2007 MBP LED Banding Issue

Short backstory: My mac was working fine, except when I would open the lid to wake it from sleep it would turn on the display, but not the backlight. Sometimes the backlight would take 5 seconds to turn on, sometimes it would take upwards of a whole minute to turn on. Adjusting the brghtness controls on the keyboard didn't make any difference, so I decided to do some reasearch and followed instructions to reset the PRAM and SMC. The delay has gone away, but now I have a new problem.
My MacBookPro3,1 LCD backlight seems to have light banding issues on the bottom of my screen. It seems almost like if it a row of lights that ever 3rd light or so is out. Is this a software problem of a hardware problem and is it an indication that my screen is about to go out?

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
That's a display issue. As you have had problems with the display before, it looks like the display is damaged, so take the Mac to an Apple Store or AASP

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I am having an issue waking my late 2007 MBP from hibernation after update to 10.8

I am having an issue waking my late 2007 MBP from hibernation after I updated to OSX 10.8 Mountain lion. Anything I can do to fix this? I cannot keep doing a hard reset.

for people with this problem in the future. I ended up solving this by taking out and reinserting the RAM. I had previously bought RAM from crucial.com and I thought it may have been a compatibility issue with that. After taking out the RAM and reinserting I have not had the problem. Be sure to insert the RAM with force, almost to the point it hurts. I think the problem for the MAC not waking from sleep was due to the RAM not properly inserted or being jarred out over time and not related to the instal of 10.8. also, if you are no longer under applecare and you call apple with an issue you get retards.
cool. thanks. <3

Is my 2007 MBP HD dying? Should I replace? Or could it be unsalvageable?

Problems: Constant grey screen asking me to restart. Looping of log in screen when restarting. Having to boot in safe boot. Finder constantly lagging just hitting a file for quick preview no matter how small. Unable to try to save files by moving them to an external HD because an error about file not readable or writable pops up midway through transfer. All this continues even after a clean Snow Leopard install.
Could it be the hard drive?
Crash report said something about a problem with the CPU, screen capped it twice, disappeared off my desktop along with a few other files.
Now is my 2007 MBP 2.33GHZ screwed? Should I just attempt to buy a new one?
Mind you, my MBP has never given me a problem until a month ago. It's my sole work computer and I really can't afford a new one.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Trying to get help by the end of the day to decide whether or not to buy the HD and get it over night to start work again. Or bite the bullet and have to find a way to get a new mac book

You can use a powered external drive, c boot off the installer disk and install OS X onto it. (format HFS+ journaled in Disk Uitlity first)
Reboot holding option key and update, see if the computer runs fine like that.
If not it's another issue. If fine then perhaps you shoudl switch the hard drive

HT203254 My 15" 2007 MBP has the NVDIA chip

My 15" 2007 MBP has the defective NVDIA chip however I had to pay Apple several hundred dollars to repair it. I was told that Apple would not cover the cost of the repair because it was 2 months outside the coverage period.
First of all, it's bad enough that I would have to pay Apple to repair a known defect. Apple won a court settlement and was awarded a financial settlement to repair these machines. What did Apple do with this settlement? They certainly did not repair my computer.
Now after only 80 days of getting this computer repaired by Apple, the NVDIA chip problem has reoccured. My MBP is back in the shop again. Apparently the first repair was only a short-term fix. There's no way that a quality repair would last only 80 days! This has to be the worst experience ever with a major company.
Had I purchased a cheap off-brand computer, I would expect some problems later on, however, this MBP cost $2100 in 2007. This was a major purchase and a reputable brand. Don't get me wrong, I like Apple products, however, I'm beginning to feel that maybe, just maybe Apple doesn't value me, their customer as much as I value them.

Apple has a special test they can run to diagnose the NVIDIA issue, so that's probably what needs to happen. Not sure why screen sharing works, though.

