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New MBP 2.4ghz Nvidia 256mb PROBLEMS Flicker with 30" ACD

S

Shahrum

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 29, 2005
25
0
Northern Virginia
I just got my new MacBook Pro 2.4ghz with 256mb nvidia card. I also upgraded RAM to 4gb ::drools::

picture1la0.png


I also picked up a 30" cinema display hd at the same time. I've gotta say... I was absolutely in love... until I noticed that the darker (mostly black) portions of the screen would random flicker with static lines. I thought that maybe it could be static from my speakers, so I unplugged them and move them away. Still the problem was there.

I changed outlets and everything. I even plugged the cinema display into an entire separate outlet from the Macbook pro. Same issue...

So I returned the cinema display and bought a new one... And guess what... SAME problem!

This weekend I'll try plugging in a different LCD to my macbook pro to see if it's something wrong with the notebook. I think I've fully eliminated electrical interference since I've turned and unplugged every device except the laptop & monitor and it still happens.

Thanks in advance for any help that anyone can provide. TechTool Deluxe tests passed for everything including vram.

picture2fj8.png
 
According to page 27 (near bottom), another new 2.4ghz MBP purchasee is seeing the same issue...

It appears that the new video card in the newest MBP is having the DVI timing issues that the original MBP (and earlier Powerbooks) had with the 30" cinema display. The result is "sparkles" of color resembling intermittent static or "dancing pixels" all over the screen when the screen is completely black--like with the beginning of a quicktime movie trailer or using the default screensaver. The problem occurs when the monitor has been powered on for a while and seems to disappear (for a short while) when turning the monitor off and then back on.

This has been described in other threads:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=221104&start=0&tstart=0

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=4189373&#4189373

I am almost positive this is video card related (or their drivers). Last week's MBP (the 2.33 model) did not have this problem on two separate 30" cinema displays. I tried two brand new MBP 2.4 GHz models and both of them exhibited this behavior on the 30" displays. This seems to confirm that neither the displays nor the laptops are defective (unless I have two defective monitors and two defective laptops).

I also owned the original MBP, and it had this problem too. So, the million dollar question is:

Of the last three MBP revisions, only the second one (the 2.33 one) didn't have this issue. Is this an issue with the video drivers? If so, is there a way to remedy this annoying problem?
Click to expand...

Hopefully this means the nvidia drivers that Apple shipped on these 2.4ghz MBP's will soon be fixed!
 
Shahrum said:
According to page 27 (near bottom), another new 2.4ghz MBP purchasee is seeing the same issue...



Hopefully this means the nvidia drivers that Apple shipped on these 2.4ghz MBP's will soon be fixed!
Click to expand...

I've got a 2.33 MBP. Wanna trade? :D
 
This issue has been going on for years now. I've been interested in this thread for some time as I'm planning to pick up a 30" ACD myself. Speculation has gone from the ACD cable to sleeping the monitor to the video drivers to the 60hz refresh rate as the root cause of the issue. I believe that it's video driver related as well, but for some reason Apple has not been able to 100% resolve the issue. We can always hope.

~shoe
 
im gonna buy a 17" SR MBP which i want to use for my ACD 30". will i have problems?
 
roblin said:
im gonna buy a 17" SR MBP which i want to use for my ACD 30". will i have problems?
Click to expand...

Same question as I have with my Mac Pro. Although I wouldn't go as far as calling this issue "problems". To me it seems just like more of a nuisance than anything else.

Biggest concern to me is the length of time this has been an issue and the fact that Apple hasn't seen fit to do anything to correct it as yet.

~shoe
 
roblin said:
im gonna buy a 17" SR MBP which i want to use for my ACD 30". will i have problems?
Click to expand...

Without having actually replaced my 15" SR MBP with *another new* 15" SR MBP, I can almost guarantee you that you WILL have the same problem.

I highly doubt it's a defective MBP unit but rather maybe a bad video card or issues with the drivers (most likely drivers). The 17" SR and 2.4ghz 15" SR both use the same 256mb Nvidia graphics adapter which seems to be the source of these issues.

Perhaps this would occur no matter what make of display you're using (external display). It should be noticed that the flicker does NOT occur on the built-in LED backlit display -- ONLY on external displays.
 
I had the same flicker problem - on my old G5 PowerMac with a couple of ViewSonic monitors.
The problem was with the monitors, not with the video card on the Mac in my case... And I suspect it is the ACD, not the MBP.
Try a different computer with it and see what happens...
 
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