Comments
Comment by Olof: ¶
Experiencing the same problem. Not yet a real problem, but this story is helpful, and certainly will come to good use should i choose to take my computer to Apple.
Olof
Comment by samar: ¶
yeap i’m having the same problem, and im’ actually goign to contact mac and see what they could do about it. what exactly is the problem
Comment by alvin: ¶
yo guys, i’m having the same problem, and already replace the logic board. but the result is same.
did you meant you replace the inverter board?
thanx alot
Comment by gareth: ¶
i just got this problem today :( sucks…this is my first apple computer! i will yet at them on the phone about switching bak to a pc lol
Comment by simon: ¶
i’m not sure if it’s the same problem, but my brand new macbook sometimes has an instable backlight, it’s not really flickering, but it looks a bit like a regular crt with a certain refresh rate.
but the weird thing is, it’s only when booted in mac os x, windows doesn’t show the problem.
you guys experienced the same?
Comment by joe: ¶
I do have same problem ! No solution at all so far. I suspected this was caused by inverter or magsafe or cpu at first, but it seems not. Maybe it’s just a software issue such as the improper videocard driver? If so, hope leopard could sort it out!!
Comment by BC: ¶
Hi Folks,
This may have something to do with the Intel processors.
Several PC-Intel mobile processor notebooks from last year were having similar problems. It was a problem with video drivers. They released a new series of video driver updates and the problem was solved.
You should bug Mac about video driver updates.
Has anyone experienced this problem after using a second external monitor with their macbook?
bc
Comment by Adam DeVito: ¶
I brought this up at a Pro Care meeting and they offered to replace my screen. They didn’t even see the flicker. I guess it was just common knowledge.
Comment by Ed: ¶
I’m having a similar problem. It occurs under OS X and XP. The screen flickers at first, and eventually the backlighting completely shuts off. It’s not predictable, and it can only be remedied by either restarting the computer (hard shut down) or repeatedly turning the brightness all the way down and bringing it back up.
Comment by Jack: ¶
Hey guys, I’ve got the same problem too, mine is a 2.0Ghz White Macbook. Problem started about a month ago in April, I bought my macbook in late December. I called up apple, but the guy said he wasn’t aware of this problem in the macbooks and he reckoned it must be rare. However, I’ve read so many other stories about this problem (MY SCREEN IS FLICKERING WHILE I’M WRITING THIS!!) I have to bring my macbook to an Apple Store to get it fixed, (the quickest way) I live in the UK, so the closest one is in London. However, I’ve got my university exams in mid June, so right now, I just have to put up with this randomly flickering screen and hope that the screen doesn’t break down completely or something before my exams…
Good luck people, hopefully it’s just the inverter board or something…
Comment by Justd: ¶
I got the flickering today. =( Hope to get it fixed…
Comment by FFS: ¶
My girlfriend just got me a MacBokk refurb that has a similar flicker problem - but seems to be a connection problem since it always works if I close it almost all the way. BUT, I have no worries about it since any time I’ve had to deal with Apple, they have been a pleasure to deal with and usually give me a replacement instantly or at least a 2 day turn around on a repair.
Comment by Mike Hirst: ¶
Got exactly the same problem [screen flicker] started a week ago and is getting worse. My Mac Book is only 9 months old. Its a really shame this is my 4th Mac and also bought 5 i pods over the years. So consider my self a loyal customer. Have mocked my PC owning friends but it looks like the jokes on me for buying a Mac. Its not good enough for £750 and less than a year old. Hope John Lewis will exchange.
Comment by Remt: ¶
Hello guys same here I have a 13” black macbook upgraded to 1gig ram just last month and the flickering started about a week or 2 weeks ago? Could be the update? or maybe constantly changing or using low brightness settings for the monitor?… I mean to have caused the inverter board to malfunction.
Hope it does not get worse though.
Comment by Marshall: ¶
Same problem in white macbook. Flicker is very annoying- seems worse when just starting up. Apple store replaced a part but still occuring. On three occasions monitor has gone completely black for several seconds.
Comment by Jonas: ¶
Is the flickering also a problem with the new macbooks (released in may 2007)? I’m thinking about getting one, and I don’t want to deal with this. My friend assured me it only happened with the older macs. Is this true? Thanks!
Comment by Roald: ¶
Hi! As far as I can see it is now 4 months since you replaced the inverter-board. Is the flickering still gone? I have the same problem, but get the feeling when contacting Apple that I need to tell them what causes the problem ;-(
Comment by ssp: ¶
The flicker didn’t re-occur for me after the repair.
But I sold the machine three months later, so I don’t know the current state.
Telling what causes this problem will be tricky / impossible. It took me a while to show the flicker to the staff at the store but once it worked and then they did the repair.
