Thin Horizontal Lines on Rev 2 MBA?

[menix]

again me, now after using it yesterday and today some hours, definitely no lines, but a little flickering when looking at the test images posted above and that causes the burning in the eyes if you sit longer infornt of the screen.

so I think I will give it back.

Oh, i regret to hear your MBA is also affected. I'm going to send back my second replacement tomorrow.
I'm givin up. I'm disappointed Apple doesn't seriously care about the quality problems of such a high-priced machine.

 

[omaragra]

Hi Guys,

i was talking to some senior guy from Apple's relations center names Gusto and he said that he is aware of the missing four finger swipe and said that is not a very big issue and will be solved soon with a firmware update 100 %, regarding the horizontal lines he said he will look into it and also asked me to send him a picture, I tried taking one but was not very successful so I emailed him the link to this forum and also a link to the apple discussion forums related to this same issue.

He told me he will call me back tomorrow.

Cheers

Omar

 

[omaragra]

You guys won't believe this !!

THIS HAPPENS ONLY WHEN AN EXTERNAL MONITOR IS CONNECTED

So here is my setup, I have an external monitor plugged in to my MBA and all my icons are on the external monitor so my MBA desktop is empty NO ICONS, the desktop has the purple Mac wallpaper and I cannot see the lines on my MBA (just realized they are there but really very very faint almost un-noticeable , but as soon as I select Automatically hide and show the Dock the lines appear and they disappear when I un-check the option !!

But if I don't have an external monitor the lines are always present as usual!!


I can do this every time

 

[bigrasmusdk]

You guys won't believe this !!

THIS HAPPENS ONLY WHEN AN EXTERNAL MONITOR IS CONNECTED

So here is my setup, I have an external monitor plugged in to my MBA and all my icons are on the external monitor so my MBA desktop is empty NO ICONS, the desktop has the purple Mac wallpaper and I cannot see the lines on my MBA (just realized they are there but really very very faint almost un-noticeable , but as soon as I select Automatically hide and show the Dock the lines appear and they disappear when I un-check the option !!

But if I don't have an external monitor the lines are always present as usual!!


I can do this every time

Very interesting indeed....did you tell the Senior Apple guy that ?

 

[omaragra]

Not really because I realised it only after emailing him, also I don't want to make the case very complicated !!

 

[omaragra]

I'm sitting at the Apple Genius Bar and the good lady agreed with me regarding the lines and said I should send it back, but I told her it's no point because I will again get a bad piece.

Everyone is clueless, no call from Apple so far !

 

[LeonX]

You guys won't believe this !!

THIS HAPPENS ONLY WHEN AN EXTERNAL MONITOR IS CONNECTED

So here is my setup, I have an external monitor plugged in to my MBA and all my icons are on the external monitor so my MBA desktop is empty NO ICONS, the desktop has the purple Mac wallpaper and I cannot see the lines on my MBA (just realized they are there but really very very faint almost un-noticeable , but as soon as I select Automatically hide and show the Dock the lines appear and they disappear when I un-check the option !!

But if I don't have an external monitor the lines are always present as usual!!


I can do this every time

What does that mean - that the graphic card produces the problem? Or is it maybe an interference with some circuits on the board? If you are right that means at least that neither the lcd nor the coating would be the culprits.
Can anybody reproduce that observation?

Interesting thing: Here in Germany they have delivery to every reseller postponed again. Originally they were supposed to get the actual products today... Either your guys over there suck up the whole stock because of all the 3rd and 4th replacements or Apple is holding them back. (some people who ordered in the Apple Online Store got their MBAs).

 

[omaragra]

What does that mean - that the graphic card produces the problem? Or is it maybe an interference with some circuits on the board? If you are right that means at least that neither the lcd nor the coating would be the culprits.
Can anybody reproduce that observation?

I don't know what exactly is causing this problem. I am sending mine back for a second replacement and this time they have assured me that they will look into it and send me a perfect one !!

