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Re: Strange video and other doings...
dkmarsh #9686 04/26/10 07:05 AM
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Originally Posted By: dkmarsh

Quote:
...even on a really dry day a defrosting Mac's "Liquid Submersion Indicator" would likely be affected by condensation from the defrosting, and its warrantee would be voided...

Not so, if the information relayed from unnamed Apple sources by a University of Hawaii computer technician is correct: "these indicators are 'very accurate' and 'will not be affected by humidity or environmental factors,' so customers should not have to worry about false readings."

Pluswhich, your MacBook's minimum storage temperature is -13º F...so you'd think the LSI would have to have a reasonably high threshold of moisture tolerance before being "tripped."


Out of necessity I must assume that none of that relates to the present discussion because of what I'll call a "consistency factor."

The amount of moisture that condenses on anything I take out of my freezer on even an average temp/relative humidity day in NYC (forget altogether about the 90/90 days of August) far exceeds the amount of moisture that would normally be affecting a Liquid Submersion Indicator at the exact same moment, and I'll guess that it also far exceeds the amount of moisture in the air pretty much anywhere in the world. I'll also guess that moisture in the air - humidity - most likely does not affect an LSI the same way that an equal amount of condensate affects it.


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Something, anyhow...
artie505 #9907 05/14/10 09:16 AM
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Well... I've finally got something substantive (not what I've really been after, though, because my screen hasn't turned blue since I borrowed the camera), and it was some trick capturing it, because it happens for only a split-second after the gear wheel stops spinning; I lost count of how many times I booted and rebooted before I timed it just right.

This is a shot of what I described in my post #9500 in this thread, but I've now determined that it happens only when I'm booting from a Snow Leopard volume into a Leopard volume.

It doesn't happen booting from SL to SL, from L to SL, or from L to L...only from SL to L.

It looks like a kernel panic, but it comes and goes without doing any apparent damage.

Does it mean anything to anybody?

Thanks.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Something, anyhow...
artie505 #9916 05/14/10 05:26 PM
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What you are seeing is video resolution being switched before VRAM is cleared. For a split second you're seeing the new resolution with "garbage" in the vram. What's there could easily change depending on previous conditions.

That must have been very challenging to capture. I'd have used a video camera and snagged the single frame. (I've had to catch things that FLEW by in verbose mode or before a force fsck shutdown in verbose mode before)


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Re: Something, anyhow...
Virtual1 #9922 05/15/10 07:16 AM
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> What you are seeing is video resolution being switched before VRAM is cleared.
  1. Thanks... But why does it only happen when I boot from Snow Leopard into Leopard and not under any other circumstances?
  2. That's both good and bad news... Good, because it's not a real issue, and bad, because it's not an issue I can take to a "Genius." (I've now documented the garbled screenshot issue on three different occasions; I wonder if that'll be enough?)
It just occurred to me that I've booted from SL into L many times in the past without seeing any screen "artifacts;" I wonder why this has begun happening now, now being immediately after I gave my deuced Mac(hina) that hard workout beta testing the rsync front end?

> That must have been very challenging to capture.

It was, because it only appears for a split-second, but after much frustration I figured out that counting turns of the gear wheel might be useful, and the number turned out to be consistent, so I was able to time the shutter just right.

> I'd have used a video camera and snagged the single frame.

And therein lies the rub; the camera I borrowed can shoot videos, but it not only never occurred to me to go that route, I didn't even remember the fact until about ten minutes after I read your post.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Something, anyhow...
artie505 #9942 05/16/10 06:48 PM
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Thanks... But why does it only happen when I boot from Snow Leopard into Leopard and not under any other circumstances?

It has to do with what is left in vram prior to the boot, and the order and sequence of video switching/clearing going on during the next startup. Certain combinations of these two will produce what you are seeing. The different OSs, and even different settings (screen res/depth) on both will affect this.



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Re: Something, anyhow...
Virtual1 #9966 05/17/10 05:20 AM
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Thanks, but can you think of a reason why this phenomenon now manifests under the exact same circumstances under which it never manifested in the past?

Edit: Hmmm... I just discovered that the garbled screenshots, which I never saw until after the post-apple/gear wheel stuff began occurring, also occur when I boot from a Snow Leopard volume into a Leopard volume.

I wonder if I'm seeing a gradual deterioration of my logic board or some other component?

Last edited by artie505; 05/17/10 08:57 AM.

The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Something, anyhow...
artie505 #9993 05/18/10 06:31 PM
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I think the short answer here is "too much magic to figure out to explain it, but it's not a problem".


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Re: Something, anyhow...
artie505 #9994 05/18/10 06:43 PM
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And the long answer is still "buy AppleCare."



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Re: Something, anyhow...
dkmarsh #10002 05/19/10 06:39 AM
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Originally Posted By: dkmarsh

And the long answer is still "buy AppleCare."

Thanks for the heads-up, but I did that about two weeks before my year was up.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Something, anyhow...
Virtual1 #10003 05/19/10 06:42 AM
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Originally Posted By: Virtual1
I think the short answer here is "too much magic to figure out to explain it, but it's not a problem".

Thanks for that...reassuring in one sense and disappointing in another

Oh, well... I've got close to two years of AppleCare left.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Something, anyhow...
Virtual1 #10220 05/29/10 08:38 AM
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Originally Posted By: Virtual1
I think the short answer here is "too much magic to figure out to explain it, but it's not a problem".

It just occurred to me to try zapping PRAM, and that resolves this particular issue... No more video weirdness during booting, no more garbled screenshots after booting...saves me from having to restart.

Thanks for the heads-up on video resolution...gave me the idea.

Last edited by artie505; 05/29/10 08:40 AM. Reason: Thanks

The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Blue screen... Finally... Really!!! :)
artie505 #10398 06/05/10 10:23 AM
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This slideshow begins with a shot of the ubbthreads_stock theme taken at the same time the ubbthreads_funetunedmac theme shots were taken. (I see a blue cast in the "stock" shot, too.)

(I'd still love to know why Photo Booth could not capture the blue. confused )


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Something, anyhow...
artie505 #10507 06/12/10 06:25 AM
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This is interesting, but I've no idea what it means...

The video issues we've discussed occurred when I booted from the damaged Snow Leopard volume discussed in this thread into my main Leopard volume, but they do not occur when I boot from any other SL partition, a newly created damaged one (with less damage than the original) included.

Is it possible that one of my damaged /usr/bin items controls a video cache clearing procedure?


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Blue screen... Finally... Really!!! :)
artie505 #16750 07/30/11 06:41 AM
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Originally Posted By: artie505
This slideshow begins with a shot of the ubbthreads_stock theme taken at the same time the ubbthreads_funetunedmac theme shots were taken. (I see a blue cast in the "stock" shot, too.)

(I'd still love to know why Photo Booth could not capture the blue. confused )

I think my "blue screen" issue has finally been resolved...

As I reported here, my backlight went totally kaput last week, and my entire display was replaced by Apple(Care).

Judging from what I'm now seeing, I'll guess that my backlight was defective out of the box, but without showing any real evidence thereof. (Having come from a matte screen to a glossy screen I had no way of knowing how things should actually have looked on my new display.)

My screen is now considerably brighter and bluer than it was before the repair, so I'll further guess that my issue was a temporary aberration, that was temporarily corrected by Apple's having replaced my fan, in my basic backlight glitch.

It thus becomes apparent that I couldn't capture the blueness in screenshots because it was a backlight issue rather than something on my screen.

And I'll further guess that Photo Booth couldn't capture the blueness because it was just plain too subtle.

I hope that's clear enough.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
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