# MacBook Pro LCD screen glitch (dark vertical stripes on booting)



## greg-the-fox (Mar 18, 2012)

I suppose this is not a really huge deal as it only happens every once in a while booting, the screen is noticeably darker and lit mainly from the bottom, there are vertical stripes of light and dark patches. It won't go away on it's own, it will stay like that unless I fix it by rebooting, though rebooting twice is sometimes necessary. It still freaks me out though, and I would like to know if anyone's seen it or knows if it's a sign of anything more serious, or if something is actually wrong with my screen or the LEDs behind it. I would hate to see my screen just suddenly die one day. This computer's 3 and a half years old by the way, the casing's in pretty good shape but the lid might be a _tiny_ bit warped, I noticed when it's closed there's a little bit of a gap at the corners. My cat _may_ have sat on it a few times >> (not that I let him)

I wasn't able to get very good pictures, it's much more dramatic in real life and it only really shows up against the blank boot screen:

Glitched boot screen with stripes
Normal boot screen

The glitch doesn't cause a difference in color, you're just seeing two points in the boot process, I probably should've timed the photos better (if you're unfamiliar with macs the screen turns gray first, then blue momentarily before loading the login window)


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## Runefox (Mar 18, 2012)

Looks to me like the LED's in your LED backlit display are starting to decay. How old is the MacBook Pro? If it's under warranty (or AppleCare), you should be able to get that fixed.

EDIT: Judging by the look of it, it's a 2008 model. Doubt that's under warranty... Fixing something like that's not an easy job unfortunately, and not something I'd recommend trying yourself, unless you're really, REALLY good with disassembling electronics and probably using a soldering iron.


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## greg-the-fox (Mar 18, 2012)

Runefox said:


> Looks to me like the LED's in your LED backlit display are starting to decay.



That's what I was afraid of... how much longer do you think they'll last? (I always keep my screen on full brightness lol)
Applecare ran out several months ago unfortunately... I'd be willing to spend a couple hundred tops, how much would a repair like that cost? (I would just wait until it failed completely)
One of these days I need to get a new computer but I'm too invested in this one :T


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## Elim Garak (Mar 18, 2012)

lol mac.

Display backlight or Display controller probably fucked.

How long it will last? Not sure.
How much will it take for it to be fixed?
Regular 17 in laptop about 300-480 depending on brand and model.
Mac? Your fucked.


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## Frroat (Mar 18, 2012)

It's probably a backlight display issue, though it _could_ be the logic board going bad. Have you had any weird on-screen glitches while using it? I have sometimes had issues with the displays on my older Macs but they've never gone bad.

If you can take it to an Apple Store, tell them that it's been like that for a long time, sometimes they'll repair your products for free even after the warranty expires (as long as there is no terrible visible damage or water damage). It's worth a shot. I would imagine repairing it could cost a few hundred dollars though.


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## greg-the-fox (Mar 18, 2012)

Wtf it's definitely not the logic board as I JUST got that replaced not even a year ago! (for no cost luckily) When that went bad, it just _died_, no warnings whatsoever. (that I noticed) I haven't noticed anything else wrong with it, when it's working normally the picture is as vivid and sharp as it always was. There's a repair shop I can take it to nearby (Mac Heaven) for specialty stuff the Apple store won't do. (oh not to mention the disc drive doesn't burn discs anymore lol) I'll try to research price estimates, if it's too high I'll just think about buying a new computer (and then the whole mac/pc/hackintosh/desktop/laptop debate rages in my head forever) Hell, I couldn't even get the A/C pump in my car fixed because they wanted like $700


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## Elim Garak (Mar 18, 2012)

greg-the-fox said:


> Wtf it's definitely not the logic board as I JUST got that replaced not even a year ago! (for no cost luckily) When that went bad, it just _died_, no warnings whatsoever. (that I noticed) I haven't noticed anything else wrong with it, when it's working normally the picture is as vivid and sharp as it always was. There's a repair shop I can take it to nearby (Mac Heaven) for specialty stuff the Apple store won't do. (oh not to mention the disc drive doesn't burn discs anymore lol) I'll try to research price estimates, if it's too high I'll just think about buying a new computer (and then the whole mac/pc/hackintosh/desktop/laptop debate rages in my head forever) Hell, I couldn't even get the A/C pump in my car fixed because they wanted like $700


Mac is just overpriced crappy hardware. They also had lovely things such as using the default firmware password on the batteries so someone could in theory brick them and at worst make them overheat.
also this.