 

[HLdan]

I don't know what exactly is causing this problem. I am sending mine back for a second replacement and this time they have assured me that they will look into it and send me a perfect one !!

I hope for your sake that really happens however I hate to burst your bubble but don't expect Apple to make sure that you get a "perfect" one. Even if they open up the box and inspect it they most likely will not notice the lines and say it's within spec and send it right to you. I've been in retail too long, people say the things the customer wants to hear.

 

[omaragra]

I hope for your sake that really happens however I hate to burst your bubble but don't expect Apple to make sure that you get a "perfect" one. Even if they open up the box and inspect it they most likely will not notice the lines and say it's within spec and send it right to you. I've been in retail too long, people say the things the customer wants to hear.

Lets hope !! Things are fine this time around, the apple customer services guy took my case ID and applied it to the replacement request. He also said that this time some other team will be dispatching it

 

[iwant2believe88]

So I just received my air Rev A from the amazon sale and I can see the lines on my screen. The screen doesn't seem as crisp as it did viewing it in the store and I looked at the exact model computer I have from a best buy. I got this from amazon and so my question is who do I talk with about this. Will Apple replace it? If I return to amazon I have to eat a restock fee. Or will they replace it because it's defective. Anyone else have this happen on a Rev A?

 

[lincolnchee]

I have the 4 fingers swipe and the gray lines appear horizontally throughout the screen.
My week no. is 45. Can this problem be resolved using Software ?

My Stats:

Manufacturer - 00000610
Model - 9C9A
Serial No. - 000000 all the way

 

[Ironic]

So I just received my air Rev A from the amazon sale and I can see the lines on my screen. The screen doesn't seem as crisp as it did viewing it in the store and I looked at the exact model computer I have from a best buy. I got this from amazon and so my question is who do I talk with about this. Will Apple replace it? If I return to amazon I have to eat a restock fee. Or will they replace it because it's defective. Anyone else have this happen on a Rev A?

I wish I could see the line everyone is talking about i keep looking

 

[tommi80]

MBA Rev. B LED Display, horizontal lines, headache

Hi,

I got my new MBA (the late2008 one) on Friday. I have these gray horizontal lines, as they are described here, too. Maybe I could live with the lines, but what I noticed is, that it is very exhausting for my eyes. I even got and I am still getting headache when reading something on the new MBA.
When I use my old MBP after the MBA, it feels much much better.

After realizing this situation, I googled a little bit and found the following thread:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8503580&tstart=0

Do you think the headache comes from the grey lines across the screen? Or is it the LED backlight technology, or both?
Are all LED backlight Screens flickering when showing the image with the line-patterns posted a few pages before? (my MBA screen flickers, my external screen and the MBP screen, both not LED, doesn't).

thx,
Tom.

 

[HLdan]

Hi,

I got my new MBA (the late2008 one) on Friday. I have these gray horizontal lines, as they are described here, too. Maybe I could live with the lines, but what I noticed is, that it is very exhausting for my eyes. I even got and I am still getting headache when reading something on the new MBA.
When I use my old MBP after the MBA, it feels much much better.

After realizing this situation, I googled a little bit and found the following thread:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8503580&tstart=0

Do you think the headache comes from the grey lines across the screen? Or is it the LED backlight technology, or both?
Are all LED backlight Screens flickering when showing the image with the line-patterns posted a few pages before? (my MBA screen flickers, my external screen and the MBP screen, both not LED, doesn't).

thx,
Tom.

IMO, I think the headaches are coming from being psychosomatic which is due from excessively following this forum. No jokes.

 

[zer0tails]

Hi,

I got my new MBA (the late2008 one) on Friday. I have these gray horizontal lines, as they are described here, too. Maybe I could live with the lines, but what I noticed is, that it is very exhausting for my eyes. I even got and I am still getting headache when reading something on the new MBA.
When I use my old MBP after the MBA, it feels much much better.

