Macbookpro screen strobes and freezes

my late 2007 macbook pro suddenly started to strobe (flashed very fast and uncomfortable to the eyes) and the froze. on attempted restart it got as far as the grey gear turning and would stall and freeze. i could not start on the install disc without it strobing and freezing again, so i took it in to apple, payed 79. bench fee and they said they got it started and found some directory problems which they fixed. got it home and hooked everything up and not long after it froze again and would not start. after that i looked at my OSX leopard "missing manual" that i had bought and it suggested a bad usb device or cable. after disconnecting everything, it starts and runs normally. should have read up on it first!

Have you changed anything in regards to Mac OSX, such as installing system updates, updating drivers, etc?
To me, it looks like your GPU may be failing. Since Adobe software utilizes the GPU, that's why you're seeing it with these programs. You should test with other software that utilizes the GPU and see what happens.

Similar Messages

MBP 13" Screen Flickers and Freezes After Upgrading HDD

Hi There,
I have seen on here and a few other forums that people are having issues with graphics cards or overheating that is making the MBP screen flicker and freeze.
Mine has been fine until yesterday when I installed a new Seagte 1tb HDD. It works ok, but every now and then the screen starts to flicker, half of it goes black and the system freezes. Sometimes it's just for a few minutes, but sometimes I need to do a hard reset by holden the power button down for 5 seconds.
Here are the details:
MBP 5,5 13" (2008 I think - Can't remember)
Boot ROM Version:
MBP55.00AC.B03
SMC Version (system):
1.47f2
Version 10.6.8
2.26Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
8gb 1067 Mhz DDR3 (Just upgraded, but before the hard drive and no issues)
1TB Seagate Momentus SATA HDD
As mentioned, I upgraded the RAM a week or so ago and it has been running fine. I put the new hard drive in last night and after a few hours, the flickering started.
I cloned the hard drive using SuperDuper and it all started up fine.
So far, I have verified and repaired permissions, checked SMART status and run a SMART Utility diagnostic. All comes back ok.
I cleared the PRAM and installed smcfan control as another forum with similar issues said it was a overheating problem and running the fan control program should fix it. I did that at 8am this morning and it has run great all day. Come 5.30pm, the flickering started and then it froze.. GREAT!!!!
It's so frustrating, I was really looking forward to having my MBP upgraded and running fast again.
Any ideas or tips would be very welcome.
Thanks in advance.

set old HD. If problem will gone - you have weakened power supply or internal power converters. Yours new HD draw more power during spinup or something - so voltage on internal bus lowers and memory or videocard freaks.
5.30 PM looks like a time when there begins a lot of load on city energy grid - so voltage in wall socket goes a bit unstable, it may also add to problem.
if problem is gone when you are on battery power - its power supply. If it persists or get worse when on battery - its internal power convertors.

TS3274 IPad screen scrabbles and freezes

Every now and then my IPad screen scrambles and freezes. This has been going on for several months and is happening more and more often.

Reset iPad
Hold down the Sleep/Wake button and the Home button at the same time for at least ten seconds, until the Apple logo appears
Note: Data will not be affected.

Why is my iPhone 6 Plus home screen flickering and freezing up?

Why is my iPhone 6 Plus home screen flickering and freezing up?

Try these steps as needed:
1. Reset phone - press both home and lock buttons for at least 10 seconds, releasing when the Apple logo appears
2. Restore to factory settings:
Use iTunes to restore your iOS device to factory settings
3. Get warranty service from Apple in the country where the phone was purchased