Random crashes (Late 2007 MBP)

Hi there,
I have a late 2007 MBP and recently have been experiencing random crashes which I am unsure of the cause. Looking through the console logs following the crashes I haven't been able to notice any common themes, but then again I'm not quite sure what I should be looking for. This computer has gone through numerous repairs (3 logic boards, 1 superdrive, 2 batteries that failed, my right fan went out...). The issue is random and occurs when normally using the computer, as well as during start up. I feel like it may be heat related, although I have never seen the temps of the CPU get above 180 during this, and the computer has never been very hot to the touch. Using it in a room with an ambient temp above ~70 F seems to amplify the problem, although sitting outside in 60F weather in the shade has resulted in no problems for the last hr.
To date I've tried PRAM and SMC resets, reinstalled 10.6, and was going to try and run the hardware test, but my superdrive won't boot the cd (is there any other way to run the hardware test save for borrowing an external disk-drive?) Also, should I accept that this computer is at the end of its tumultuous run? The only other thought I had was opening it up and checking the thermal paste.
Thanks for any help.
-John

Since AppleJack came back clean, and your temps are reasonable, it doesn't sound like your drive is going out. It is possible that you have some corrupted files on your drive, but I would have expected AppleJack to have found something too if there were. The only other thing I can think of that might cause what you are seeing is bad hardware (RAM, GPU, etc). In general my temps are simiar to yours except my CPU is about 95 cooler, but it is also running much closer to 15% utilization right now. Out of curiosity, what is your HD temp? Most notebook drives have a max operating temp of 55C (about 130F). If your drive is close to that it may be throwing intermittent errors.
I would tend to lean towards drive or RAM as the most probably hardware components to cause what you are seeing. I'm sure there are other possible causes, but from my personal experiene, those two tend to be the most common. If you can get an appointment at a Genius Bar, they might be abe to run some hardware diagnostics to see if they can detect any problems for you.

HD won't spin down in combo SSD + HD 2007 MBP

I installed an SSD in my optical drive bay in a late 2007 MBP hoping to improve performance, reduce the noise of the HD spinning and increase battery life with virtually no HD activity.
I set the system to boot from the SSD but the HD is always still annoyingly spinning. Set option to have HD spin no when no activity, of which there should be none (that I am aware of).
Any ideas on why this might be happening?

I'm confused now, Martin. Your original post said that this was an "iMac DV+ "450" ruby red"
All of the 450's (they came in Ruby, Sage and Indigo ) had a DV drive fitted as standard. As you say, the 400's didn't.
Can you spin the drive down manually, using the sleep command under the Apple menu?
The slave issue could be involved, but, as I said, this was a very common problem with the Summer 2000's anyway. (I suffered it myself)
David, I must have dealt with hundreds of queries about exactly this issue with the Summer 2000 iMacs here over the years (though I don't look in here as often as I used to). I promise you, at least with the drives originally fitted, the very common problem of spin down failure of the drives in this model was directly asociated with increased bearing whine and wear over time. The hard drives factually fitted to these machines were generally a "LC" (low cost) model, with a reduced warrantee period.
Of course, as you say, if a new drive is fitted this may not be as big an issue.
Cheers
Rod

2007 MBP - Grey Screen

I am getting the grey screen issue when I try to start up my late 2007 MBP. I usually see either the spinning gear, or the beach ball. Two other times, I have seen a progress bar which I have let run to completion. Prior to this happening, my MBP would allow me to enter my password after it was in sleep mode, then it would just freeze with a spinning beach ball and not load my desktop.
I have gone through the suggestions in the KB article, "Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup" and I am stuck when I try to use Disk Utility. When I am asked for the password (FileVault) to unlock the disk in order to do a permissions repair, the password no longer works. I know that I am using the correct password because I have the password and key stored in 1Password.
I also tried to reinstall Mountain Lion from the recovery screen but I am having the same password issue. I wasn't able to safe boot, but I didn't know about the verbose option until a few minutes ago. I'm not at home right now, but I am thinking that I need to run some hardware tests after trying safe boot one more time with verbose turned on.
FWIW ... In the future, I think I am going to turn off FileVault and just encrypt the stuff I am concerned about instead of the entire volume.
Any suggestions?

