Hardware :: Display On Macbook Very Dark And Inaccurate?
Feb 16, 2008
My macbook has had this problem for a while but I have lived with it so far, but now it is really annoying me. Images and video are displayed very darkly, often loosing a lot of detail and maing the image un-seeable. I have tried fiddling with the gamma settings and all other settings that I can find on the control pannel, but so far I have had no luck.
Just as an example, this is a frame from some video I shot:
click for pic
On any other monitor, the bulb appears bright and white and the ball bearing is visible. On my monitor the bulb is very dark, most of the fragments are invisible and the ball bearing is just a small crescent of light.
My six years old MBP OS 10.4.x Tiger all of the sudden the display turned black. I hardly see the content of the desktop only when there is some light on the room, looks like I have reduce the light to the Display. I have tried to reset the PRAM with the opion, ctrl, P, R key combination and it did not work. It boots-up OK, no problem with the HD neither Memory, I have not run any test on it though. I have not had any trouble on my MBP until now and I have to say I have never reinstalled the OS.
I have a dark spot on my MacBook display of diameter 0.15 inches (or 4 mm). The spot is bright if looked from an angle.I brought my Mac to the Apple Care and I just received the verdict: the spot was caused by ME by applying extra pressure to the LCD!. Which is not covered by Apple Care warranty!
That's interesting since I am 100% sure that I didn't harm the screen. The guy even suggested that I forgot my pen on the keyboard and closed the laptop! That's great!
I told the Apple guy to send me back the laptop as it is after he offered a repair for $700 plus tax! But I am determined to go on with this since I love my Mac, I spent a lot of money on it.
So I've got my MBP that I've had for about 4 months, the thing is. It just recently started to have screen flickering issues. I'll be sitting doing w/e as usual and all of a sudden the display goes dark, almost black, for a second, then comes back up again. I have yet to find any trend in when this is happening, but it is definitely happening on battery as well as plugged in, but it seems to be getting worse.any one have any idea what this could be, something I can fix on my own, or should I take it in?
Just picked up a 11.6" MBA this past Saturday. I am noticing an interesting display "issue"... I wanted to confirm that other's are not seeing this before I take it back to the store.
On the bottom of the display, there's a strip, maybe 2-3mm worth, where it is darker than the rest of the display. Are any of you seeing this behavior as well? It's particularly noticeable when when using solid background colors.
I have a 28" inch display attached to newest version of Air. Works ok except when I have a full screen on plain dark grey background, then I see a waviness or flickering effect. Like the dark grey in Iphoto background. Other than this, the other colors seems ok. Pictures are fine, even when dark. Maybe there's a slight flickering with dark blue. Any explanations for this. using mini display port to dvi. Tried with a friends dual link display, was a little different, but still unstable looking in dark grey when it fills the screen.
Could it be just what it takes to make this color, or the Hertz, which is 60. Other than this, no problem with the screen.
I have an iBook (OSX 10.3.9)that's been great for the last couple of years. However the last week or so the screen goes dark for no apparent reason. You can still see through enough to fiddle around and hit shut down...and after it shuts down, and I restart it...it seems normal...that is until the next time. It's happened about 4 times in the last three days. A couple of times on battery and once plugged in I think. It's like it goes to sleep but you can't hit the space bar to wake up. Also seems like maybe an energy saving deal gone awry.
Now for info that may be pertinent: I dropped this laptop(in it's case) about a year ago. Holy crap..all docs would only read in magenta. No black no color only magenta and a "photograph negative" looking image for background or any graphic. I was sure it was dead duck and fried but kept trying it periodically. After about a month, after giving up...I turned it on and it was fine...as if nothing was wrong. Weirdest deal. It's been fine ever since.
I thought perhaps I was too lucky...and assume this may be a result of that fall.
display on my iMac 27 (bought in august 2011) have many dark spots. This is my display: url.. Could i replace my mac if i don't bought apple care? I live within USA and don't have Apple Store
I replaced my iMac G4/800 17" hard drive that was failing (S.M.A.R.T. status) tonight. Textbook operation, following directions from xlr8yourmac.com. No problems at all. I pre-built the drive with Tiger 4.10 in an external case (using the iMac as host) and transferred everything to the drive and tested. I booted off the external drive for a few days for testing. Again, no problems.
I got the iMac back together and booted up. Everything sounds fine but the monitor is black. It's as if there's no power to it or perhaps the lamps were just out.