MacBook Pro screen flickers and freezes after Snow Leopard/Safari 5 updates

Hi guys,
I have a silver 120GB 15-inch MacBook Pro from Summer 2007 with 3GB RAM and 25+GB free space which has recently begun to freeze irrecoverably. The first appearance of these symptoms seems to coincide with my installing the Snow Leopard 10.6.6 update via Software Update.
I'm not particularly well versed in computer technology, but will try to describe my problem as detailedly as possible.
What happens is this:
1. I start the computer as per usual, with only a couple of startup items. Everything's fine.
2. I start working. Use a lot of Safari 5 for browsing websites, often with some kind of Flash or "Flash-type" content such as banner ads, videos, even full Flash designs. I may also have programs such as QuickTime, VLC or an image editor open, if not necessarily "actively" doing anything. Everything's still fine - I'm able to both browse websites and watch videos as usual.
3. After a while of active working - say, 1-3 hours - I notice browsing websites gets a little choppy. Display features such as the file list view in Finder may or may not appear properly. The rotating wait cursor may or may not appear from time to time.
4. Immediately after symptom no. 3, the next time I start to watch a video, either via Safari 5 (say for example something on DailyMotion.com) or a file via QuickTime, something goes wrong.
Following no. 4, one of three things invariably happen:
5a) The video freezes and the entire screen flickers from black to the screen view very quickly two or three times, after which the computer or screen appears to freeze. The cursor still moves, but nothing reacts to it - open windows become completely unresponsive, nor does the top or any other menu react in any way to clicking. The "menu row" of application items, which normally appears when I move the cursor to the very bottom of the screen, doesn't appear. Restarting "blindly" by pressing the Off-button once and pressing R doesn't work. I'm forced to do a hard reboot, after which the computer is once again fine until the next two hours of active working. This usually happens ONLY when I try to watch a video in Full Screen-mode.
5b) I notice the video freezing only just in time, and am able to pause it and "esc" out of Full Screen-mode, and the computer remains operational. However, as soon as I again try to play video in Full Screen-mode, everything described in 5a. happens.
5c) The video stops playing, and the screen reverts momentarily to pale blue before switching to the login screen. I login again with my details, and everything appears to be fine again until the next two hours of active working. The computer "starts up" a lot faster than with a hard reboot. This usually happens ONLY when I've tried to watch a video in its original size, i.e. when not in Full Screen-mode.
This happens 1-4 times a day, and it appears to depend directly on how much work I've been doing on the computer. The less I use it in the course of a day, the longer it takes until the next time it freezes.
So, in a way, I'm able to replicate this problem. 95% of the time the screen has frozen while watching or starting to watch (usually already when starting to watch) video footage, but it has also frozen a couple of times just switching between e.g. Safari 5 and an image editor or browsing a website with a Flash banner ad or embedded video content (which however hasn't necessarily been playing); today, the screen froze when I tried to open a website made entirely with Flash.
Although it could be just a coincidence, I believe this issue first appeared when I updated Snow Leopard to 10.6.6 via Software Update alongside some other pending updates, including as far as I recall one for Safari 5. The update process appeared to have gone well at the time, though, and was not interrupted in any way. I have never had this specific problem with the computer/screen before, though.
I've read a couple of threads here regarding very similar issues with newer MBP models than mine, in which it has been suggested that the fault may lie in a malfunctioning NVIDIA GeForce graphics card. Now I've had that replaced already once because my screen went unexpectedly completely blank after a forced reboot 1-2 years ago (I don't remember exactly), but according to my System Profiler info the card still a GeForce 8600M GT. Can it be failing again?
I've also had some kind of a RAM card failure once. As far as I understood it, one of the RAM cards had fried and was preventing the computer from starting up. I replaced the bad 1GB card with a new 2GB one and the problem was resolved. Before the computer died, there were also other symptoms, but they were not similar to these.
I'm also doing the Apple Hardware Test tomorrow. Any other suggestions, though, than the graphics card?
*Could this have to do with Flash or Safari 5?* Just hear me out. Even though my computer has frozen from watching a video in just QuickTime, Safari 5 has always been open in the background at the same time, and more likely than not with websites with "Flash" content open. And come to think of it, before I performed the Snow Leopard and Safari 5 updates, I used to have daily problems viewing Flash video in Safari 5, the video content either suddenly showing up as "Plug-in Failure" or crashing the browser; I've had both Safari 5 and the Safari 5 Flash plug-in "quit unexpectedly" countless times in the past, almost daily. Sometimes the "Plug-in Failure" could be fixed just by refreshing the browser view; at other times, Safari 5 would stop showing Flash content altogether - Flash banner ads (such as Google ads), YouTube and other Flash videos, everything - until I quit and restarted Safari 5. BUT - since the day I updated everything via Software Update, I don't remember this happening; it never gets to "Plug-in Failure" now. Could it be worth trying to use e.g. just Firefox for a while or is there something (e.g. Adobe Flash) that I could try reinstall? Or am I just clutching at straws here?
Thanks for reading this long, long post!

