Tldr: Everything was working fine, then suddenly i turn on my laptop today and it has a bunch of pink horizontaal flickering lines that flicker nonstop.

I looked it up online and people say it's probably a GPU failure issue, caused by overheating. Well i've been working with concrete these last 3 months and my house is extremely dusty.
So i can imagine dust getting inside the fans area, clogging it up. I just didn't know it would cause problems like these.
Apple is ridiculously expensive. So i'm wondering how much they'll tear into my angus when i take it for repairs.
I bought this laptop in 2018 for $1800. Not looking forward to spend another $1000 just to fix the screen, but the nonstop flickering is driving me nuts.
I'm also worried what else will fall apart since the dust is still inside i'm sure clogging everything.
The only thing i can do is quickly make a backup of all my files and store it on my chitty old laptop for safekeeping.

Anyone have any idea how much it will cost me or what might be broken? Will rep srs answers.

So do the lines start immediately when you start the laptop from cold, or do they only start after it's warmed up a bit?

my 2012 macbook pro is a TANK.

left it out in the rain one day. dried it out worked fine.

taking all kinds of falls.

all i did was update to ssd and more ram 2 years ago.

i can rock this for another 3-5 years inshallah

my rec is buy a 2012 mac and upgrade that bih

When i start it up it starts with a vertical green line. then after the apple logo, the rows of pink lines and start flickering nonstop.

You are screwed and its going to cost $$ to fix.

Open it and clean it out. Make sure the power is off before you do this. Blow it out/vacuum it.

My Macbook Pro is from 2011 and still runs great. 2nd GPU had problems so I went in and ripped out a resistor. Problem solved. No 2nd GPU and it no longer over heats.

Unless you are wedded to Apple, buy a regular laptop and put Linux on it. Run Windows under Linux for whatever Microsoft apps you may need.

Call it a day.

Hate windows more than ever. loved my mac until today. How much $$ we talking about? Not looking forward to fix this.

Any relation between flickering and moving/stressing the wires connecting the screen to base of laptop?

you drop it recently or something? could be a loose connection from display to mobo


or your screen could be dying. those retina displays will probvably run you like 300$

I hate Windows too, thats why I said put Linux on it.

What year and kind of Macbook?

No idea what wire would be stressed. All the wires are internally based and i haven't opened the laptop. I do know that my house is dusty as hell due to the concrete. So i think maybe concrete got in the vents, increased the heat and melted some important part?No, it worked just fine today. Went downstairs, went back to my room. Took it out of sleep mode and suddenly it's tripping lines on the screen. Flickering every second.

$300 is doable. But i read some people said it's gonna cost upwards of $700 due to a damaged cpu and what not. That would truly suck.2018, macbook pro 13 inch.

not a computer wizard or anything lol, but it doesnt sound like a cpu issue. i think youd probably see other issues if it was that.


does it run hot? fan spin high?


not sure how you reinstall drivers on macs, but you could try that too. or better yet, try that and try opening it up and checking the display connections.

I don't hear any fan noises so i don't think it's running hot or i would hear it all the time.
I read CPU issues, motherboard issues but some also say it might be a loose connecting wire.
I've never opened up a laptop before though, and i'm a complete beginner when it comes to computers. So i'm worried i'll do more harm than good.
But if it is a loose wire, it would suck having to pay a lot if i can fix it for free. That said, how would a wire suddenly get loose? It worked when it was on my bed, i leave, come back few hours later and it's showing flickering issues. The wire can't have gotten loose on its own.

Small update: when i almost close my laptop and put the screen down. There is a moment where the lines stop flickering. So it's not my screen that's broken.
Anyone have any idea?

Like this?



To troubleshoot I would try plugging it into an external monitor. This would rule out the bad gpu.

Yeah like that, except i have small rows of pink lines like this guy:https://www.reddit.com/r/applehelp/c...nk_flickering/

Since you mentioned the display corrects itself if the lid is partially closed it sounds like a bad cable.



longer version


You can also just buy a whole new screen assembly for around $400 to $500 and install it yourself. This will probably be the easiest route.

It means they want you to upgrade