Hoping someone out there in Mac land can help me out. Last week I installed the OS X 10.5.6 (9G55) update on my MacBook Pro (2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT chipset) and within an hour or two I started experiencing a screen blanking problem.
At first I thought the machine was crashing, but then I noticed that I could still hear activity on the computer and with some futzing around with the mouse, the screen came back on. (I later discovered this was a very specific kind of futzing with the mouse that fixed it.)
Now, about once every few hours or so, the screen goes black. If the room light is right, I can see that the computer is live and the LCD is active, just with no backlight. It's identical to the situation where you've dimmed the screen all the way. The really interesting thing is that by mousing in and out of my "Sleep Display" hot corner a few times, I can wake it up.
It's possible this has nothing to do with the update, but the timing is pretty darned close. Maybe it's just a failing LED backlight, but then why would sleeping and then unsleeping the display "wake" it? Another coincidence?
I'll be back at work in a few days and can get our desktop support guy to look at it, but I was hoping to find some answers sooner than that because it's really starting to get annoying.
Posted by: Pedro | December 31, 2008 4:20 AM
Couldn't it just be that your mouse jumps into your "Sleep Display" hot corner by itself for some reason (faulty mouse/ driver/ remote control)? Try changing the "Sleep Display" corner.
Posted by: AndersH | December 31, 2008 4:47 AM
AndersH, it's not that.
There's a difference between dimming the backlight and sleeping the display. In bright light you can still see the display when the backlight is off but when it's sleeped, it's truly off.
This problem isn't one of going in and out of sleeped, though that seems to "fix" it temporarily. It's just losing the backlight.
- A
Posted by: Asa Dotzler | December 31, 2008 4:59 AM
Take a look at this: http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/27/1447235
Hope it solves your problem
Posted by: André Restivo | December 31, 2008 6:15 AM
Maybe try resetting your PRAM?
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
There was a Mac OS update in 2007 that caused my MacBook to display colored lines on boot up.
I'm sure you realize this, but you also might try checking Apple's technical support fora.
Posted by: Douglas | December 31, 2008 7:39 AM
By the way, it looks like your blog is still set to Pacific Daylight Time. I posted the previous comment at 6:39 a.m. PST.
Posted by: Douglas | December 31, 2008 7:53 AM
Others have a similar issue. Take a look at this thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8404730�
Hope this helps!
Posted by: themask | December 31, 2008 7:59 AM
themask link is:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8404730
Asa Dotzler ever get it fixed all the way?
Posted by: Chas | January 8, 2009 11:58 PM
Hi Asa,
yesterday I had a problem with my iMac. When I turn on my screen appeared scratched as if had exist a problem with a driver or the graphic card. The odd thing is that moving the mouse or a window maximizing everything back to normal My solution? upgraded the OS and everything returned to normal.