Resolved Odd lines flashing across screen?

[Astroboy907]

[SOLVED] Well, I bought an early 2009 macbook 2 weeks ago, with a broken backlight. Since then I have gotten it up and running with a new screen and backlight fused. But I keep getting these weird lines and distortions- mainly a white line across the bottom and one line at the bottom 1/3 of the display.... What could be causing this? I understand it could be a graphics card failure (How would i check? I have no baseline for this machine!), but could it also be EMI playing with the display? I have gotten a couple jitters too, where it looks like everything has been moved down 1px. Stranger and stranger...


Hmmmm, I unplugged my magsafe and the lines have not occurred for ~2 min. Could that be my problem?? Idk. I have also seen some high temps recently.... 190 f with a low load (except for installing software remotely off of another macbooks superdrive)

Thinking of adding some good old tinfoil to my magsafe...

 

[Macman756]

Well, I bought an early 2009 macbook 2 weeks ago, with a broken backlight. Since then I have gotten it up and running with a new screen and backlight fused. But I keep getting these weird lines and distortions- mainly a white line across the bottom and one line at the bottom 1/3 of the display.... What could be causing this? I understand it could be a graphics card failure (How would i check? I have no baseline for this machine!), but could it also be EMI playing with the display? I have gotten a couple jitters too, where it looks like everything has been moved down 1px. Stranger and stranger...


Hmmmm, I unplugged my magsafe and the lines have not occurred for ~2 min. Could that be my problem?? Idk. I have also seen some high temps recently.... 190 f with a low load (except for installing software remotely off of another macbooks superdrive)

Thinking of adding some good old tinfoil to my magsafe...

Could be GPU, or ESD got the board/you shortened something out.

 

[Astroboy907]

Could be GPU, or ESD got the board/you shortened something out.

The problem does go away when I switch the settings in energy preferences to better graphics performance. This I guess switches it to the other GPU in it...

Problem is, if my GPU goes out- A. Would apple replace it (its an early 2009, but it has been modded and torn apart)

Or B. Could the laptop run feasibly off one one card only?

 

[Macman756]

The problem does go away when I switch the settings in energy preferences to better graphics performance. This I guess switches it to the other GPU in it...

Problem is, if my GPU goes out- A. Would apple replace it (its an early 2009, but it has been modded and torn apart)

Or B. Could the laptop run feasibly off one one card only?

Sounds like one graphics card is faulty, doesn't really matter which one since the integrated is on the processor, and the dedicated is on its on chip, and they're both still on the logic board. So a new logic board is in order. As for Apple repairing it, it needs a new logic board, so you're looking at about a $900 repair. As for your hacks, Apple treats modifications, (soldering, cutting, replacing non user serviceable parts the same as water damage, and that is the tend to refuse service. So my guess is Apple would not repair that for any cost. Im afraid your SOL. Gotta be careful with broken gear on fleabay.

 

[Astroboy907]

Sounds like one graphics card is faulty, doesn't really matter which one since the integrated is on the processor, and the dedicated is on its on chip, and they're both still on the logic board. So a new logic board is in order. As for Apple repairing it, it needs a new logic board, so you're looking at about a $900 repair. As for your hacks, Apple treats modifications, (soldering, cutting, replacing non user serviceable parts the same as water damage, and that is the tend to refuse service. So my guess is Apple would not repair that for any cost. Im afraid your SOL. Gotta be careful with broken gear on fleabay.

On a whim checked software updates.... There just happened to be an EMI update, for my model, for display flickers. Installed, restarted (got a weird beep...), but so far I have not seen a flicker since. YAY!!