Horizontal lines on right side of macbook screen - is it LVDS cable?

[Jdebunqe]

Computer: macbook pro, mid-2010 17”, ‘6,1’

Lately I’ve noticed thin bright (violet?) horizontal lines flickering on the right side of the screen.

Picture Linked Here.

They jump around vertically, but start at roughly the same horizontal position. They do not appear on the external display, and they also appear when the high-performance GPU is deactivated, so I think it isn’t the infamous GPU problem. They cover the whole right 5cm of the screen, but maybe there are more on the bottom. It looks like it could be crosstalk or interference among the wires feeding the panel.

They don’t change (much?) when I move the lid or tap on the lid. I reseated the internal LVDS cable adapter, and it didn’t help. PRAM reset did nothing.

I purchased a replacement LVDS cable, but it is risky surgery with a heat gun to replace it.

Does anybody have any experience with this glitch? Does this look like a LVDS cable problem (maybe from years of flexing). Worst case, I send it to apple for ‘Depot’ repair for $350, but that probably won’t apply if I damage it by trying the LVDS swap.



Thanks for any tips!

 

[chscag]

My guess: Could be one of two things - the LVDS cable as you stated or the LCD itself. Since an external display is OK, the GPU is not involved.

 

[Jdebunqe]

My guess: Could be one of two things - the LVDS cable as you stated or the LCD itself. Since an external display is OK, the GPU is not involved.

Yes, I'm trying to narrow it down to a good guess of which of these two it is. If it's the cable, it makes sense to try my own repair right now. I don't want to use a heat gun to open it up, replace the cable, and find that it didn't fix it. (but worst thing would be a wiring problem on the logic board.) I'm hoping somebody has seen this exact glitch and can say which it was.

Does anybody know the relative frequency of LVDS cable failure vs LCD panel failure? If the cable breaks much more often than LCD, then it's a good gamble to open it up and replace the cable. If it's 50/50 might make more sense to buy the LCD panel too and have them both on hand when opening it up.

 

[carush]

Same issue - horizontal lines/artifacts on right side of MBP screen

@ Jdebunque -

Did you resolve this? Which one of those proposed solutions worked for you?

I have exactly the same issue with exactly the same model (MacBook Pro 6,1 - 17" mid-2010). My lines are typically green but when the screen is bright there is a 'moire' reverse-color artifact. This is noticeable on bright backgrounds when video is streaming.

(see images)

I tested it as advised on the thread and: 1) screen capture did not show it and 2) external display did not show it.

Genius Bar told me the display assembly needed to be replaced. Last week somebody walking by who is a PC tech, said that it looked like a cable or hinge issue, because it is exactly the same width as the section of the deck to the right of the hinge.

Would like to hear your outcome on the LVDS cable before I decide to buy the whole display assembly and replace.

Thanks!

carush

 

[Jdebunqe]

I had to replace the whole screen, a pretty involved process. Had to get a heat gun, and a couple of (dis-)assemblies were needed.

First, I tried to replace the cable alone, and it didn't work.

One needs to be very careful threading the new cable in; I think I destroyed one (and used my old one, which was still good). But maybe the new one was bad.

I got a new screen on ebay; it turned to have a small bright spot, but I can live with that. Looks like a factory 2nd. Good enough for my old mac. If you can get screen adhesive, I suggest that too, because the old adhesive on glass might not be enough.

Here's my understanding: one cable wire feeds many rows/cols. The signal then gets split up into per-row and per-column wires by a row of chips on the LCD panel. So if only a few columns are bad, it's likely to be the LCD and not the cable, because a bad cable would mess up a lot more pixels.