After realizing this situation, I googled a little bit and found the following thread:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8503580&tstart=0

Do you think the headache comes from the grey lines across the screen? Or is it the LED backlight technology, or both?
Are all LED backlight Screens flickering when showing the image with the line-patterns posted a few pages before? (my MBA screen flickers, my external screen and the MBP screen, both not LED, doesn't).

thx,
Tom.

you guys need to take pictures and show US what these grey lines look like.

 

[StefanR.]

IMO, I think the headaches are coming from being psychosomatic which is due from excessively following this forum. No jokes.

and you? looks like that you have the same problem, at least it sounds like...

 

[HLdan]

and you? looks like that you have the same problem, at least it sounds like...

Since you felt the need to defend something you weren't a part of I will answer your question. I do frequent the MR forums however unlike many people I don't allow the negative comments here to influence my buying decisions. This forum is very helpful and I spend time helping people here as well but I was actually trying to help the person I was replying to, to understand that psychologically we will allow things to become much bigger than they are because we read about it all the time.

So for example, the horizontal line issue that many forum members are talking about isn't NEARLY as big as people are making it out to be. It only takes one person to complain about it and the snowball effect arises, all of a sudden the horizontal lines are so prominent that we can't even see what's on our screens anymore. That's what happens when we allow our brain to absorb the same thing over and over.

The lines on the MBA screen are extremely faint and you have to squint to see them and they generally appear against a very light background. 99% of the time you wouldn't even know they are there.

Just in case you are interested as to why I know this, I just took delivery of the new RevB MBA and yes, mine has the horizontal lines but other than that the screen is beautiful, in fact it looks better than the new Macbook Pro screen. Do the lines bother me? Do I get eye strain and headaches from them? No. I would if I allowed this forum to make me think the lines are worst than they really are.
Apple should indeed address this. IMO it's the GPU's drivers that need updating.

 

[aristobrat]

I'm returning mine today and coordinated with the Apple Store and Executive Relations to have it sent back to Apple HQ for investigation. Engineering is already looking into the issue, but hopefully this will help resolve the issue for everyone else out there.

For now, it's back to the good old reliable Thinkpad with Win XP for me.

kanpachi, any feedback from Apple engineering yet?

 

[StefanR.]

Since you felt the need to defend something you weren't a part of I will answer your question. I do frequent the MR forums however unlike many people I don't allow the negative comments here to influence my buying decisions. This forum is very helpful and I spend time helping people here as well but I was actually trying to help the person I was replying to, to understand that psychologically we will allow things to become much bigger than they are because we read about it all the time.

So for example, the horizontal line issue that many forum members are talking about isn't NEARLY as big as people are making it out to be. It only takes one person to complain about it and the snowball effect arises, all of a sudden the horizontal lines are so prominent that we can't even see what's on our screens anymore. That's what happens when we allow our brain to absorb the same thing over and over.

The lines on the MBA screen are extremely faint and you have to squint to see them and they generally appear against a very light background. 99% of the time you wouldn't even know they are there.

Just in case you are interested as to why I know this, I just took delivery of the new RevB MBA and yes, mine has the horizontal lines but other than that the screen is beautiful, in fact it looks better than the new Macbook Pro screen. Do the lines bother me? Do I get eye strain and headaches from them? No. I would if I allowed this forum to make me think the lines are worst than they really are.
Apple should indeed address this. IMO it's the GPU's drivers that need updating.

not part of it? if you would have read careful this thread, you would have seen that I am part of it. people come to forums when something does not work...I think so...., there is no reason (at least for me) to visit a technical mac forum if things work well. I use mac since years, at work and at home, all worked fine until I got my new MBA. I had no lines at all, but! my eyes started to burn and hurt after aprox. 1-2h, something I never experienced before. so the next way was to see if other people had the same problem, since the eye burn went immediately away when switching to my MBP or just playing around for some time with one of my children´s MB.

so I dont thing that we need a troll who makes jokes about people who experience some problems with their hardware.

