Applications :: MacBook Starting To Blink Black Screen After Snow Leopard Graphics Update
Aug 23, 2010
Every once and a while, usually when my MacBook is running on it's battery, the screen will show a black screen for nearly only a millisecond or two. It's not too bothersome, and it usually blinks back to normal before I can notice it, but nevertheless I don't want it, and from what I can recall, this only started happening after I installed the Snow Leopard Graphics Update. Is anybody else getting these problems on their MBPs or MBs? MacBook config details in my sig.
Ok I did some updateing and now get a black screen after booting. Here is what I did WAS running 10.5.8 Updated to 10.6 using a USB Downloaded and installed 10.6.3 Combination update (everything worked great) Installed iLife 2011 Downloaded latest update for iLife because is said I could not use it unless i updated.Â
Restarted fine logged in, showed display background. Then all black. Rebooted, black screen. Reboooted again, Black screen.Â
The issue only came up when I did the software update for iPhoto, iMovie,iWeb,iEverything else.. Â
I have a 3.06 intel core 2 duo with 4 gig ram and 500 gb free space. Backed up on time machine on seperate HDD still plugged in to USB. Since I don't have USB selected as a boot drive can I still boot from the install 10.6 USB?Â
Info: iMac 3.06GHz, 4GB, Mac OS X (10.5.8), 3.06GHz, 4GB
For a while, my MacbookPro, which is a MacBookPro5,3, has been telling me that I have updates. Among the updates was a graphics update. Back when my iMac5,1 ran Leopard, I blindly got the graphics update, so it is no longer usable, unless I use Ubuntu Hardy on it. I do not want to run into that issue again, since I have programs that I need on my Mac for me to be productive, as I started writing books and publishing them through Lulu (e.g. Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, etc.). Is the Snow Leopard graphics update going to cause stability issues, like the Leopard graphics update did on my old iMac5,1? Right now, I am getting all updates, except for the graphics update, that are available for my MacBook Pro.
Apple on Tuesday released Snow Leopard Graphics Update, a patch for Mac OS X 10.6 that is said to improve performance and reliability of popular titles like StarCraft II and Portal. The 69.2MB update was released by Apple Tuesday afternoon. It is available from the company's support site, or via Software Update. It requires Mac OS X 10.6.4. According to Apple, the software update contains performance and stability fixes for graphics applications, including fixes that: address frame rate issues occurring in Portal and Team Fortress 2 on certain Macs resolve an issue that could cause aperture 3 or StarCraft II to unexpectedly quit or become unresponsive.
The update addresses framerate issues on the titles Portal and Team Fortress 2 for the late 2009 and mid 2010 iMac and Mac mini; early 2009 Mac Pro; early 2009 and mid 2010 MacBook; and mid-2010 MacBook Pro 15- and 17-inch models. The update also resolves an image corruption issue that may occur when disconnecting and reconnecting external displays while the system is running. Valve, the maker of Portal, Team Fortress 2 and the Steam gaming client for Mac, said in June that it was working with Apple to improve the performance of games running in Mac OS X. The company said that improved drivers from Apple would have the greatest impact on performance. "We are making a lot of progress identifying specific issues that need work inside the game and inside OpenGL and drivers," Rob Barris of Valve said at the time. "Apple, ATI and Nvidia are all involved."[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]
Just noticed the Snow Leopard Graphics Update, anyone install it yet/found noticeable improvements (can't install it until I get back home in a week)? Hopefully no problems for people with flashed graphics cards? I would like this update to let me run SC2 in Mac OS X; it's so much faster in Win 7...
Has anyone ran some tests with the new Snow Leopard Graphics Update Apple just released. I am primarily interested in the performance increases it offers SC2. I am at work and will not be able to install it until late tonight, after which I will post before and after FPS and settings for SC2.
