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2.26 or 2.4 GHz / White plastic unibody enclosure

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My graphic card isn't working well

Hi, it's a bit hard to explain the symptoms that my mac is showing.

Basically all the letters on texts are shaking, and when i open a page on the web with a light blue on the background(as the one when starting the computer) it all got crazy and seems that if it had bad connection, the letters are everyday getting worse to read because it seems that everything is moving and losing definition.

Sometimes when I'm seeing a picture i see a lot of dots in the picture with a different color, like if it had dead pixels, but not lines, just dots all over the window.

Not sure what i have to do or even if it is the graphic card, any help would be very appreciated

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Can you tell us if your system got wet or dropped? It sounds like a few different things are amiss here.

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It didn't drop or got wet, although this machine stays up almost 20/7 for at least the last 2 years.

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I'm thinking you have two issues here:

The first is the main logic board GPU is having problems. Either the system got wet (humid environment?) so the solder joints are breaking down (cold solder) or corrosion has built up across the chips causing the waving motion of the display.

The second issue is the missing dots on the screen if these are constant and don't move that would imply the LCD has problems as well. It's possible the driver chips on the LCD assembly likewise could have cold solder joints or corrosion build up. Or the LCD is just gone (burn't cells).

The problem here is replacing both would be more expensive than getting a new system.

So do you try to clean up the corrosion and can you re-solder things to bring the system back to life? You'll need very good soldering skills and expensive SMT equipment to re-solder the board if the joints are bad. Even after cleaning up the corrosion you'll need to do this. Is there someone with the skills and equipment near by?

One last option here is bringing the system into an Apple Store and see what they can do for you. They may have you pay a flat fee for the service plus parts (exchange). It still will be expensive but worth the shot. Good Luck!

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2 Comments:

At first I thought the display data cable might have been bad but your symptoms don't follow what I have seen when the cable has gone bad. FYI heres the guide to replacing it: MacBook Unibody Model A1342 Display Data/Camera Cable Replacement I think its a long shot given the symptoms.

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Thanks for the help, Dan. The last link might be helpful since i been opening n closing a lot my display lately. I guess it's worth a shot at least. Thank you very much for providing this, I will let you know if that works.

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