2016 13" Macbook Pro display problem

My 2016 13" MacBook Pro (no touch bar) three times gave a weird display (image above from Dec. 29, 2016, before 'repair'). 'Chat' support with AppleCare told me to zap the PRAM and resect the SMC after the first one. Took it in to the Genius Bar, and the machine was sent away for testing--no faults found by Apple Repair in the hardware. A 'clean-install' of a new system (still running 10.12.2, as it was before); then last week I reloaded my data and applications from a Carbon Copy Cloner backup done before the MBP was sent for repair. All went well, until today when I had the same event occur, and the whole screen was weird. Cleared up after 15-20 seconds, without any treatment by me. Only programs open were Apple's Mail, Safari, and QuickTime. Now what?

Happens to me as well on:

MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2016, Two Thunderbolt 3 ports)

10.12.3

Happened for the first time yesterday, seems to be temperature related. Starts very bad on wake up (login screen is all covered with horizontal grey lines), then lines staying only on the top of the screen for the next ~15mins until it worms up.

handbbr and others, any difference for you on new machines? There is another thread on this here: Re: 2016 MacBook Pro 13.3 with touch bar screen has lines across the top

My interpretation is that this is a hardware design issue, where the very thin screen/lid is not properly thermally buffered/insulated and so acts up when the machine is physically cold. It then goes away once it gets back to a reasonable operational temperature (which is 10ºC/50ºF for these machines). As irritating as this is, so far I've not seen any evidence that it is having lasting damage on the screen. Consequently, I've not bothered going through the process of trying to get a replacement because I think the same thing will happen (at least until this is reported more and more and Apple works on a hardware design fix). Especially as Genius Bar responses seem to be very variable, depending on how re-creatable the issue is at the Genius Bar (i.e. how cold the machine is at the time), or if they've seen other cases yet. But I'd love to hear differently. Has anyone received a replacement that doesn't do this when it is physically cold?

Intermittent problems can be hard to diagnose and may not always get caught by a hardware test. Call AppleCare back and tell them the problem is still there and get a case number if you haven't already. Be prepared to take a photo of the problem next time it occurs to document it. It's to your advantage to be persistent until this gets fixed.

If you have an external display, see if the distortion is also present on it. That will help to narrow the problem down. Also, if you find a way to trigger the problem so that Apple can see it directly, that will also help in getting it diagnosed and fixed.

Good luck!

Thanks for your encourangement.

The problem persisted over the weekend. It seemed to occur after the MBP awakened on cool mornings after it (and I) had been sleeping overnight. I took a 10 second video of its recurrence (on and off and on and off) on my iPhone, and yesterday took both to the local Apple store. They accepted that it was repeatedly occurring and merited replacement of the MBP with a new one at no cost to me. However, I had to either reorder another online (charged to my credit card), and bring the 'old' new one to exchange with the 'new' new arrives in two weeks, and then receive the credit on my card, or leave the machine with them and they would call when the new one is available. Since the 'old' new one is still viable, I elected the first option.

I can only hope that there is no repeat problem on the 'new' new one, which would imply a software problem. I doubt it will. This is the first 'lemon' that I have had since I started buying Macs in 1984.

Apple had to replace the display and logic board to resolve the issue. I've used it for two months since issue starts to happen. In two months issue progressed and screen started to do ghosting and was not responding to changes.

Definitely take it in for evaluation--it should not be doing this.

If the monitor does not duplicate the MBP display, it suggests a display problem with the MBP or an internal connection problem to the display.

Ciao.