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

im hooked up with my mbp c2d on external dvi flat panel already 3weeks. and so far no problem. the experience is great! and i have osx 10.4.8 ...

therefore i think it's a h'ware issue. for sure. and im very disturbed by your experience with apple customer service...i hope my unit will just serve well for ever..)

good luck

i have the same problem only sometimes mine happens back to back. closing the computer helps sometimes, sometimes restarting helps. I went to the apple store and stayed there one day for an hour waiting for it to mess up and nothing. they said that they were only going to be able to help me if they could see it. i just got my mac in july, first time user and it needed to be fixed in september. they had to put in a ne processor and hard drive. i am completely dissapointed, it looks like i will be without the laptop again for a couple of months if i can ever get them to see the problem.

Well, I have received my MBP c2d back after a month of waiting (see earlier post).

It appears that Apple had replaced my display: 646-0314 WXGA,AG,CHIMEI,MI.
I've no idea what else they did. And I loathe to call Apple anymore. It's a crapshoot to get anyone who can really help you. I called them last Thursday to change my shipping address (reroute it to the office where someone can sign for it) and just doing that mucked up their system. The website said it was sent but the DHL manifest said it wasn't received. So I had to call Apple (again) to track it down and finally ended up talking to their dispatch. They finally got it to DHL and I now have it on my person.

So the screen looks good for the interim. No funny bright spots or pixels out (I'ver read SO MANY posts on everything having to do with displays). I'm cautiously optimistic but realistically accepting that something will go wrong - it's just a waiting game now.

I'm so down on Apple now - what with their "creative" financials in addition to the poor customer service that I have received and mostly of the substandard product that I "upgraded" to. I hope that my MBP will run successfully in order to restore some of my faith in Apple. (I feel for those who are on their 4th or 5th MBP..). Thanks everyone for writing in about their problems. It's nice to know that I'm not alone...

I hope that the Apple folks will realize the errors of their ways and go back to backing their "on the edge" designs with quality products. But they won't. It seems to me that they're more concerned with putting out sexy, splashy product announcements that push the limits but then the product itself ends up being a half-baked and rushed to market (or features that were touted won't be available until 6 months later). Okay, I'm done.

Leona



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

You need the fans to be running at 5000 RPM to get to around 50 degrees Celsius???? How hot is the environment your Mac is kept in??

At the most, I use 3500 RPM, when running Parallels and doing some things in Photoshop CS2 and that pretty much keeps it below 60 degrees Celsius (140 F).

Otherwise I use 2000 RPM, and I get 40-44 degrees Celsius (104-113 F). This is in a warm summer climate.

From reading all the threads the past few months, the screen display corruption issue on MBP's connecting to external monitors has been because of upgrading from 10.4.6 to the anything higher.

Though then there was the case of people having issues without connecting to external display, that was narrowed down to faulty logicboards, which Apple would happily replace. (This applied to the new C2D MBP)

Yet it gets stranger when, as someone else mentioned on this thread, some people aren't having the issues.

Well, I'm back.

As I'm writing this post, my screen is doing the horizontal, intermittent, white line flashes. It's different than my original problem, but still just as annoying. The screen sometimes flashes a portion of the itself but at a lower position on the screen - just for a split second. But all of this intermittent flashing blips makes my display do a shimmy shimmy shake.

I loathe to call the morons again at Applecare, but it's a necessary evil. I will do what it takes to get a working laptop even if it means I join the exclusive "+5 and counting MBP C2D repairs" club.

I'm a very unhappy MBP C2D owner. Will report back later.

Leona

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

Update:

The same horizontal distortion problem is back again. And still w/o an external display connected. I'm not sure what sets it off though. I brought it home on the weekend and couldn't reproduce the problem, although I just had the lid open and ran iTunes all weekend so it wouldn't sleep. No distortion happened.