I tried this from another post:
Boot holding down Apple/S and don't let go until you see scrolling text.
When that stops and you see a root#: prompt enter
fsck -fy
Let it run through all the checks and repairs.
If it fails first time, at any time, or finds and fixes a fault - run the command again and keep doing so (some fixes can take several passes) until it says "Appears to be OK" then enter
But when "Checking catalog file" it says
disk0s2: I/O error.
Invalid node structure
(4, 3620)
The volume Internal could not be verified completely.
/dev/rdisk0s2 (hfs) EXITED WITH SIGNAL 8
Tried this again, but same thing over again a few times.
I'm now guessing my HD is dead.

Is there a fix for the MBP wireless dropping issue?

I began to experience the Macbook Pro dropping wireless connectivity on my very 1st Apple in 2008. At the end of the day my machine was replaced with a new Macbook Pro mid 2010. It appeared to be working just fine until about 2-3 months ago when I started dropping my wireless printer connection. I searched the internet hoping for a driver update from HP or something from Apple and each time I found something, the problem still existed. I even thought that by upgrading to Lion would resolve any issues that I have with my MBP wireless connectivity issue. After upgrading to buying a new router, new printer and upgrading to Lion; the wireless dropping issue still remains unresolved! I know there are several hundred in not thousands of people who are having the same problem so what are we supposed to do?
When my 1st MBP was replaced in 2010 I had to stop working because I was diagnosed with "Failed Back Surgical Syndrome" and was in the process of applying for disability. Something in the back of my mind said that I needed to purchase Apple Care for this new replacement however I had used all of my savings & retirement to sustain life for me and my family that there was nothing for Apple Care. If it weren't for my church and family I am not sure what I would do during the 18 months of no income while waiting for a decision only to receive an appeal until I findly stood in front of an Administrative Law Judge who heard my case and granted me disability. Besides there was no way I could ask anyone for money to purchase a warranty for a top of the line laptop while the country was falling off an economical cliff.
I broke down and called Apple Support and was told that I qualified for technical assistance regarding the upgrade to Lion a few weeks ago. The tech on the phone had me run some disk utility tests and had me repair permissions which she said could be the cause of the problem. I willingly went along with her in hopes that this was indeed the fix. However, within 10 minutes of hanging up the phone my MBP began to drop it's wireless connection to my new HP printer and also the Internet. Hence my question above is what I am really looking to have answered! What is the fix to this problem that so many people are having issues with? I couldn't afford to purchase Apple Care back in 2010 and I can't afford to purchase a new 2011 machine today if that truly is the fix!
I will be disabled for the remainder of my life and I have grown dependent upon my computer to stay in touch with friends and colleges from work. I worked for the IT Group at Wynn Resorts and I can say that the type of service Appple is providing it's customers is not what I learned over the past 25 years with Mr. Wynn. Why can't Apple get the simple concept that it's customers are it's life line and keeps them in business. I need help and I don't know what to do nor where to turn. It would be different if Apple acknowledged the issue and said they were working on it however they aren't. I plead to Apple to help me fix my notebook so I can stay connected to the outside world vs. couped up inside my home.
Best Regards,
Scott Leavitt