When I press the power key for 1-2 seconds, the mac goes to sleep and the white Sleep Light on the front of the monitor comes on, so the monitor would appear to be getting power.
The Mac is working, evidently, as the chime for new mail sounded and the new drive chirps a little (very quiet though, btw).
I do NOT have a second monitor to hook to the VGA port, unfortunately.
On one reboot there was a sine-wave 'bong' sound, but the Mac proceeded to boot. I shut down again after that, took the housing apart and checked for trouble. Nothing. The video cable and connector is fine. There are no cables pinched or cut that I can see. And I did ever-so-carefully align the two halves when reassembling.
On the third boot I got the normal Mac chime (no bong/gong) and it booted fine - with no video.
One side note that I expect to be un-related: I left the HD jumper in cable-select mode, as the drive that was in there was also set on cable select (was a Western Digital 250GB drive; the new drive is a Maxtor).
Recently, the display of my MacBook Pro (unfortunately, out of warranty) often is black/greyish after wake-up/start-up with a thin white stripe in the middle of the screen, and the computer (obviously) cannot be used in this mode (you can hear it start up, but since the screen is completely dark, I can't actually do anything - restarting doesn't help either).
At first I thought it might be the graphic card (since there is a known problem with NVIDIA), but I've brought it in for repair where they have run multiple software-tests, and no error code was returned (when I brought it in it magically "fixed itself" and, once running, the problem can't be re-recreated), so nothing was fixed.
It seems to me that the MacBook for some reason cannot find or communicate with the display because I just discovered that if I hook up an external monitor, it manages to find that, and, after disconnecting the external monitor again, also "reconnects" to its own display. It then generally runs fine until I physically move it (ie. put it in my backpack and carry it somewhere) - after being moved, it tends to have the same problem again (not always, but more and more often).
Have you had any similar experience and/or what might cause this and how it could be fixed? I'd like to avoid replacing the display or something of the sort until I know for sure what's going on.
How many others on here have an imac with burn in problems? I have a tone! I am so unhappy with this product. I am happy I have the extended warranty, I am now getting a new monitor for my imac.
I tried to use some software to test the display. I found when the screen goes to completely dark with the backlight on, the bottom side of my screen is brighter than other parts.... have u guys met any problem like that, or is this some problem with my MBA?
I can barely see digital pictures and the likes. But websites and such i can see fine so long as the colors are light and looking on this site... [URL]
the first image i absolutely cannot see, it is 100% pitch black.. the other bellow it shows up just fine. But the two left/lowest squares on the color table on the very bottom the page both appear the same shade of pitch black.
I can see light but not dark. I tried callibrating and adjusting brightness and contrast.
Both my 15" MacBook Pro (i5) and my mum's last year 15" C2D ones have what seems to be an inaccurate balance with the internal speakers. The right hand speakers appear to be stronger.
Anyone else noticed this? It's not the end of the world, as the balance can be changed, but you'd think at 50% left 50% right that the volume would be the same per speaker...
Allright, I have a 24" iMac. 3.06 Core Duo 2 4GB RAM etc etc.
Just now, as I was innocently talking to a friend using iChat, the top of my screen flickered once or twice and then went dark. I am typing on it now, so it is not unreadable, it just looks like the back lighting has gone off on the top half. The middle is relatively light (bleedover from bottom back light?). I have tried playing with the hinge to no avail. After I reset the computer, cleared pram-nothing. Zippo. I got the top to stay lit for about a half second after reset, but it then flicked off again. Do I need to load up my iMac and drag my ass to the Apple Store (it really is quite a task to drive there)?Here is a horrible cell phone picture (and no, the screen IS dark, that's not a shadow.):
Whenever I'm searching for a file and I use 'last opened date' as one of the options, it presents files that I know I didn't open within that timeframe (and I'm the only user here) as well as not including files I know I opened.
Any ideas? I don't know if something indexing my files is causing this, I do use Launchbar, but I can't imagine that's it?
I have a shared HP F2230 all-in-one attached to my mac running leopard 10.5.5. I have been printing regular MS Word black and white documents fine from my other Windoze vista / 7 Beta computers. Tried to print a colored photo but the colors are inaccurate and all the blacks turn into purple! This happens regardless of the application in windows (Paint, MS publisher, and even printer test page!) I tried to print the same photo in the mac and had no problem. I attached a photo of the print out from my windows 7 beta machine. Tried to reinstall drivers, restart printer, restart mac, but it didn't work.