I bought a MacBook Pro 17inch i7 in November 2010 and it was working fine under Snow Leopard and Lion since then. Yesterday I installed Bootcamp and it was workng also. Today when starting from Bootcamp to Lion I had a Kernel Panic (had this never before) and the screen turned black. I just have the energy cable connencted to it, the computer starts somehow (noise) but no Startsound and screen keeps black.Then I made a little mistake by inserting a LION installer DVD. Cannot get this out anymore, even when I press the trackpad when starting it. I changed the internal hard drive to be sure that the problem does not come from there. I reset the PRAM. I reset the SMC. No way to get the laptop back to work.
Info:MacBookPro, Mac OS X (10.7.3), 8 GB RAM, 30 ACD
My macbook pro overheated last night while in sleep mode. I starting it this morning it just kept a black screen and would do nothing else. Tried holding down power button for 10 secs and now it wont turn on at all. I pulled the battery out and unplugged the from the charger. Put it back in the computer got warm without even being on. Don't know what to do. Do not have apple care, mac was bought through school and is 4 years old. Is there anything that can be done to save it?
Is anyone else experiencing this issue? I have a external monitor plugged in and I use my Macbook Pro (2009 Uni) as a secondary monitor. Randomly, the macbook screen just goes black. If I move my mouse on to the macbook screen, I can see the mouse cursor, but the rest of the screen is black! It's driving me mad!
The only fix is to un-plug the monitor adaptor or adjust display arrangements. It's really cramping my style.
So my 13" MBP arrived today and unfortunately my first mac experience isn't a pleasant one. The computer wont start. I am hoping I am doing something wrong but I have gone through the step by step troubleshooting and my computer just sits there with a blank black screen. It shows that the charge is full and when I click the power button the little white light glows in front, however, no sound nor no startup happens on the screen.
I just got a new MBP i7, and whenever the graphics switch from the Nvidia 330m chip to the Intel chip, the screen "flickers" black for a short moment before reappearing. Can anyone with a new MBP comment on this behavior? It doesn't happen on the switch from Intel->Nvidia, just the other way around.
iMac 27 the screen goes black at random times. If left for a time and by pressing ctrl, Shift Eject, the screen comes back and can remain on for the rest of the day. However, the next day the same thing happens. Â
Energy saving set to - Hard disk never sleep, Screen sleep in 15 mins.
Can't get back to my desk top. All I have is a black screen with white text starting Darwin bsd. Have tried a safe reboot but after grey then normal blue screen when loading, this disappears and I get back to the black screen again.
I have an iMac 21inch, Late 2009. I found after it was runing really slow that my hard drive was failing. It told me there were SMART errors on the drive. The computer is out of warranty and I'm in the middle of no where so i have no Mac store to take it to. I bought a new drive, same model, and installed it into the computer. It turns on fine, but after the Apple logo and spinning coge wheel the screen flashes, shows the blue back ground like its going to load the desktop and then goes black.Â
I've tried connecting an external monitor to it and shows up like an extended display. I've tried connecting it to another Mac, a Mini, and the Mini can boot off the iMacs hard drive just fine. If it Target Disk mode the Mini and boot the iMac I get the same flash of blue desktop then it goes black. Â
This is where it gets weird though, I'm sure your thinking, ok the screen is going bad... BUT, I boot off an Ubuntu CD, or the AHT disk and it loads fine and has no turning black. Its only when booting into the Mac OS or the installation disk. Â
One last note is that when its at the black screen and I'm sure its loaded the desktop, if I hold the power button down for about 3-4 seconds, till I hear a click. I then press the button again right away and the screen flashes on showing me the desktop and everything, for about 2 seconds... Â
So for the first time in over a year since I purchased it, my iMac crashed twice.The first time was this morning, i went to do something and the screen went black, and my secondary display got black and white lines. I had to restart. And the boot screen with the apple logo hung around for a while.
Then, later on the screen went whacky after trying to wake it from sleep (not full sleep just display sleep) and had a bunch of moving lines and then I couldn't see anything. So luckily I got a picture. After restart, it seems fine.I'll call apple care in the morning, but thought i'd try my luck here.