I am simply lookig for some help not an argument. I am not an RF specialist however have setup a few wireless networks in my tenure at Wynn Resorts. I fully agree that wireless networking is an art and a science however the powers that be in Network Land have toughted wireless networking is the easiest and quickest way to get two computers to talk with one another. As I previously said I have already turned one (1) MBP in for this problem and Apple decided to replace it because they could not fix the problem with my particular MBP. This MBP was running Leopard when the problems started
I am having a hard time believeing that there are several other devicces in my home that depend on a wireless network to operate and my MBP is the only one having an issue. I took this a step further and decided to see what would happen if I tried to connect wirelessly via Fusion. In Windows 7 I am able to print and scan to my hearts content without any issues. I am able to browse the internet as much as I want. I close Fusion and try to connect to my printer via wireless and nothing.
In order to get Apple to help do I need to get a Network Analyzer and capture packets when I have these problems? Out of the 1000 + posts is there a consolidation of which answer is the best? BTW I am accessing the internet via a wireless connection using Fusion and Windows 7.
In response to Linc's comments, I will look at the router specifications however I did not qualify that these devices are not using the wireless connection at the same time. Right now I would guess there are maybe two (2) or three (3) at the most that are actively transmitting / receiving information. -- Thanks

Can't insert a CD/DVD into the disc drive. Recently installed a new harddrive, and the CD/DVD drive hardware is no longer recognized. Also, with new harddrive, OS was updated from Snow Leopard to Mt. Lion 10.8.5 on late 2007 MBP.

Can't insert a CD/DVD into the disc drive. Recently installed a new 1 tb hard drive, and the CD/DVD drive hardware is no longer recognized. Also, with new hard drive, OS was updated from Snow Leopard to Mt. Lion 10.8.5 on late 2007 MBP (2.2 GHZ Intel Core 2 Duo. 4 GB 667 MHZ DDR2 SDRAM)

Also, when I check out the hardware list, under Disc Burning - the following is reported: No disc burning device was found. If the device is external, make sure it’s connected and turned on.
The disc drive worked fine prior to the HD upgrade and OS update to Mt. Lion.

Win7 x64 Installation on late 2007 MBP+Mountain Lion

Dear All,
As a long time mac and bootcamp user, I've never expected to face this problem but I've been trying to do this for 3 days.
I'm having trouble installing bootcamp (win7 x64 ultimate) into my late 2007 MBP (2.4GHZ core 2 duo)
Pretty much use the bootcamp assistant from start to finish, tried using install dvd and create boot-able USB stick (by changing the plist.info on the bootcamp assistant package, as my MBP isn't supported.)
With USB stick created by bootcamp assistant, my mbp just simply won't read it even during startup and rEFit startup.
Sometimes it goes into the blank state and says no bootable device.
With win7 install DVD, whenever I use built in superdrive, it got ejected after 2-3 mins,
When I tried using Samsung external dvd burner/player, in place of who-knows dead superdrive, it went into blank screen with only a dash blinking (just like when the first time you start a PC) then disc stop spinning after awhile.
Burned few copy DVDs from extracted ISO (from the orginial install disc) and came up with same results
Recent changes, current condition,etc:
- Changed the stock 160gb harddrive into WD500GB blue scorpio.
- Installed fresh OSX Mountain Lion downloaded from App Store (was Lion) and updated everything.
- Had the very same win7 on bootcamp 3 installed on snow leopard few years ago and keeping it even with Lion (the exact same dvd!)
- Superdrive cannot be used to write but can read normally (install DVD shows up normally in OSX environment.)
- With USB created by bootcamp assistant, rEFit shows "legacy booting" and can't find files inside the USB
- Installation is working flawlessly on my 2011 iMac.
- Can still boot into bootcamp on old internal stock hdd (using external case)
- DVDs burned are Verbatim DVD-R and Sony DVD-R, both are top brands.
- Burner I tried to burn them are 2011 iMac's, 2012 MBP's, Samsung external dvd burner (all fail to boot on my 2007 MBP)
- Tried the method to create usb stick on windows 7, still can't boot.
- Burned DVD using Nero and alcohol 120% on windows 7, still fail.
I wonder if you guys can help me, I'm a designer and I really need to install Corel Draw on bootcamp so I can work on some CDR files on my MBP. And other stuff such as office's finance control program that can only work under windows.
Thanks in advance!