Do you have access to an Apple Store? If so, it may be worth making an appointment at the genius bar and having them run the test for the NVIDIA problem. Since your replacement logic board still has the NVIDIA GeForce 8600 M GT video chip, it could be starting to happen to your replacement logic board.
I also agree with all of CMCSK's suggestions. Freezing is often associated with hard drive problems. You might also want to run SMART Utility:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/systemdiskutilities/smartutility.html
You can download the demo and run it several times for free. It will give you a very comprehensive view of the physical health of your hard drive. If you still have the original one from 2007, it's getting pretty long in the tooth and may be approaching the end of its average useful life of 3-5 years. I just recently had to replace my original 2007 Fujitsu drive.
If your drive is headed south, and is also too small, it may be time to upgrade to a larger and faster drive.
The software update probably didn't cause the problems, but it may have exposed problems that were already in existence.
Good luck!

Screen flashing and freezing

I have a 2008 Mac Pro, which has served me well since I got it, at least until a day or two ago. At that time, it started exhibiting sporadic black flickering on screen, paired with freezing. At first, everything would freeze except the audio, which would continue playing uninterrupted, and after a minute or so the system would unfreeze like nothing happened. Now, though, it seems to have gotten worse; the system doesn't seem to recover after a flickering episode, and even the audio will get stuck into a one second loop after a while.
I tried resetting the PRAM and the SMC. When that didn't work, I tried restarting into Lion Recovery mode with Command-R. For some reason, that sent me right to a reinstall screen, but it didn't matter, because the screen started flickering and the system froze almost immediately after startup. I'm pretty sure that what it froze in was a separate recovery partition, so that should rule out any software issue. I'm guessing that my video card is fried, but I'd like to see what others think; I'd like to avoid buying a video card that I don't need.

2009 Mac Pro 3,1, GeForce 8800GT, 6GB ram.
I have recently had the same problems. Screen flickering, tiling and freezing previous to this video settings I've had for a long time just changed. I am not sure if it is my monitor or graphics card. My graphics card was replaced once already. This is acting a little different this time.
I also reset pram am still running 10.6.8

Screen scrambles and freezes ipod after update

hey guys, im having some crazy problems with this ipod since the update...the screen kind of scrambles then freezes everything...is anyone else experienceing this and if so how did you fix it if you did at all...sorry if this is a repeat post but im really ****** about the whole thing...any suggestions would be most appreciated...thank you
Josh

I am having the same problem since August 2006. I tried everything everybody suggested, but to no avail. I then sent my 5G video iPod to Apple for repair. They sent it back stating "no trouble found". What a joke! If you go back to the previous version, you can't play music videos anymore, but scramble and freeze problem go away.
No point in talking to Apple tech support. They'll not understand or recognize the problem; they'll just waste your time. I hope some smart guy in this forum will eventually figure out a solution.

HT1688 Does your iPhone 4 freeze up and or screen enlarges and freezes.

iPhone 4 freezes up and changes screens, drops calls, won't hang up

HI!!!
I have an Iphone 4 for 3 years now on and when now I turned on the screen freeze. It doesn't have the screen cracked and it doesn't have any damages of any kind. I did the reset with the home and sleep button and doesn't work. I did the restore process with Itunes and still freeze. I don't find any other different solution to this problem. Is there any other different process that I can do? PLEASE let me know.

Screen dimming and freezing

My computer keeps freezing. The screen is dimmed and the cursor won't move. Does anyone know what this might be or how to try to fix it?

When posting in Apple Communties/Forums/Message Boards.......It would help us to know which Mac model you have, which OS & version you're using, how much RAM, etc. You can have this info displayed on the bottom of every post by completing your system profile and filling in the information asked for.
CLICKY CLICK---> https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3602
CLICKY CLICK-----> Help us to help you on these forums

Screen distorts and freezes

I have an HP Pavilion Media Center m8000n, product# RX881AA, running Windows Vista. The screen willl suddenly distort into horizontal lines, colored or black and white depending on what was being displayed. All diagnostics check out okay, also checked for software conflicts and viruses. Best Buy Geek squad checked twice, and said problem may be video card related. What else can I try? I am almost ready to throw this computer away!

I have the same problem on my A305-S6872. My screen becomes garbled just like you show and a restart of the computer fixes the problem. My computer doesn't freeze when it happens, I can still do things but just can't really see what I'm doing. The problem happens randomly, maybe once or twice a month. I have warranty but can't duplicate the problem since its so random. I know if I send it in for repair, they will just send it back since it will probably be working properly when they test it. If anyone has any idea what is happening, I would love to know! Thanks!