After the 10.5.1 software I'm having a problem with distorted (stripes etc.) icons and menu dropdowns. Apparently not on my desktop or programs like Safari, Mail etc., only on icons and menu dropdowns, which I find odd. Sometimes it's gone, but after some time it reappears again. Anyway, sometimes my Mac (iMac G5, PowerMac12,1, 1.9 GHz) is going bonkers completely, which results in a first pink, then black screen. A hard shut down is then the only option. However, I guess it's videocard related (ATI Radeon X600 Pro). I did all the tests, fixes you can think of, but without any results. I contacted Apple support, but because this is an iMac, you can't just replace the card, they told me that the whole motherboard should be replaced, which will cost me approx. 700 EURO. Of course I am not willing to do that, which means that I'll have to buy a new Mac. Of course a new Mac is always a delight, but I find replacement after just 2 years unacceptable.
Information: iMac G5 PowerMac12,1 Mac OS X (10.5.1)
Last night I installed Leopard's Graphic Update. I can't boot my macbook since then. Stuck at the gray screen with apple logo. Here's what I already tried to do: Boot with leopard DVD and run Repair Disk - it tells me the disk appears to be ok. If I click on repair permissions tough, it takes a long time and then hangs. Nothing happens, the progress bar even stops spinning.
I then tried to boot with Disk Warrior 4.0 (it's the version I have). I tried reparing disk and files permissions there, and it worked ok. But I can't boot after it as well. Again in Disk Warrior, I tried clicking REBUILD to get my file directory back and retrieve my files, but after some seconds it states there is not enough memory. I hope this is RAM memory, because I just ordered a pair of ram chips, Im gonna upgrade it to 2gb (I only have 512mb ram, first gen intel macbook core duo)
So tried SAFE MODE (shift), nothing. Single user mode, typing fcsk -y , reports the disk is ok, but nothing as well. I have a time machine backup from 11 days ago (apple makes it so easy to backup and I cant even bother plugging in my lacie firewire external hd, retarded me), and for me that's kind of unnaceptable. I go to university and thats 2 weeks worth of priceless annotations, I really need to get them back.
Every few weeks my iMac will suddenly freeze, the screen going black or white or pink etc. The only way I can get the computer back is to hold down the power button to force a shutdown. Then after a restart everything is OK for a few more weeks. Usually it occurs when I am on the internet. I click on something and suddenly the computer is frozen. I am on OS X 10.6.8 and usually use Safari. Ironically when I opened this forum 5 minutes ago there was a similar sounding problem at the top of the list!
Info: iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8), FCE 4 + FCS 3 . . . Little Knowledge, Many Opinions.
I installed USB Overdrive (a program), I clicked on restart and my iMac never got up. When I start it, the HDD and fans do work. But there is no boot sound, and when I change sound levels, I cannot hear it. I think, it never makes it to OSX. It does not load the OS. I dont think it is Graphics card (HD2600) failure.
When I try to reset PRAM, nothing happens. Usually I must hear it restart again with loud boot sound but it never happens. Also my keyboard does not seem to work, as the CAPSLOCK button does not light up, when pressed. I changed RAM to different moduls, still the same. I checked the iMac RAM on a different computer, it works. Maybe USB Overdrive killed the USB slots? As my USB keyboard does not seem to work
Do not want a nuisance to escalate into a serious problem thru benign neglect. Random black screen -- Turn monitor off then on, and all comes back fine. No loss of power in machine, no fan quirks, no overheating. Is it the Monitor? or the graphics card?
I've had my 15" MBP for just over a month, it was a refurb purchased direct from Apple. I've noticed the video issue where the top 1/2 of the screen would flash, blink. It's happened maybe 3 or 4 times. It seems to only happen after it wakes from sleep and the only fix is to reboot. I know i can switch the video card over and from what i read, it solves the issue.
Here's my question, since I can't get it to do it on demand, ( i did however record a video actually 2 on 2 separate occasions) should i take it in for repair now? will the problem get worse? or should i wait it out for bit in case something else goes wrong down the road??
Since the day I got my MBP two months ago I have always had it hooked up to a small HP HD monitor via HDMI. The other day I tried hooking it up to my 32 inch HDTV and now I am experiencing a weird problem. The TV and the Mac recognize each other but the screen continues to flash/blink every second (almost like it is loosing conenction). I check the cords and everything is fine which I assumed because everything is fine when I'm connected to the HP monitor.
