Rectangle of vertical lines on Macbook

Question

Level 1

8 points

Rectangle of vertical lines on Macbook

Turned on my Macbook Air and was greeted with this screen:

I have since attempted a Thunderbolt/HDMI connection to our TV without success. I can't get the computer past the "Do you want to reset your password?" screen. As my HD is encrypted, I can't launch from the start up disk or erase.

I am out of warranty and since this was a refurbished 11" Air I did not spend the money on AppleCare.

This Air is babied. It is kept in a neoprene case and when I travel it is in the center of a heavily padded briefcase. Never been dropped. It was working in the morning. Shut it down for my trip. Turned it on at the hotel and voila!

Anyone experienced this before?

MacBook Air, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)

Posted on Sep 2, 2016 12:50 PM

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Answer 1

BDAqua

Level 10

250,619 points

Sep 3, 2016 4:21 AM in response to RBT56

Does either one of these methods boot better?

Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.

Bootup holding CMD+r, or the Option/alt key to boot from the Restore partition & use Disk Utility from there to Repair the Disk, then Repair Permissions.

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Answer 2

Sep 2, 2016 1:58 PM in response to RBT56

Hi,

This could be the display cable that goes to the digitizer or the digitizer itself. The cable going to the LCD panel could be frayed or outright broken. I'm not 100% sure about the Air, but I've replaced these panels before on other non-Apple products and sometimes it is a separate cable and sometimes it is integrated into the display. Bringing to an Apple store could determine this.

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Answer 3

RBT56 Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 3, 2016 4:26 AM in response to BDAqua

These were very helpful suggestions as I was at least able to erase the HD and reinstall El Capitan. With the Disk Utility windows opened i could slide them left and right and work with them outside that vertical line rectangle. I was even able to type and access Apple for the software download.

So it is looking like a dead screen as TheHuntsMen998 says or maybe a hardware issue. At what 50%-75% of a new Macbook Air?

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