Found a workaround, to sum it up, it's pretty much my dead internal superdrive (as for unbootable USB, that's still a mistery). What I did was moving the HDD to my 2012 MBP and install from there. The problem is now that since I installed it on another machine (with ofc all different hardwares) I got blue screen whenever I tried to start Windows7 (in 2007 MBP after moving the HDD back there).
Next step will be replacing the superdrive on 2007 MBP with 2012's. Or if someone got a suggestion like installing the drivers via target disk mode etc, please advice

Severe banding issue in shadow areas

Short Version: Having severe banding issues in shadow areas in Lightroom. Need to know how/what to set my color profile to to fix this issue. Lengthier description and images below.
I have read several posts here in the Lightroom forums about others who are experiencing the same type of banding issues, but I haven't seen any definitive answers on how to solve the problem.
I was able to take a couple screenshots of the issue that I am seeing. The image looks very different in Photoshop, Lightroom, Windows Photo Gallery, and also rendered in IE7. Screenshots of the image in Lightroom and the image in Photoshop are posted below at a 100% crop of the affected area. The first image is how it appears in Lightroom and the second image is how it appears in Photoshop.
From what I have read elsewhere the problem has to do with how Lightroom uses color profiles. I do not have much experience with color profiles, so I'd like to get everyone's recommendation on what color profile I should be using, and maybe a link to some information on setting color profiles and how to fix this issue. The image looks so much different in Lightroom than it does elsewhere, that I can't see myself being able to trust Lightroom to process my images.
Some info on my setup. Shoot RAW with Canon Rebel XT. Use a Dell with Pentium D running Windows Vista. Monitor is a Dell 2007FP, and currently I am using the Dell 2007FP color profile as far as I can tell.
Screenshot of image with banding in Lightroom
Screenshot of image as displayed in Photoshop

Don, Bob!
I think it is quite obvious that the Eric's problem is not banding per se (and the related cure by fiddling with black setting), but rather about the mismatch between how the file looks in LR's Develop 100% view and how the same file (or an exported file) looks in Photoshop.
Eric!
I am afraid there is no definite answer to this problem. Indeed there are a number of Windows users that have reported this problem. A very exhaustive and inconclusive thread is this:
http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?128@@.3bc3578d
The bottom line so far seems to be this:
LR on Windows uses Windows ICM to generate how the image looks on the screen, while PS uses Adobe own engine to generate this. Somehow this set-up appears not to work reliably with LR - the on-screen image in LR 100% develop differs from the same file's appearance in PS or other color managed applications. The mystery here is that other applications that seem to use Windows ICM still manage to show image correctly, but not LR. But anyway, the Windows ICM appears to be the culprit here.
The amount of difference people see depends on the complexity of the monitor profile used. LUT based Version 4.0 profiles will be affected worst - not only shadow detail, but the overall tonality and colors may be off. The best match is achieved with simple matrix based version 2.0 profiles - on my machine the mismatch occurs only in deep shadows were I see banding/splotchiness in LR and only under certain Develop settings.
(Incidentallly, on Windows XP (and older) machines one should ALWAYS use ver 2.0 profiles, as Windows ICM does not support ver 4.0 profiles. I also think that Windows ICM cannot handle LUT based profiles correctly. My own experiments showed that using LUT based monitor profile resulted in mismatch between PS CS2 and other applications (like Canon DPP), not only LR. BTW - as you are using generic monitor profile, I can almost bet that it is a matrix ver 2.0 profile (good thing).)
I am curious about the Vista thing though. I had certain hopes that this image appearance problem in LR would be eliminated on Vista, as it uses the Microsoft's new Windows Color System which incororates an updated ICM that now supports ver 4.0 profiles and reportedly has many bugs of the previous ICM fixed. However, if your report is true and the image mismatch is not due to some other factors, then it seems that Vista does not solve this.