I haven't seen the sun all day. Not only that, but I can hear thunder, see lightning and judging by the very dark shade of the clouds around my house, I can pretty much say it's damn sure about to start pouring. What I'm getting at is that this widget has shown nothing but sunshine all day and all night tonight. The temperatures seem to be close, but that's about it. Just curious if anyone else noticed any inaccuracy with this Accuweather widget.
screen share with another Mac on the network that I've recently setup to be a server. When I try logging in, with 'iMac' as the name and 'password' as the password, it says that the details are inaccurate, yet I'm fine to login to view folders. The Mac I'm using to login runs Leopard (lates updates) and the other uses Tiger (latst updates), but still, I'm fine to connect to another Mac using Tiger to share the screen.
Anyone else noticed that file size calculation in Lion is inaccurate? I noticed when trying to burn cds or dvds with Toast, Toast would calculate the exact size, but Lion would give different results, either larger or smaller, but never accurate.I know for a fact Toast is right and Lion is wrong because I tested the same files in PCs, and in Leopard, and Lion's results are off the mark.Incidentally, I've been using Lion for a month now, and I have to say that in my 18 years as a Mac user I had never encountered so many annoying bugs when switching to a new OS. And don't get me started on the no-color sidebar!
I am using a Mac Book Pro with boot camp. When using windows there is no laggy feeling. This is not a skipping movement just a slight lag that makes it barely noticable but inaccurate, very annoying. I have tried many many mice and different softwares but that FLOATING feeling is always there on the Mac side but not the Windows 7. I have been an avid fan of Mac since way back. Classic never did this. I do not remember early versions of OSX doing it but I may not been aware of it.
Info: MacBook Pro (15-inch Early 2011), Mac OS X (10.6.8)
I have an external hard disk. Trying to copy a large file to the disk, the system retuned a message telling that I was missing space. To me, that was impossible.
The hard disk folders added to 371GB of data but the info displayed that I was using 445GB. I emptied the trash, but that didn't do any difference. After trying to understand, I was left with the idea that there may be invisible files using that space.
With the Onyx utility, I discovered that the «.Trashes» folder was hidding ±75GB of data. At first I didn't see it, because the «.Trashes» folder gave me only a write permission (???). Changing this permission, I then discovered that it was holding the missing 75GB. Because I now have the read permission, I can see the content ... but can I deleted them ? Can I delete hidden files in the «.Trashes» folder ?
I've spilled a tiny amount of water on my trackpad (drops of sweat from a glass, so not much at all) and now the trackpad isn't working. The cursor is delayed and inaccurate and reminds me of windshield wipers on a dry windshield in that it bounces across the screen. Also, the menu of a right click keeps popping up but I haven't right clicked. Is there any way that I can dry under the trackpad? Can I take the trackpad off? I have a 13" unibody. I did fold paper towels in half and stuck them in the cracks between the trackpad and the wrist rest and that did get some water up, but there is either still water under there or permanent damage. I'm not very tech-savy, so I'd rather not take the whole thing apart on my own, but it is work issued and I'd have to take it to them before I can take it to an Apple store.
I have a 1TB external LaCie hard drive. Presently, it is loaded with about 300GBs of space so I should have around 650GBs left. However, it is only showing about 240GBs left. I think the problem is that I used to use this hard drive for Time Machine backups, I deleted them via the recycle bin. I checked the recycle bin, nothing there. I verified the disk, everything ok, I repaired it as well. I even erased the empty space.
I went yesterday evening to the Apple store in Georgetown as I happened to be near by and checked out the new Airs. The keyboard letters look reflective bu the keyboard also looked somehow cheaper (which I guess it is truly). Tough to test the usability in the dark in the store, I tried to hover over it with my jacket (must have looked pretty stupid) but it is not a real live test. So for you who had a backlit keyboard before
I have a 2012 macbook pro and needed to change the brightness of my monitor for my eyes, the problem is I find it hard to see the tab bar now because it is too dark. I looked on these forums and found how to change the brightness of the tab bar without compromising any of the other parts of the screen, but it is not for my particular year or model " [URL]
Info: Apple TV, blinking light on apple tv box stop
This was a sudden occurrence. Everything fine one minute, then when I opened the MacBook, there are dark (black!) smudges on several of the words on the menu bar. The first smudge starts at the right edge of the apple and almost totally obliterates the word "safari." There are light, but still black smudges on File, Edit, View and History, and on the airport icon. This has never happened before.
Info: MacBook (13-inch Mid 2010), Mac OS X (10.6.8), This is a sudden occurrence.
