervals. I also did a clean install of Mavericks, the screen still flickers.

I'm realy ****** of 😟

Did any1 know a solution to this problem?? The next store is one hour away from me ;(

Thanks Hep51! I noticed a certain gray color was flickering on my macbook. I did what you suggested (below) and it solved it.

System Preferences > Energy Saver > Automatic graphics switching (Deselect the checkbox).

Suffering same issue.

I think these days with apple, you need to make an "air quotes" gesture when you mention the word "update".

I have had this issue since 10.9 released last year, and it is ongoing with the latest update 10.9.1 (current release).

The first thing I noticed in Mavericks was the refresh rate is locked at 60Hz with my external monitor at all resolutions, high and low. It does not matter how low I set the resolution, the screen will flicker on/off again if I gesture near the dock or open Safari. Strangely, the issue is not present in Safe Mode so the issue is definitely specific to Mavericks in standard boot and, I conjecture, how it handles GPU-related tasks.

As a workaround, I downloaded an app called SwitchResX (shareware) and lowered the resolution just slightly (1680x1050@60Hz down to 1280x960@75Hz) the flickering stopped completely.

For perspective, the monitor is rated at a max resolution and refresh rate of 1680x1050@60Hz so I am unable to test a higher refresh rate at that resolution. Moreover, the flickering appears to only happen at the 60Hz range. Ex. Setting the external monitor resolution down to 1280x960@60Hz will flicker; however, 1280x960@75Hz will not flicker.

I do not know how much or little this will help those affected but now it's out there, hopefully someone will benefit from it. Personally, I'd rather have a 2nd monitor running at a lower resolution without flicker than at the default resolution and flickering.

Again, the application I used is called "SwitchResX" (shareware, 10 day trial) and it is available on: http://www.madrau.com

Good luck!

- John

PS: You'd do well to submit feedback to Apple on this issue if you are affected. http://www.apple.com/feedback/

I have a MBA 2013 with latest mavricks .. Just ran autocad 2014 then exited it and it solved the issue for me just like magic .. though i think it could be a graphic card switching related issue ??