Comment by Cristian: ¶
See http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1057743&tstart=0
Hope it will help.
Comment by ssp: ¶
Thanks for the link Cristian — while it may help some people I’m fairly sure this touches a different screen flickering problem than I had. The one I had was a problem with the backlight which shouldn’t be affected by settings like these.
(I’m also fairly sure that traditionally European televisions run at 50Hz because that’s the frequency of the AC current)
Comment by Kristoffer: ¶
I experienced a similar problem with my old iBook. It started out as flickering and then got progressively worse until the brightness of the screen just locked at a very low level (as if you’d turned down brightness almost all the way). Our tech guy told me it was something wrong with the connection between the screen and the rest of the lap top and I ended up having to buy a new one, this time a MacBook. What’s making me nervous now is that after one year and one month (i.e., with enough time passed for the insurance to have expired and for me to not be able to buy the extended AppleCare protection plan) with this one, the screen has started to flicker, although not as much as my old iBook. Anyway, just thought I would throw my experience in there; not sure if my problems have been caused by “the inverter board” all along, or what’s going on, but it might be worth looking into the connection between the screen and the computer too.
Comment by Luiz: ¶
I have a 3 months old Black MACBOOK, newer version “Core 2 Duo 2.16Ghz” Wifi B/G/N, 2GB Ram, and today I noticed the screen flicker, very intense. I don’t see any relation but last week I used it with an external monitor and had to change the monitor configurations for a while.
Comment by baps: ¶
Hi everyone.
I bought a White Core2Duo 2,0 1 G Ram Macbook three weeks ago, and I’ve noticed a really very subtle flickering when brightness is set to very low settings (1 o 2 bars). The flickering is hardly noticeable, but I’m sure it’s there because if I change brightness a step it disappears completely. It never happens when brightness is above 4 bars o during start up as some users have informed. I noticed this because I usually run the mac on battery, so I set brightness settings very low to save battery life. I haven’t had any of the other issues Macbooks have become famous for. The unit has performed really good so far though I know is too soon to tell.
Comment by mondosei: ¶
On my white macbook, purchased 04-2007, the flickering definitely kicks when turning the brightness level to 1.
Comment by James: ¶
I am not under warranty. My macbook also flickers and it seems to be getting worse. I am wondering if the problem will eventually plateau, or does it continually get worse until a crash?
Comment by Sam: ¶
Hey, I just started getting the dreaded “flicker” a few days ago on my white Macbook, and I’m a bit split on what I should do. I’m still under warranty, so I may end up getting it fixed, but I live in the East of England, and there isn’t an apple store for miles and miles. The closest place is a two hour drive from me which I had to go to about a month ago to give them my Macbook - the speakers had stopped working and so had the battery; after checking the Apple support discussions apparently both these problems are fairly commonplace amongst Macbooks, and now I can add this little nugget of annoyance to the list of faults. As my first Mac (bought august ‘07) I’m really rather disappointed to have had problems after four/five months, but the faults are still outweighed by the Pros compared to Windows. This, however, begs the question, how many more problems will pop up before the scales tip?
Comment by Mike: ¶
I had the screen flicker problem, and the Mac Service Centre (here in Hong Kong) replaced the Inverter when my MacBook was 7-8 months or so. At around 11-12 months or so, I noted the same problem came back again, but less often than before. When I was using an external LCD screen, the LCD was still perfectly ok when the Macbook screen flickers.
Hope this helps, but I am not too keen to bring back to the Mac Service Centre since it only came back 2 weeks later the last time, and never really fixed the problem afterall!
Hope this helps…
Comment by Martine the suburbean: ¶
Got the inverter board replaced in my Macbook too two months ago, and the problem seemed to disappear… until yesterday, when I noticed the flicker again. I thought I was wrong, but it just happened again for sure :*(
I see your replacement took place a year ago; have your problem been solved with the new inverter board or not?
Comment by ssp: ¶
@Martine:
It worked fine for me after the exchange. But I sold the machine a few months later, so I couldn’t keep an eye on it for long.
Comment by ras: ¶
same here. same flicker. same swirling mystery around it. geniuses said they’d replace the inverter board, but the tons of other problems my black 13” had musta distracted them to forget. apparently wouldn’t have solved it anyhoo, huh?
Comment by mantunes: ¶
I’m myself have recently ran into this problem i did a battery update to my MB and that seemed to help for a while i almost want to point the issue being a power management issue possibly driver related. not sure my next option is to change out that inverter other than that.issue is not to persistent…
Comment by rileyhuf: ¶
I have this problem to on a white macbook I got in Nov. 2006. I sent it in for repair 3 months after I got it and it worked great. Two weeks ago the flickering started again. this is my first mac, I am a Web developer, and my last. Expensive machine that doesn’t cut it if you ask me.
