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Graphical Glitch on alum MacBook external display

blakespot

blakespot

Administrator
Original poster
Jun 4, 2000
1,375
171
Alexandria, VA
I made a post on Apple's support forums detailing a graphical glitch I was seeing on my 2.0GHz aluminum (late 2008) MacBook's external screen (an Apple 20-inch Cinema Display). The glitch did NOT occur on the internal screen.

I repeat the post here:

I am seeing graphical glitches appearing on the 2nd screen hooked to my aluminum MacBook (late 2008) through Apple's mini DisplayPort to DVI adapter. Dancing pixels, of a sort.

They are not there initially, but appear after an hour or two of use.

Unplugging and re-plugging the screen into the MacBook clears the issue...for a while...

The monitor in question is an Apple Cinema Display with an ADC connector, going through and Apple DVI to ADC converter before getting to the mini DisplayPort to DVI adapter. It's a lot of adapters, but it should not be a problem. And the glitches were never seen when this external screen was (until recently) used with my MacBook Pro rev 1.

See a poor-quality video of the glitches here:

http://gallery.me.com/blakespot#100108

Is anyone else experiencing this? Thanks.
Click to expand...

I have since returned my 2.0GHz MacBook in exchange for a 2.4GHz unit (I could not live without the illuminated keyboard I was used to on an earlier MBP). I see the glitch on this unit as well...

I recently launched Unreal Tournament 2004 while the glitch was evident and the dancing pixels became dramatically more prevalent - maybe 1/4 of the on-screen pixels were affected. When I exited the game, the external screen went back to the "normal" level of dancing pixels. Sleeping and waking the laptop, as expected, removed the glitches...until they come back.

Two others in the original Apple Support Forums thread report seeing the same. This seems potentially a widespread issue.

Has anyone noticed the same? Thanks.



blakespot
 
I have the exact same issue with the exact same setup. I just unplug the display and plug it back in when it happens.
 
Yea, at first I was plugging / unplugging the display and it worked, but I like the sleep / wake notion as I'm not rubbing contacts to solve the problem. It happens one a work-day, really, it seems.


blakespot
 
Yeah, a friend has been seeing issues with a similar setup but the problem has been slightly different - his occurs when the Macbook is woken up from sleep mode. Please see the Macrumors thread I started. I posted links to a video and the Apple forum on the issue too.

Still no answer on the issue despite a long time by my friend on the phone to Apple support.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/598874/
 
I've had this once on my and I use the external display setup all the time. I believe there is a fix planned for this so I won't be doing anything about it for a short time.
 
i had that issue of dancing pixels, my solution was to use the HDMI input of my monitor.... I had to get a DVI-D to HDMI cable to hook it up to my samsung monitor's hdmi and it solved the problem.

Yet using pure DVI creates that interference, and some random accross-the-screen green lines. Thing that doesnt happen with 2 older computers, just my macbook (new one). I went to an apple store, and the genius said that my monitor had some incompatibility, we tried 2 apple displays and that glitch was not there....

Yeah, there is some article that says that some work is on the way, not sure when, but for me going to HDMI has solved this issue of dancing pixels, however, the after wake up issue is still there, i have to press CTRL+SHIFT+EJECT to sleep the monitors and wake them up later for them to work fine.
 
i have recently started seeing these dancing pixels as well.

i have been experimenting with with video out to HDMI with my lcdtv. when i wake from sleep, they are there, regardless of application.

i am running 10.5.7 on a 2.7 macbook.
 
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