vertical line on external display

Discussion in 'MacBook Air' started by Gator Bob, Feb 1, 2012.

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  1. Gator Bob, Feb 1, 2012

    Gator Bob macrumors regular

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    Aug 3, 2011
    #1
    A vertical line that ranges from a thin black line to a thick red line periodically appears then eventually disappears then eventually reappears on the external Dell 2408 WFP display attached by mini displayport-to-DVI from my maxed out 2011 Mac Air 13". There is no apparent reason. I've changed the resolution with no effect. I regularly clean house by booting to option-command-p-r and by running sudo periodic, verify permissions and verify hdd.

    I have not seen this in the Bootcamp Windows 7 partition.

    Any thoughts?
     
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  2. agentphish, Feb 1, 2012

    agentphish macrumors 65816

    agentphish

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    Sep 7, 2004
    #2
    sounds like a bad LCD panel on the Dell, or something with your cable.

    Vertical lines are typically LCD. Horizontal lines are typically video signal or bad video card. I say typically because I have seen vertical distortions originate from bad video card as well.

    I'd be most suspect of the LCD panel though.
     
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  3. Gator Bob, Feb 3, 2012

    Gator Bob thread starter macrumors regular

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    #3
    I'm pretty sure it's not hardware. It never appears in the Bootcamp Windows7 partition and it's been mostly disappeared since yesterday's Lion software upgrade. It is a puzzlement but it's mostly an annoyance and not really a problem.
     
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  4. Shadow2k, Feb 3, 2012

    Shadow2k macrumors member

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    #4
    It is most likely your panel, my Dell 2408 WFP developed a similar issue over last six months. In my case it started with a single (now there are 3 to 4) vertical line that vanishes when the LCD reaches operation temperature.
     
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  5. Gator Bob, Feb 3, 2012

    Gator Bob thread starter macrumors regular

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    #5
    Well, as I said I think it's software, not hardware. Today the line seems to have permanently disappeared after I installed Lion 10.7.3 and also did the pram reboot and let the chime ring four (4) times then reset the resolution, rebooted and reset resolution back to the original resolution, as suggested elsewhere on this forum. It's still a puzzlement but it seems to have gone away, so I'll take it.
     
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  6. Gator Bob, Feb 3, 2012

    Gator Bob thread starter macrumors regular

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    #6
    It returned

    Never mind. The damn thing is back.
     
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