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Ask HN: MacBook Pro 16-inch, temporarily dead pixels?

4 points by _bxg1 ↗ HN
I got my MBP 16 last night. In general it's great, but twice now in only a few hours of use I've noticed some distressing graphical artifacts (for something this expensive).

Each time it's been a tiny rectangle of a handful of pixels at a random place on the screen that just turn some random color (bright purple the first time, bright green the second time). The first time was on Firefox and the second was on Apple Music, so it's not specific to the app. As soon as I scroll or otherwise cause the screen to update, they go away.

My guess is it's a GPU thing, not a screen thing. Has anyone else seen this? And do you think I should be worried? Could it represent a hardware defect in the GPU, or just a software problem (driver perhaps?) that could get patched out later if it becomes significant/widely-noticed?

17 comments

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deepaksurti
Most likely points to a GPU problem. I think since it's not even a day, you must return it and get a replacement.
gen_greyface
Yeah I've experienced it too, generally after unlocking it, but only for a few minutes then they go away.
_bxg1
Mine have never been within minutes of each other; I had exactly one instance last night and one this morning, and each went away instantly as soon as I scrolled the focal window
chmaynard
I see this frequently on my 2019 15" MacBook Pro display. I can't capture these artifacts in a screenshot, and I can't replicate the problem (so far).
_bxg1
I managed to take a picture with my phone of one of them. Hopefully that's good enough for Apple support.
chmaynard
Brilliant! Who didn't I think of that? :)
gvrnmntdept
I have the same problem with my new MacBook Pro 16-inch. It's definitely a defective GPU. Try disabling Automatic graphics switching in System Preferences to reproduce this issue.
_bxg1
If it hasn't been 14 days they have a pretty generous return-for-any-reason policy. That's the simplest way to get a new one. Otherwise, from talking to them it sounded like it was covered under warranty anyway and they offered to send it in for a free repair.
kevinherron
Pretty sure this is software.

Saw the same artifacts/glitches on my 2016 and 2018 15” models.

See them occasionally in Safari on my 16” now, usually up near the top window border.

_bxg1
Why do you say you think it's software?
kevinherron
I guess I just find it hard to believe there's faulty hardware across 3 different models and graphics cards rather than a bug in the driver.

Maybe the issue I'm talking about seeing isn't the same.

_bxg1
It could be something in their process that's rare but just happens sometimes. Heck, maybe it gets damaged in shipping. If it's uncommon enough and they do replacements maybe they just write it off.
WoodTree
Apple has been selling laptops with broken keyboards for years, not to mention all of the other problems caused by insufficient cooling.
t-writescode
Take a video of it happening and take it to the Apple store?
_bxg1
Yep. It's just a pain, especially since this is a custom config so the turnaround time will likely be a couple weeks. But that's what I ended up doing.
_bxg1
Update: ended up taking it in. Since it was only a day old they're just letting me exchange it instead of trying to go through the whole repair process.