 

[HLdan]

not part of it? if you would have read careful this thread, you would have seen that I am part of it. people come to forums when something does not work...I think so...., there is no reason (at least for me) to visit a technical mac forum if things work well. I use mac since years, at work and at home, all worked fine until I got my new MBA. I had no lines at all, but! my eyes started to burn and hurt after aprox. 1-2h, something I never experienced before. so the next way was to see if other people had the same problem, since the eye burn went immediately away when switching to my MBP or just playing around for some time with one of my children´s MB.

so I dont thing that we need a troll who makes jokes about people who experience some problems with their hardware.

Look guy, you need to calm down. Firstly I am no troll and your snide remarks are getting a bit tired now. I think I just mentioned that I am also the new owner of the new Macbook Air and I experience the horizontal lines as well and I think I said earlier that Apple DOES need to address this issue, but apparently you didn't read that huh??? When I said you weren't apart of it, I was talking only in regards to my direct reply to an earlier poster since I was only speaking to him and not you or anyone else on the forum.
I made no jokes, nor did I intend to make any jokes towards anyone here, I was merely stating a fact that the snowball effect happens here a lot and things get blown out of proportion which causes people to see a lot more than what's really there.

I am truly sorry, FOR YOU, that you only see MR as a place to come to complain about problems. You are obviously new to MR so maybe you should take a look around, there a quite a few posts created by happy customers boasting about their new Macbook Air's, Pro's and Macbooks. You seem to have a chip on your shoulder, why don't you knock it off?

 

[kanpachi]

kanpachi, any feedback from Apple engineering yet?

Nope, no word from them yet unfortunately. But I don't really expect to hear back from them anyways - pretty sure they were just blowing smoke up my ass and telling me what I wanted to hear. But if I do hear back (99.9% chance I won't), I'll let you guys know.

 

[StefanR.]

Look guy, you need to calm down. Firstly I am no troll and your snide remarks are getting a bit tired now. I think I just mentioned that I am also the new owner of the new Macbook Air and I experience the horizontal lines as well and I think I said earlier that Apple DOES need to address this issue, but apparently you didn't read that huh??? When I said you weren't apart of it, I was talking only in regards to my direct reply to an earlier poster since I was only speaking to him and not you or anyone else on the forum.
I made no jokes, nor did I intend to make any jokes towards anyone here, I was merely stating a fact that the snowball effect happens here a lot and things get blown out of proportion which causes people to see a lot more than what's really there.

I am truly sorry, FOR YOU, that you only see MR as a place to come to complain about problems. You are obviously new to MR so maybe you should take a look around, there a quite a few posts created by happy customers boasting about their new Macbook Air's, Pro's and Macbooks. You seem to have a chip on your shoulder, why don't you knock it off?

funny, I am very calm, if I need help maybe I will ask you. your the one who is blaming people, just read your posts again. bye bye

 

[bigrasmusdk]

JUST RECEIVED 3 YES THIRD REPLACEMENT MBA 2.0 IT STILL HAS HORIZONTAL LINES!

And no It's not me being picky, I have compared with 1gen MBA, A low-end Dell Laptop and my iMac all of them have no lines.

I am VERY unhappy.

 

[aristobrat]

Nope, no word from them yet unfortunately. But I don't really expect to hear back from them anyways - pretty sure they were just blowing smoke up my ass and telling me what I wanted to hear. But if I do hear back (99.9% chance I won't), I'll let you guys know.

Thanks

JUST RECEIVED 3 YES THIRD REPLACEMENT MBA 2.0 IT STILL HAS HORIZONTAL LINES!

If they decide to make a manufacturing change to address this issue, it's going to take months, no days/weeks. Based on how they handled the screen issue with the 15" PowerBook, they may choose not to address this in manufacturing at all.