Some of the pics are due design errors on the adapters and they eventually fixed it while any brand's adapters had the rubber bend protector.

If you really want OS X there is such a thing as Hackintosh.
I do recommend Windows 7 though, there is nothing wrong with it, viruses are generally user error and BSOD only occurs with hardware failure or someone deleting system files.
Linux is another option, Ubuntu is good for starters but Arch Linux is recommended when you get the hang of Linux.
Also with PC you can get laptops from like 380 euros in 15.6" that are good enough for internet and movies and shit. I bought a laptop for gaming next to my desktop. 800 euros got me a Intel i7, 8GB of ram, AMD Radeon HD 6770 2 GB dedicated, 640GB HDD, 15.6" Led Backlited LCD. Also a decent build quality, mostly metal with sturdy plastic parts in some places.


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## greg-the-fox (Mar 18, 2012)

Will you just fuck off? I knew this would turn into a Mac vs PC debate and it's obvious that you're trolling. Real mature.
For the record I dual boot Snow Leopard and Windows 7, and immensely prefer Snow Leopard.


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## Frroat (Mar 18, 2012)

I'm pretty sure it's the display then, just by the looks of it and that there's nothing else screwy on-screen. Hopefully it doesn't worsen, but I'd get it checked out.

Just curious: what do you use your computer for mostly? I'm asking because unless you really need a high end machine, I think it could be viable to get by with a cheaper PC or an iPad maybe. Depends on the kind of work you do. If you still want a Mac I might go with a refurbished one though, much cheaper but still very decent machines.


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## greg-the-fox (Mar 18, 2012)

Frroat said:


> I'm pretty sure it's the display then, just by the looks of it and that there's nothing else screwy on-screen. Hopefully it doesn't worsen, but I'd get it checked out.
> 
> Just curious: what do you use your computer for mostly? I'm asking because unless you really need a high end machine, I think it could be viable to get by with a cheaper PC or an iPad maybe. Depends on the kind of work you do. If you still want a Mac I might go with a refurbished one though, much cheaper but still very decent machines.



I need a really powerful machine, this is not quite doing it for me at the moment as the hardware is starting to get out of date and I'm really running out of hard drive space. I use it for music production, image editing, painting, CAD drawing/3D modeling, maybe some video production every now and then. (Well the only program that's mac-only I'm really attached to is Logic but I suppose if I switched to Ableton I could do all this on a PC, as I need to dual boot to run some programs anyway)

Oh and gaming. _That's_ where I need the power. But 90% of the time it's just dicking around on the internet (so I kind of want a powerhouse desktop PC and like an everyday notebook/tablet maybe, definitely an Apple product for the latter lol. I would love to have a Mac Pro and dual boot on it but I'm not filthy rich) Except I can't afford to buy _two_ computers/devices right now, much less one. Well honestly this laptop does the job for pretty much everything except gaming, it's a little limited but manageable. (just have to settle for lower graphics settings) Gah I'll just keep it until it completely breaks. I _am_ really tempted to get the new iPad though, but it's still missing features I find really important (flash, pressure sensitivity)


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## Runefox (Mar 19, 2012)

Technically the iPad does have pressure sensitivity, but not much takes advantage of it. I think there's a couple of graphics programs that do, though.