Dell u2410 BANDING issues

I use my DELL U2410 as my external monitor and I got some banding issues in some of the color. Especially in Blue and Black. It looks very pixelated.
The driver provided by DELL is only for Windows and I tried to look for somehting online to see if there is a driver out there but couldnt find any.
My display settings are
Colors: Millions
Refresh Rate: 60 Hertz (NTSC) (I cant change to PAL and I am in europe). Could this be it??
Option: Overscan is ticked.
Any idea guys?

Have you tried a new cable?

Will my late 2007 MBP 17" run the Thunderbolt Display?

Will my late 2007 MBP 17" run the Thunderbolt Display? I know my display port is DVI (may be Dual-link).

Lightdrm wrote:
Will my late 2007 MBP 17" run the Thunderbolt Display? I know my display port is DVI (may be Dual-link).
No it won't. You need a computer with a Thunderbolt port.
Here is a list of compatible computers: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4885
Mario

Banding Issues with GeForce 8800

Hi,
I just installed CS4 Production Premium on a new Mac Pro. The system specs are:
2x 3 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
10GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB
2x 1TB SAS drives
Samsung 30" Syncmaster 305T Plus
OSX 10.5.6 (both OSX and CS4 are up to date)
When I was working in After Effects, I noticed some dramatic banding issues when lighting a scene. I was curious, so I created a gradient and the same banding was visible. I tried creating a gradient in PS, AI and Flash: same results. Consistent across all CS4 products, and the image depth (8bit, 16bit or 32bit) doesn't affect it at all. Applying a blur effect to any image also produces banding.
I tried finding some gradients through Google image search. They look fine in Firefox, but when I open them in Photoshop the banding once again pops up. Same in Preview to some extent, but not as drastic.
Two other guys in my office are running CS4 with the same monitor. We're running identically calibrated color profiles, and working in the same color space. They have no problems. The only difference between their setup and mine is that they're using Macbook Pros.
Things I have tried: turning OpenGL on/off and toggling the individual GPU settings, working in all available color spaces, working with variable DPI, using another monitor, changing the synchronized color space through Bridge, changing the conversion options (dither, engine, etc), changing the color management policies, working in CMYK/RGB/Gray/Lab, changing the pixel aspect ratio, altering the scratch disks and memory allocation, dumping my CS4 preferences and starting over... none of this affects the banding. A 16bit 72DPI image that's a straight black to white gradient consists of nothing more than 12 or so very visible steps. I'm starting to wonder if this is a graphics card issue.
All the work I'm doing is for screen, so printers don't factor into the equation. I'd appreciate any tips or suggestions anyone can offer.

Well, one thing I notice is that attempting to open the linked .png in Photoshop, it has an embedded "SyncMaster" profile.
Opening it in Photoshop CS4, maintaining that profile, I see banding (although very subtle in the second (bottom) example). The top example exhibits a stippled effect at the band edges at 100% scale.
Opening it and converting it to Adobe RGB 1998, I see almost no sign of banding in that bottom example.
Opening it as is in Preview, I see the banding again.
Creating a new radial gradient in Photoshop CS4, 1300 pixels wide, #666666 to #000000, at 100% scale, it is a smooth transition with the barest hint of banding. Also, my #666666 is noticeably lighter than in your example.
Offhand, I'm not sure which factors affect your workflow. But I doubt it is your video card unless it is set for, say 16 bit or 8 bit...
Neil

2007 MBP, couldn't install Lion, now can't re-install Leopard

I have a MBP from late 2007. It came with Leopard installed on it. I recently tried to upgrade to Lion, but received the message "Lion can't be installed on this computer". Now I can't reinstall Leopard. When I try to boot, it will always select the Lion partition, but I can't erase/unmount the Lion partition. Now, when I try to boot from the Leopard DVD, it also won't work.
How can I get rid of all remnants of Lion on my computer and install leopard, from the CD?
Thanks!

Your 2007 MBP would have to been updated to Snow Leopard 10.6.8 to install Lion. Now that you're in a mess, boot from your Leopard installer disk and Erase the disk and then install Leopard.

2007 MBP LED Banding Issue

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