Just curious if it has the same issues as the 15" mbp, when the brightness level is set around 1-3 notches does the backlighting pulsate or flicker a bit?
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Does your brand new 17" unibody mbp have a flickering screen in lowest brightness?
- Thread starter jjahshik32
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could anybody with a new 17" tell me if the land on the map is slighly flickering on this site: www.speedtest.net
mine does only on this site. tell me its normal
mine does only on this site. tell me its normal
i did not contact apple because i didn't want to go through the trouble of trying to get the issue fixed. As it seems pretty minor compared to what others are going through, i didn't bother. I'm hoping for some sort of firmware/software fix. I'd hate to send it to apple and either:
a) have them say they don't see a problem
b) say they fixed it and it's not
c) have it come back in worse shape ie)scratches etc.
Other than the above problem my mac has been perfect.
I noticed most of the 15" mbp had the screen flickering issue on lowest brightness and for the past 4 months that its been out there were no firmware issued for that problem.
I wouldnt rely on a firmware update for the 17" mbp either if your having this issue.
I know its minor though because it only flickers on the lowest brightness but I'm hesitating on ordering one just for this issue as my 15" unibody that I sold off a month ago had this issue and drove me crazy.
i know what u mean and i'm not holding my breath for a firmware fix either. I'm just learning to live with it. The weird thing with mine is, if i use the 9400, the flicker goes away after 10 minutes of being cold. If i use the 9600, it's the opposite, it starts off with no flicker but if it gets hot, i get the pulsating , again, at low brightness levels only. Other than that, i love this mbp.
On my previous 15" unibody (been through about 4 for this issue which all 4 had flickering) that it flickered on 1-3 lowest brightness on both 9400m or the 9600m gt.
The thing is, I have my 24" LED ACD connected to my mac mini (also a 9400m) and the cinema display doesnt flicker on any settings, which leads me to believe its some issue in the mbp itself.
It could be something in the logic board (I know the led screens dont use an inverters anymore) or it could be the screen itself. I wonder if it has something to do with the connection being lose from the screen?
try it when the computer is cold, turn it on, go to level 1 brightness and see if it does it then.
Well that didn't last long! Went back to the 9400 and now there is noticeable flickering on the three lowest settings. Seems to be intermittent. We'll see what happens.
John B.
I've got a 15" MBP Uni (refurb). Got the flickering problem with the lower brightness settings.
Was told this morning that Apple are 'aware of the issue' and that there is an update (he said firmware, but then went on to say 10.5.7, so I don't know) coming this week or next that may solve it (but they don't know because they don't have the release notes yet.)
EDIT:
The flickering itself goes away after it's 'warmed up a bit' (it seems to be an intermittent issue to me), sometimes it's fine, sometimes flickers slightly but it always goes away after a little while (around 5-15 mins after switch on.) I don't see it (or haven't noticed it) at all when it's on 6+ notches.
Was told this morning that Apple are 'aware of the issue' and that there is an update (he said firmware, but then went on to say 10.5.7, so I don't know) coming this week or next that may solve it (but they don't know because they don't have the release notes yet.)
EDIT:
The flickering itself goes away after it's 'warmed up a bit' (it seems to be an intermittent issue to me), sometimes it's fine, sometimes flickers slightly but it always goes away after a little while (around 5-15 mins after switch on.) I don't see it (or haven't noticed it) at all when it's on 6+ notches.
try this test using 9600gt:
1) put on lowest visible brightness setting
2) put a load on your cpu/video card, run several graphic intensive programs to heat up your cpu/gpu
You should see a mild pulsating/flickering of your display most noticeable on a solid white/grey background, if you don't notice it, then you are ok.
Yep. Mine UMBP17 does the same. With the auto-brightness adjustment it goes quite often into 1-3 notches and screen becomes quite unusable. That's why I have disabled said auto adjustment.
On UMBP17 to me lowest usable brightness is 4 bars. And even at 4 the pulsations are visible time after time.
If I would have a chance I would go to Apple Store. At the moment I do not have time for that. The issue needs to be addressed, because lower levels of brightness are useless on my UMBP17. This is quite serious issue for a notebook.
P.S. I'll try to test when my MBP17 is cold too.