Graphics corruption - white horizontal line

[thegreatcurve]

I frequently get a flashing white horizontal line appearing in the bottom right hand corner of my Macbook's screen. It's very thin, and extends from the right edge of the dock to the edge of the screen. It seems to occur more often than not under high cpu load, e.g. viewing a youtube video in Safari, or flicking through a folder in cover flow mode in Finder. I bought my Macbook in January 2008.

I took my macbook into an apple authorised service centre a few months back, assuming it was a hardware problem. They concluded that it was instead a bug in OS X (likely brought on by an issue with 10.5.2, its new graphics drivers, and the dock), as they were able to reproduce the problem on a number of other macbooks. They suggested that the problem would likely be fixed in the next update, i.e. 10.5.3, and in the meantime, I could avoid seeing it by hiding the dock, or slimming it down so that it doesn't extend so close to the edge of the screen.

Well now that I have updated to 10.5.3, the problem is still there, and I'm pretty annoyed. Has anyone else come across this issue? What are my options from here?

 

[Jason S.]

This happens to me also. I usually keep my dock fairly small so I don't notice it anymore, but this thread got me wondering and of course I still get the line when I resize my dock.

As far as I know, this is a common problem.

 

[huhwtfisthis?]

i got my macbook for Christmas '07 and also have this problem.
i never used to have this problem until about 2 weeks ago when i installed Norton Anti-Virus (I know i don't need it on my MacBook, but my PC user parents want me to have it anyway) i first noticed it when scanning my computer. But now i also notice it when viewing videos using Safari and when using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. I hope apple finds a way to fix this soon because it is really starting to make me mad.
when did everyone else with this problem start to notice it? i know i started seeing it when i downloaded the virus program, which was also about the same time i started using Photoshop and Illustrator, which was about 2 weeks ago now. I'm just wondering if everyone else started noticing it around then or at a different time?

 

[Neil321]

i never used to have this problem until about 2 weeks ago when i installed Norton Anti-Virus (I know i don't need it on my MacBook, but my PC user parents want me to have it anyway) i first noticed it when scanning my computer. I'm just wondering if everyone else started noticing it around then or at a different time?

Do you yourself a HUGE favour & ditch Norton, it's probably the worst thing you could install on your Mac, i'm sure someone else will back this claim up, or you could try a search if you disbelieve me,if your parents insist on you having an AV try clamxav it's Mac friendly & wont kill it like what Norton will

 

[huhwtfisthis?]

Do you yourself a HUGE favour & ditch Norton, it's probably the worst thing you could install on your Mac, i'm sure someone else will back this claim up, or you could try a search if you disbelieve me,if your parents insist on you having an AV try clamxav it's Mac friendly & wont kill it like what Norton will

why would an anti-virus be bad to have on my mac?
im sure you know what your talking about but deleting it really isn't an option since i just found out that i need Norton on my Mac if i want to take it up to school this fall. My university makes sure everyone with a computer up there has it installed on their computer, even the mac users.
how bad is it to have on a mac? what could happen?

 

[Neil321]

Basically symantic's file structure is not compatible with OS X, once installed it slows things down and turns it into a slug, if you want more proof like i said do a search on these forums or better still put the question out in say the applications forum something like "is norton bad for Mac OS X"

 

[huhwtfisthis?]

Basically symantic's file structure is not compatible with OS X, once installed it slows things down and turns it into a slug, if you want more proof like i said do a search on these forums or better still put the question out in say the applications forum something like "is norton bad for Mac OS X"

wow, ok ill try that...
and to answer the person who started this thread, i think the problem got fixed for the 10.5.4 update, i just updated and haven't noticed it anymore

 

[huhwtfisthis?]

ya the 10.5.4 update didn't work, i'm still seein the flashing line... but it doesn't seem to be happening as much now, but that might just be my imagination... i'm planning on taking my macbook to the genius bar sometime soon if this doesn't get solved

 

[thegreatcurve]

It's not going to be norton or any other specific program that's causing this problem; I think it's more an issue with doing something graphically intensive or requiring high CPU usage. I'm glad to hear it seems to be a fairly common problem, as it makes it more likely that Apple will push out an update to fix it.

i'm planning on taking my macbook to the genius bar sometime soon if this doesn't get solved

Please do, I'd be interested to know what they have to say. I'd love to get the official word on this.

 

[balanjc21]

White horizontal line across the macbook screen'

hi gentlemen,

Need help with the problem i'm facing. as my battery died on me while i was using my Macbook version 10.4.11 tiger, 2 GHz Core Duo. The horizontal white line appeared across the top portion of my screen. Well went thru a couple of websites with regards to this problem, no solution as yet. Well i tried the software update, played around with the display settings, and obviously reboot the system ..... but to no avail. Anyone with the great ability of solving this problem please reply to my thread......Thank you.

regards,
Bala