About 6 months to a year ago, I had water damage onto the macbook pro, it completely didn't work for ages, however yesterday I thought I might as well try it again, and it worked! I was super happy that the laptop worked completely fine!Â
However, in system properties it was only saying it has the intel chip, not the nvidia one, so I thought maybe the graphics card was broken from the water damage? I was not too sure.Â
I then went to upgrade to mavericks, as soon as the update finished, black screen! From the second I turn on the notebook its black, no cursor no nothing, the PC turns on fine, I can type my password, then search for itunes, hit play on the keyboard and music plays. So its literally just a pure black screen. I try to hold CMD-R when restarting the notebook and nothing, pure black screen the screen never comes on at all!Â
I just tried to update my 2008 Macbook from Leopard to Snow Leopard. Install went fine but all of the sudden I got an error message, accompanied big yellow triangle with a black exclamation mark telling me that the install has failed without any further info. I rebooted and Snow Leopard was trying to install again. I thought 'why not' and continued. Then, when I had to pick a disk to install on, my Macbook harddrive couldn't be found. I thought 'screw this I'll stick to Leopard' and rebooted. After that it just stuck on the grey screen with the Apple and the loading animation. How I can fix this or at least save my files?
I have been trying for weeks to do a software update from 10.6.7 to 10.6.8. Whenever I install the update and restart my computer, I get the apple logo loading screen and then it locks up on the infamous blank gray screen. I have been able to get back to 10.6 with the install CD, and can then update all the way to 10.6.7 I have tried everything listed here:[URL]To no avail . including a clean install When I start up in verbose mode the last line of text I get is the following, after this it's the gray screen:
** Device in slot: SLOT--1 ** RBIOKitController found 0x5ac :0x842Â Those last two chunks of numbers change each time I restart. Â
I've got a 2007 Macbook Pro. It's on its second graphics card (8600M GT), the first one failed on me a year ago. OS X 10.5.7, all firmware updates installed.
I think I have a new graphics card issue, but I can't prove it. In Front Row, after 10-20 minutes, often parts of the screen will start going black. Then it freezes. Sound works fine. It doesn't look like the same kind of wild distortion that I got when my GPU failed the first time, though, it just looks like things have been rendered incorrectly.
When Front Row finally quits, I've had black and white bars across my menu bar a couple of times. Once the computer then totally locked up and I had to reboot.
In Windows XP in boot camp, things are worse. I only use boot camp for games, since they use a lot of graphical power, it made sense that the problems happen there more often. After 15-20 minutes, the screen will start stuttering, then the keyboard/mouse will stop responding. The sound will hiccup a few times too. That lasts about 10 seconds, then everything returns to normal for a while (as little as 10 seconds, or as long as 5 minutes.)
The Apple Hardware Test (short and extended) shows no trouble. Techtool Pro shows no trouble. I ran the very thorough memtest86+, and it showed no memory trouble.
Can anybody give me any tips on definitively diagnosing this problem? Is there any kind of really intensive hardware test I can get (a live CD maybe)?
Second question, has anybody heard of Apple replacing a laptop that has had many faults with a brand new unit?
I just bought a macbook pro, and I installed bootcamp and had everything running perfectly. I installed the drivers, and then I let windows 7 update while I went to sleep, when I woke up the macbook was turned off, then I tried to turn it on, and it sounded like it was about to boot up, but the screen is blank there is no cursor, it looks like it's not even on, and I think the keyboard is unresponsive because when I press caplocks it doesn't light up.
I came back from work to wake up my iMac. It made the noise but the screen stayed black. I tried restarting by holding the power button- I can hear it start and the chime but still have a black screen. I tried resetting the pram, and unplugging the cord but I still get a black screen. I can hear the chime though; I'm not sure if that means anything. I just had the hard drive replaced in February so I hope it's not that. just wanted to clarify that when I restart, I get the chime but the screen stays black- I don't get to the grey screen. So I'm assuming right now that my display may be shot?
