New MacBook has flickering/shimmering screen?

Hello,

I just took delivery of a new 2.0 MacBook (upgraded from a PowerBook G4 12"), and I'm starting to notice a strange flickering or shimmering in the screen. It's very mild—to the point where some people I've shown it to can't see it—but it makes me think of an old CRT monitor with a slightly low refresh rate. It's just barely noticeable, but my eyes ache a little after using it for any length of time.

I've tried using SwitchResX to increase the refresh rate to 75Hz, but that made no difference. It does seem to be intermittent, though: it was bad last night and this afternoon, but seemed better this morning.

Has anybody else noticed this effect?

Is it normal for this model?

Is there anything I can do about it myself, without taking it back to a store? (It's a BTO with a different keyboard, and I'm going to be abroad for the next six weeks, so returning it would be difficult—I've already decided to live with the stuck pixel in the corner).

Any ideas?

I've just discovered that it only has the flicker when it's plugged into the mains. On battery power, it's fine, but as soon as the plug goes in, it starts to flicker, and stops again as soon as the plug comes out.

Hi ATimson, that's a thought... so I've tried a friend's power supply unit and a couple of different wall sockets, but no joy. *rules out psu*

Silverblack,

I'm actually in Italy! I did have a UK cable handy and tried that without success (although of course the third wire in the UK cable didn't actually have a socket to go into, and would just have got lost somewhere in the UK-Italy plug converter).

So it's not an issue with the power supply unit itself. I'm now wondering if it could be the way the MacBook handles the Italian power supply. (There shouldn't really be a problem—none of the other Macs I've used in Italy have had trouble, and this one's an Italian MacBook!)

Ron21, I've done that. It got rid of the alarming (though deliberate) dimming when I unplugged the cable, but made no difference to the plugged-in flicker.

I've already deselected the automatic brightness adjustment, so no dice there.

I wasn't using a surge protector, but it's doing it on battery as well, now, so I guess the power source isn't the issue. But it's intermittent—I took it into an authorized service centre today, and of course it worked perfectly... I suspect the same thing will happen if I send it in to Apple, so I think for the moment I'll just wait and see if the problem disappears (great) or gets worse or more permanent (in which case, I'll actually be able to show it to a technician).

Incidentally, I mentioned the dead pixel to the technician, more by way of conversation than anything else as it doesn't really bother me, and he told me that Apple's official line on screen replacements is seven dead pixels!