If you have one of the new MacBook Pros (early 2008) and noticed some vertical display striping and graphic glitches, evidence is mounting that you may not be crazy after all.





No, this isn't a hidden new "abstract art" feature in Safari



After picking up one of these machines with the 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT card, I began noticing these glitches myself. They typically appear after waking the machine from sleep, and only a restart seems to fix them. The glitches manifest as quick, colorful flashes when moving and scrolling windows, as well as garbled text and images like the screenshot above.





Image courtesy of Apple discussion user "docfilm"



If an Apple discussion thread (that is 220 replies strong and growing) is anything to go by, garbled images and text may be the least of the new MacBook Pro's problems. Users in that thread are reporting striping issues with MacBook Pro displays where the display itself exhibits bands of dark vertical stripes across the entire display. This looks like it could be a pinching issue with the display's construction, and if so, it wouldn't be the first time Apple's portables have exhibited the problem.

Some replies suggest that the issue could actually be software, stating that turning off the "automatically adjust brightness as ambient light changes" issue can stop the vertical striping, or even make it disappear. Other users report that the problem appears and disappears every few days, while another group reports that Apple replaced their machines and have not seen the problem resurface.

Apple has yet to officially acknowledge either of these problems, so contacting Apple support and commenting in large threads like this may be a good way to finally get a response if you're experiencing this problem.