However, today back in the office, I started watching a youtube video (though I can't really watch videos in YouTube even with Flip4Mac - sound comes through but picture is static). I walked away and came back to my screensaver doing the distortion display. I'm going to bring my digital camera tomorrow to record this event and then head to my local Apple store and show the "geniuses" whaddup.

Apple replaced my display only. I don't understand why my logic board wasn't replaced since that seems to be the default repair for the screen issues.

Question: those of you on your 4th or 5th (or 2nd) screen repair, does the distortion problem still persist after a logic board replacement? I'd be curious to find out.

Thanks.
Leona

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

coucou, vaux mieux que tu l'ammennes chez Apple Center... le plus vite possible, car tu sais, on dit qu'on a droit a 3 fois de reposition des machines... j'en suis pas sure en France... mais moi je pense qu'il vaux mieux se depecher aller chez eux... tu l'as achetee ou? chez eux ou chez qlq'un d'autre? je pense qu'en tout cas, c'est la meme chose la garantie...

I was finally able to take my macbook pro into the apple retail store to have it looked at, and the result is that they had to replace my logic board. Good thing that it was still under warranty because it would have been an exspensive repair. I have now had my laptop back for a week and have not had the distortion problem.
My distortion problem would occur without notice, at any time of the day and without being conected to an external display

I've had my MBP 2.33 15.4" for just under two weeks now. It has the same distortion that you seem to be having. I do not have it hooked to an external display. Has anyone be able to narrow it down to a harware or a software problem?

Thanks for your reply.

hardware problem. Take it to the nearest apple store. they diagnosed mine as needing a new logic board. I never had mine attached to an external display either and it was becoming such a problem. they will not be able to help you though unless they can see the problem for themselves. I had to make 4 seperate trips to the store because mine would not always act up while there. I have only had mine for 5 months so it was covered under warranty. Good thing too, because it would have cost me a little under nine hundred to have it fixed. It was repaired on site and I had my laptop back in about 5 days. So my advice would be to take it back. I have not been able to stay off mine since I have had it fixed. hope this helps.

I took it to the nearest Apple store last night and the Genius guy said said he thought the logic board should be replaced even though we could not duplicate the problem. I asked if we could swap for another computer since I've only had this one for two weeks. He checked things with the manager and said I had to do it through Applecare because the original did not come out of their store stock. (I ordered it online). I called Applecare this morning and they had me reset a bunch of things and said they could not replace it because the phone tech did not have that authority. I will wait until it does it again and then call applecare and get it taken care of. Seems silly to me that they won't replace it right away? I would understand if the MBP was months old but this one is just two weeks old. Oh well, I guess it is jump through the hoops time. We'll see what happens.

I've received my MBP C2D back from repair. This time, they replaced the logic board and my keyboard, since I was having issues with sticky keys. Apple returned my laptop to me in record time (~4 days).

In order to expedite the repair, I videotaped my horizontal distortion using my digital camera. I had about 4 movies that I placed in a folder in the middle of the desktop labeled "Please View These Videos." That way, they knew exactly what I was complaining about w/o resorting to the "we can't reproduce the problem" or the "it's not a known issue at this time" crap.

I'll keep my eye out if the distortion comes back again. Keep your fingers crossed.

Leona

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

Hi all,

I started this topic again ( http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=859464&tstart=0), not realise it was discussed here.

Just wondering how people went about fixing this? I purchased my MBP over the phone to receive my education discount. Here in Melbourne, I don't think we have an Apple Store as such, just authorised resellers. As the problem is sporadic, how do I prove to Apple my MBP is defective? I do have photos and video on my website, but I doubt that helps.

Thanks!

At the apple store I showed them a picture and that was good enough. They, could not exchange it though because I did not purchase it there so they had me call applecare. When I called, I just explained what was happening and applecare gave me the option of sending it in for repair or, because my MBP was only two weeks old, I could swap it out for a new one. That was on the second call. On the first call they had me reset a few things but the problem returned.

Just call applecare and see what they say.