Distorted, Garbled, Jumpy lcd on Mac Book Pro C2D 15

Return it ASAP for exchange (or have it repaied), you have a defective component.

hey,
i think we have the same screen/video bug, except that mine happens without any reason
can u check my pictures and tell me if u had the same thing?
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/7888/dsc03013mx3.jpg
http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/7905/dsc03014tf5.jpg
http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/5957/dsc03015qk8.jpg

i phoned to applecare, i sent them these pictures but they didnt reply to my request. i really dont know what to do.???

I had the same problem. Apparently this issue is coming up with if you have a second display connected. I was reading about another issue regarding battery life in laptops and someone recommended removing your battery if you are going to run the laptop on AC power. If you leave the battery in it heats up and lowers it's lifespan. This is normal for LiON batteries, according to experts in the field. I tried this today with a second monitor hooked up and there has been no problem with the display after 3 hours of use.

My guess is that when you have the battery in the computer the excess heat is causing a problem with some part of the video card related to the internal monitor. Not scientific, but just my observation.

I'll probably contact Apple tomorrow and see what they say. It's too bad but I never had a problem with my old G4 laptop. I love this new machine but the quality control seems to be a big problem with this new generation of Macs.

MBP C2D 15" Mac OS X (10.4.8)

this problem happens spontaneously WITHOUT any external display connected to my MBP! (read my topic http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=759358&tstart=15 and take a look at the pix on the previous post)
i experienced this bug in both situation: on AC power AND on battery!
the only way to solve it was to reboot the mac. fortunately, it only happened 4 times...in three weeks.... 😟
btw, me too, i really love my 1st mac (15 years on PCs!) but there is really a quality control problem w/ this new gen...

I see this on my brand new MacBook C2D 15 as well! It seems to only happen if I'm using two displays. It's REALLY annoying.

Does anyone know for sure if this is a hardware issue? Or is this an issue with all MacBook Pros?

PS - I think I just noticed that if you unplug power then plug it back in, it seems to SOMETIMES fix the issue without rebooting. You might want to try this if you're hooked into power.

AppleCare finally e-mailed me back, but did they answer my question??? i'm not so sure as well. i wont post the mail cause its in french...
to resume, the guy doesnt know if its software or hardware! he told me to save all my important data, format my hdd and reinstall macosx! and see if the problem is still there! he also told me that if i dont have the time to/or i dont want to do this, i can send my mac to an apple service center!
the thing is this happens spontaneously without connecting my (brand new, i can say...its only 3 weeks old!) MBP to an external monitor. And this happened 4 times in 3 weeks, so its (pretty) rare.
What do u thk? is it an overheating on the graphic card/motherboard? or for u, a connecting issue when u plug another screen? or do u really thk its software??? (me, i dont thk so...)
the last time i had it was almost a week ago, i will see if its happening again???!!! the only thing i did was to reset the PRAM and delete some config files (2 actually)
PLEASE HELP US!!!! 🙂

i got exactly the same problem when i connect an external display to DVI. Restart solved it for the moment... but that's not the right solution....

MBP 15" Mac OS X (10.4.8) fast 😉

p.s. My MBP 15" 2160 is 3 days old.

My exerience is consistent with the above descriptions. Get your logic board replaced before your warranty runs out!

Whenever I connected to either a projector or external monitor the main display went crazy. Double images, blurry, screen rolling up and down - completely unusable. Thankfully, replacing the logic board has fixed the problem.

This symptom comes at the end of a chain of problems. I have previously had the logic board replaced (noise), the computer replaced (noise), the trackpad replaced (edge lifting out of casing) and then the logic board replaced a further three (3) times (noise, wrong resolution, external monitor issue). While the latest replacement has fixed this problem I'm simply waiting for the next thing to go wrong.

Apple have refused to extend my warranty as I requested and instead suggest that I go out and buy applecare cover! Why should I foot the bill when it has taken 9 months to get a computer that matches manufacturer's specification? I was once a huge fan of apple's work but this whole experience has left me very disappointed.

Apple are letting themselves down with their poor quality control and customer service.

MBP 2.0GHz, Power Mac G4 Dual 1.25GHz Mac OS X (10.4.8) iBook G3 500

Thank god I'm not the only one losing her mind. I had the exact same problem. Had a lab presentation, hooked up my MBP C2D 15.4 to the VGA using my adaptor, started my powerpoint and boom! Screen went totally katty wampus. I mean, you couldn't even read anything on it the horizontal lines were so distorting. Now the projected ppt was fine, so I had to just go by the projected image w/o looking at my laptop (because it was so bad). I would close the lid (because that would work when my screen would garble on its own w/o an external display connected!) and that would fix the problem... for about 5 seconds. Then the display would simply go south. My presentation lasted an hour as did the garbled screen.

I called the Applecare techs (I already had a case number for my prior complaint) and the entry level tech asked what model the projector was and then proceeded to tell me that they don't fix "third party" problems, since the projector caused the problem. I told him the laptop would do this with and without an external connection. After going back and forth and getting irate with the guy, I managed to get somebody higher up. And after he told me the same thing, I told him this was unacceptable and that my screen is defective. He finally sent out "the box" to me and I sent the laptop in to them. They emailed me after 2 days saying they couldn't recreate the problem and "does it happen with or without the external display?". I told them to read the case notes as I explained it to them in excrutiating detail. So now they've had my computer for over a week, and apparently, they're waiting for a part to arrive (online status).

I am fed up and highly disastified with the phone care that I've received. I expected much better from a company that I've been suporting for over 20 years. The only reason I got this MBP was because my Powerbook G4 got stolen. Man, I loved that computer.

Will update as I get info. Thanks so much for letting me rant. My poor husband gets an earful.

MBP C2D 15.4" Mac OS X (10.4.8) iMac G4

Well, don't feel too alone, this is exactly what my display has been doing (and not plugged into an external monitor). I was sitting here capturing some DV video when all of a sudden the entire screen started to do this flicker-thing (almost looks like an interlace flicker or something).

The best part? I just got this laptop on Friday, and after being concerned about the backlight display problems (mine looks good to me) and graininess I was pretty happy with what I got. Installed FCS, Shake, Bootcamp, and a bunch of Windows programs thinking all was right with it, then this happens.

I rebooted, it looked better. The captured movie was fine, so I sent it to Compressor to make a DVD of it and see how that works, and it happens again. Another reboot, it looks fine. Another try with Compressor, display goes totally crazy.

So it's off to the Apple store tomorrow for me! This is totally unsatisfactory... not a great way to start out with my first Mac ever!

I've got this exact same problem. I use a projector for my TV. When I want to play a video on it, I've tried configuring expanded display and mirrored display, as well as using a DVI monitor connection instead of my project for which I need to use the DVI-VGA adaptor.

Whether I'm just displaying apps on the external screen, or watching video, after a few minutes the internal LCD screen goes very distorted, as has been described. I've not contacted Apple yet as this is the only issue I've encountered with this otherwise fantastic machine. I'll hold off a bit to see if there are any easier solutions.

-Pete

I'm farily sure this is related to a software problem - although it could be a combination. My MBook Pro developed the screen flicker right after I upgraded to 10.4.7 - so I downgraded back to 10.4.6 (which the system shipped with) - problem went away. Upgraded back to 10.4.8....guess what...the problem is back....... very frustrating...