Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015 MacBook Pro issue: screen flickering and split

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Level 1

8 points

Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015 MacBook Pro issue: screen flickering and split

Very happy user of a 2011 Macbook pro, I thought to buy a brand new 2015 macbook pro, 15", 16GB ram, 512 GB flash disk..... I hoped to have a brand new Mac, that will not suffer memory shortage, and much faster.

It was, faster, for one week. Happy.

Then, flickering time to time, very fast, say 10-15Hz strange flickering (turning slightly grey, at a frequence that really annoys the eyes).

Then, split screen time to time, as in the video below.

https://youtu.be/yC1qTuE4RTc

(graphic card: AMD Radeon R9 M370X 2048 MB)

Tomorrow calling the Apple support... but what is happening? should I think to send back to them, and have it wiped out? going to make a backup now...

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.2), Mid 2015, 2.8 GHz i7; AMD Radeon R9

Posted on Dec 29, 2015 3:29 PM

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Answer 1

FilippoGat Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 30, 2015 2:30 AM in response to Nakwenda

Hi Nakwenda,

thank you for your prompt reply.

I just gave up, thinking to call Apple service today (cannot find any number here in Portugal, but I will find!).

But I got one bad news for you (if it's the same problem of mine): this morning, at reboot, my Mac started from recovery partition, asking to be reinstalled..... and in the reinstall view there is this problem of the flickering+split screen. So, or they introduced the "software bug" also in the recovery part, or it's hardware too...... :-(

As this is a computer that is NEW and will always give me problems, I don't want them just to change a couple of things inside and solve it temporarily, I want what I bought, a new, working computer, and I like very much Apple hardware... usually... any chance do have a good machine that I've paid with good money?

thank you (now when I'm writing the split expanded to all the screen........ worse every day/hour! at least is not randomly happening, so that they will do nothing, hehehehehe!!!)

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Answer 2

Nakwenda

Level 1

5 points

Dec 29, 2015 3:53 PM in response to FilippoGat

Same problem for me with exactly the same specs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oViKaiSVwlM&feature=youtu.be

Look at here:

2015 Retina Macbook Screen Flicker

At the moment, i guess apple has no solutions to provide....

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Answer 3

FilippoGat Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 29, 2015 3:52 PM in response to FilippoGat

I've made another video, to show better the behaviour... seems that the screen is split in 2.

When I restart the computer, for 4-5 minutes it's okay, and then starts this strange behaviour. It started when I transfered with Airdrop some files of 8GB each, to move things from old Mac, still good, and new Mac, now ready to go to be fixed......

https://youtu.be/hw6xhkPoVlU

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Answer 4

FilippoGat Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 29, 2015 4:33 PM in response to FilippoGat

Funny, the flickering and split screen is happening also at the login screen.

Every 2 seconds (almost) the effect is turned ON/OFF, and when ON, the screen is flickering between the current screen and some "old" screen (in the video I've a browser with Google in the "old" screen), at a frequence that is really visible (~10Hz?). To compare with, my old MacBook Pro 2011 has very nitid and stable image, while the new 2015 MacBook with this issue is 2 seconds more "stable", and 2 seconds flickering very very annoyingly...

More than this quite odd effect (that seems more firmware than hardware), the screen is split in 2, in a bad way, as shown in each one of the 3 videos, in 2 different positions, changing at the same time of the ON/OFF of the flickering...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFkIJWeKam0

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Answer 5

FilippoGat Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 29, 2015 4:36 PM in response to Nakwenda

Hi Nakwenda, which is your suggestion? Did they "solve" your issue changing something in your MacBook? it's a very brand new 3000€ laptop, top of Apple MacBook, only 2 week of life... are they replying promptly? What should I say them?

Thank you in advance!

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Answer 6

Nakwenda

Level 1

5 points

Dec 29, 2015 4:52 PM in response to FilippoGat

Hello

I looked around on the net, the automatic graphics switch could be involved.

For this, install gfxCardStatus. With this app, you can choose between integrated and dedicated graphics card. Don't forget to turn off the automatic switch. At the moment, it seems to work for me, but i'm not sure 100%. I'm gonna test my mbp with a game.

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Answer 7

Nakwenda

Level 1

5 points

Dec 29, 2015 5:04 PM in response to Nakwenda

I still have the same problem even if i use gfxCardStatus, nevermind the card i choose ... I too my macbook is like new, he has three months .. It really ***** to pay as expensive a computer to find this problem then we just pay dearly for having no problem. The most annoying in this story is that:

1. Apple does not seem able to repair this fault (many examples in the link I gave you)

2. I will not have computer for several days while I study in computer science !

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Answer 8

Nakwenda

Level 1

5 points

Dec 29, 2015 6:29 PM in response to Nakwenda

OK, i didn't want to do that, but i don't have the choice... I'm gonna downgrade osx because this happens exactly after I upgraded El Capitan from 10.11.1 to 10.11.2 . This is the only solution that i see, hardware doesn't seem to be problematic...

I keep you informed.

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Answer 9

Nakwenda

Level 1

5 points

Jan 5, 2016 2:56 PM in response to FilippoGat

I think problem is coming from update from 10.11.1 to 10.11.2

I turned off my mac two days and it repaired itself by magic ! But i noticed that my problem exactly began when i did the update. Maybe you should try to reinstall Yosemite or a previous update, maybe it could repair your mac. I'm almost sure that the problem comes from mac os...

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