Blinking monitor on brand new Mac Pro!

[Gonk42]

I started my new job (research post) on the 4th of January with a brand new Mac Pro which sounded like a jet air-craft so it went off to have the graphics card replaced.

Yesterday it returned (i.e. after 1 1/2 weeks!) and it is nice and quiet.

After less than a day's use the monitor suddenly starts blinking on and off with an associated click on the speakers. This is a 27inch Apple display (also brand new).

It is intermittent but once it starts the monitor turns off for a few seconds, then on for about 10 seconds then off again for a couple of seconds and so on.

It is worse on one mini-display port socket than on the other. A Dell monitor plugged in via an adapter seemed ok.

I guess this means that I'll be without my computer for another couple of weeks.

I went for the Apple option because I thought it would be nice and quiet and reliable - so far it has been just the opposite and makes me appreciate the boring reliability of my Dell workstation at home!

 

[Transporteur]

If you are within 80 miles of an AASP or Apple Store, request a local repair instead of sending the machine in.

 

[Gonk42]

If you are within 80 miles of an AASP or Apple Store, request a local repair instead of sending the machine in.

The problem is that there isn't a direct link between myself and Apple. The machine belongs to the university so the chain goes - I raise the matter with the local lab maintenance/hardware people - they then have to transport it to the central university repair people who are Apple approved - they then deal with Apple (or repair it directly). But as the university repair people mainly deal with Linux/Windows machines they don't have many Apple trained engineers (I think) so the whole process is rather slow and very frustrating.

To be fair, I perhaps can't blame Apple for the slowness in repairs but I do blame them for the initial faults.

It's a nice machine when it works (so far that has been for about one day in 14), but it will have to work fautlessly for a few months now before I feel relaxed with it.

 

[Dr.Pants]

People get lemons - you may have one.

At any rate, if the adapter works just fine for the Dell monitor (assuming its a MDP->DVI adapter) its your display that's the problem.

 

[gullySn0wCat]

Couldn't you just use it with another monitor?

 

[Gonk42]

Couldn't you just use it with another monitor?

That is what I'm now doing - I have a loan 24inch Samsung monitor which so far is working fine. So it seems to be definitely the monitor not the graphics card.

The 27inch Apple monitor is sitting on my desk waiting for Apple to come back with arrangements to swap it. I suspect that this may be a slow process despite the fact that the university must be a fairly large Apple customer.

Since the monitor and computer are separate items - though both supplied direct from Apple I understand - I must be rather unlucky to have had a fault with both! (Either that, or Apple's quality control is not very good.) It is not a very good introduction to my first Apple computer.

 

[brentsg]

Are there any firmware updates for the 27" ACD?

 

[Gonk42]

Are there any firmware updates for the 27" ACD?

There was - Apple support asked that I download it first, but when I tried this I got the message that it was already installed. (The update was dated Sep 2010 while the monitor was bought in December so this wasn't that surprising.)