Anyway, if you have Mac-specific programs, you're best served by sticking with a Mac. Instead of dual-booting, though, I'd look into Parallels, which can either place your Windows programs on the same desktop as your Mac, or in a separate desktop (three-finger swipe to it), without having to dual boot. It's quite nice. For gaming, though, you're probably looking at a 15" MacBook Pro at minimum, since that's the floor when it comes to having decent graphics. You may also want to upgrade it to 8GB of RAM (though doing this from Apple costs 400% of what it costs to buy the RAM at retail - Just buy an 8GB kit and install it unless you're really scared about doing it).


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## CerbrusNL (Mar 19, 2012)

Runefox said:


> Technically the iPad does have pressure sensitivity, but not much takes advantage of it. I think there's a couple of graphics programs that do, though.



Nope.
The iPad has no real pressure sensitivity.

They can emulate it by looking at the surface area of the touch. Larger area --> more pressure. But that's not really pressure sensitivity.


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## Aden (Mar 19, 2012)

CerbrusNL said:


> Nope.
> The iPad has no real pressure sensitivity.
> 
> They can emulate it by looking at the surface area of the touch. Larger area --> more pressure. But that's not really pressure sensitivity.



Is truth

there is a company (or two) working on a pressure-sensitive stylus, however


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## Ad Hoc (Mar 19, 2012)

Not a computer guy and it was a couple years ago so I can't really give specifics, but I had a similar problem with my mac about two years ago. Ignored it for about six months before it became particularly disruptive (also it developed a flicker), although it never did render the computer unusable. I got my mac third-hand and it was already pretty old, so no warranty at all. Got it fixed for $175 or sommat at a little independent computer joint. When I get home I can take a picture of the piece they replaced (they gave the malfunctioning one back to me and like a packrat I'm pretty sure I kept it).


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## Runefox (Mar 19, 2012)

Ah, that was Bluetooth. I've used a pressure-sensitive drawing app on my Android phone before, with a regular stylus, though it only had a couple of levels of pressure sensitivity. From what I gather, there is an internal number for it, at least on Android. Either way, yeah.


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## greg-the-fox (Mar 19, 2012)

Runefox said:


> Parallels



NOPE. Tried it, hate it, couldn't do ANYTHING. Virtual machines can't use all your system's power because they have to run your native OS at the same time, and it doesn't directly use your graphics/video card, instead it creates a 'virtual' card, so your computer basically processes graphics twice, making it useless for stuff like gaming. In order to run a virtual machine smoothly you pretty much can only give it enough power to run a netbook... okay for web browsing but to pathetic to do anything else. And even the mouse didn't work right, had horrible lag/stuttering. I would highly recommend no one use it ever.


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## AshleyAshes (Mar 20, 2012)

greg-the-fox said:


> NOPE. Tried it, hate it, couldn't do ANYTHING. Virtual machines can't use all your system's power because they have to run your native OS at the same time, and it doesn't directly use your graphics/video card, instead it creates a 'virtual' card, so your computer basically processes graphics twice, making it useless for stuff like gaming. In order to run a virtual machine smoothly you pretty much can only give it enough power to run a netbook... okay for web browsing but to pathetic to do anything else. And even the mouse didn't work right, had horrible lag/stuttering. I would highly recommend no one use it ever.



That would entirely depend on your hardware though, some CPUs do support features that allow a virtual machine to achieve direct access to the hardware.  Intel's VT-x, VT-d, and VT-c features for example.  Intel VT-d enabled CPUs for example can allow a virutal machine to directly access a graphics card to do labor for it directly.  ...Not my box though, cause I got a K model CPU and so while it has VT-x it lacks VT-d.  The point is, while not universal, the feature is not rare either, and it's unfair to cast virtualization with a blanket like that.


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## kayfox (Mar 20, 2012)

Nowadays virtualization has very little overhead, I would estimate ~6-10% overall, desktop virtualization software has even less overhead when it comes to graphics.  Some software even supports DirectX.

IIRC, VT-d only allows abstraction of a complete PCI device.  

Also, as for the original issue: It looks vaguely like a warped diffuser, or the diffuser has shifted and the light is not evening out enough before it hits the back of the LCD.


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