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Annoying, occasional flickering on my monitor?

Flickering Monitor

  • I have my Macbook hooked up to a monitor, and within a few minutes of connecting the two, the monitor starts flickering more and more. Help! I am on a trip and it looks like sometime in my travels my Macbook (2008) got knocked about and the display is wrecked. On the first leg of my trip, I was able to hook up my laptop to a friend's monitor and work that way, everything was great. In the second leg, I have another monitor (eight-year old Gateway), and within a couple of minutes of connecting my laptop to the display, it starts flickering, the flickering increases to migraine levels, and if I unplug the two and let them rest for a minute, I go back to a nice clear display, but then the flickering starts again. My question: This seems like a faulty monitor, and I need to try and find another one, or is there some troubleshooting that I could try that might fix this? Second question: There is a PC laptop here, can I corral it and use it as a display? If so, how? (My computer is so tricked out for work, it would be a nightmare to use another computer as a quick fix).

  • Answer:

    Never assume that it's the monitor. Start by replacing the cable first and go from there.

nanook at Ask.Metafilter.Com Visit the source

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You could try connecting the PC laptop to the monitor to see if it is indeed the old Gateway, though by your description it likely is. As far as an immediate "fix," while the hive might have a better solution, you could try installing https://secure.logmein.com on your Mac (using the busted monitor until you get it installed), and then remote in to your computer from the PC laptop. I have occasionally used this app from a Mac--> PC (though you're going the other way), and it's functional for most office-type stuff... but you're probably not going to be able to do detailed photoshop work. The mouse lags a bit and some key commands won't work through the interface. Additionally from my experience, it does work much better PC --> PC Hopefully, someone will have a better solution for you, as it can be tough to navigate some of the UI, especially if you're used to instant response to commands, but it is a free download that may temporarily work for you until another monitor can be procured, which hopefully is your current issue.

Debaser626

So a relative who arrived knew of a used computer dealer a couple of minutes away, and I just got back with a $35 monitor and thank the dear lord, no flickering. Debaser626, that is an awesome idea, I will keep that in mind for future situations, it might get me through some of my office-y tasks if not the graphics. Phew.

nanook

If your macbook uses a mini-DVI cable adapter or something similar to connect to a monitor, that adapter could also be a point of failure. Especially if you're using a cheapo generic $5 adapter.

oceanjesse

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