Screen defragments and freezes since three days

I have creative Cloud since CS6 and used it without problems until three days ago on the following hardware:
Model Name:          MacBook Pro
Model Identifier:          MacBookPro8,2
Processor Name:          Intel Core i7
Processor Speed:          2.2 GHz
Number of Processors:          1
Total Number of Cores:          4
L2 Cache (per Core):          256 KB
L3 Cache:          6 MB
Memory:          8 GB
Boot ROM Version:          MBP81.0047.B27
SMC Version (system):          1.69f4
Serial Number (system):          C02G3456DF91
Hardware UUID:          70E20EA3-07A5-5568-A1DA-96E20334813F
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State:          Enabled
with updated MacOS software. Three days ago it first occured that my screen suddenly flashes, gets horizontal lines, usually splits with part of the picture off the screen on one side, shown on the other, and in most cases freezes there with the sponning ball of death. I have made the hardware test and there is no problem, there is (possibly) no problem with Lightroom 5 if InDesign is not running, but InDesign CS6 and CC both now run only very shortly until the problem occurs. It also occurs when one of these programs has started, even if I have not used it yet. Until nowI have mainly worked on isolating the problems cause, and it is certainly related to adobe programs, but I have not tested other programs. The most recent update was Bridge CC five days ago, unistalling it did not help, as uninstalling CS6 (which I first thought is the cause, and I do need that version back) did not help either. I have not found anythin on that on the web or in your forum.
Thanks, Christian

Have you changed anything in regards to Mac OSX, such as installing system updates, updating drivers, etc?
To me, it looks like your GPU may be failing. Since Adobe software utilizes the GPU, that's why you're seeing it with these programs. You should test with other software that utilizes the GPU and see what happens.

Screen splits and freezes

I am running 10.7.5 and the past 2 days my screen has split in 2 i.e. shiffted so that left half of screen is on right half and sort of wrapped around to other side, almost as if using to screens. At this point the computer freezes and the only option is to hold power button to reboot??
Any suggestions please

You're not alone!
https://discussions.apple.com/message/22145176#22145176
https://discussions.apple.com/message/22147093#22147093

My Mac glitches after startup with screen flashing and freezing up.

Why does my Mac begin to flash then freeze after start up?

Could be many things, we should start with this...
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu at top of the screen. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Select your Mac OS X volume.
5. Click Repair Disk, (not Repair Permissions). Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then try a Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.
(Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.)
If perchance you can't find your install Disc, at least try it from the Safe Boot part onward.
Any change?
Have you blown the dust out lately?

Apple TV Turning TV Screen Black and Freezing

My 40GB Apple TV has been relatively trouble-free until a month ago. My TV is connected to Onkyo 705, which is connected to Apple TV via HDMI. The receiver output to my TV via a HDMI cable.
I've since rebooted Apple TV to no avail.
Issue 1) My TV will screen to turn black without any sound for a few seconds, either during movie playing or menu browsing. Apple TV will normally resume after the "flashing".
Issue 2) Freezing. Sometime the silver Apple logo will be showing when I turn on TV, and the screen is stuck there with the logo. I had to power down and power up to regain control of Apple TV.
I can't really take my Apple TV to Apple Store. My 3-year old son will go nuts, besides the problems seem to be intermittent and no guarantee that Apple TV will behave the same in the store.
Any one has any suggestion?

I think I may have found the cause for my Apple TV's "pausing" problem. Overheating!!!
I had my Apple TV stacked on top of set-top box for my TV, and last night I accidentally touched the Apple TV and it is HOT like a toaster. I have since move it side-by-side with other component, and it hasn't "paused" yet.
I hope this solves the "pausing" issue, and hope this helps other users.

Screen Distortions and Freezes

I recently started having a problem with my Macbook Pro where the screen would suddenly split and flip sides. I could still move the mouse but nothing else responded so I would have to shut it down. It started happening more frequently and then got to a point where it couldn't even get to the log in screen when restarting. I took it to an Apple Service Provider and they replaced the logic board. It had no problems for about two weeks, but now the issue has returned. There is no obvious pattern that predicts when the screen will distort. It seems different every time, and sometimes the screen just goes black. What is likely the issue since the logic board replacement seems to have been unsuccessful?
Interestingly, the most recent time it happen, I took a screenshot of the split and flipped screen, but in the image, the screen looks normal.

Did you ever figure out the cause? Mine just started doing the same thing. (Late 2011 macbook pro 15 inch)

Macbookpro screen strobes and freezes

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for