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{A1989 / EMC3214}—Released in July 2018, the 13" MacBook Pro features quad-core i5 and i7 processors and Intel Iris Plus integrated graphics.

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Flickering Screen/Screen issues when bottom left corner is pressed

Hi all, just picked up a 2018 MBP 13” at a bargain. Seller stated that the chin has been cracked and the screen started acting up afterward.

The weird thing is that the screen states change (working, flickering) to (dead, vertical but very colorful bars or black bars with white lines separating them) when touching/pressing on a specific part of the ribbon.

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From my (unprofessional) opinion, it’s not flexgate because closing/opening the lid or angling it doesn’t change the state of the screen. Seems to be isolated to the bottom left ribbon cable on the lcd assembly itself. I’ve removed a part of the chin to investigate further. See below.

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Pressing mid left on the ribbon

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Pressing mid right on the ribbon

Any ideas on what this may be? Or how to fix it? Cashing out on a new Display assembly will make me a very sad person.

Thanks for your help!

EDIT 1: SMC/NVRAM reset didn’t work. Flickering stops when any animation is running ie. moving the mouse. Also, flickering stops completely when booted into safe mode

Answer this question I have this problem too

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What you are touching is the video feed lines from the T-CON board to the LCD display its self. These are thin foils wires within the ribbon cable. The joint of the ribbon cable to the glass surface is quite fragile! The connection is to a very thin metal oxide pad which can be lifted off the glass.

Think how a piece of tape stuck on a painted wall can often pull the paint off when you lift the tape damaging the paint job!This is what has likely happened and/or the thin foil wires are damaged.

While you could replace the chin plate, I'm not sure your issue will be solved by that. It appears your pressing is creating the issue or is it resolving the issue.

You may need to replace the full display assembly to properly fix this MacBook Pro 13" Touch Bar 2018 Screen Replacement

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2 Comments:

Thanks for your reply pal. Booting into safe mode and updating the OS from there seems to have fixed the flickering issue so far. Strange. Still can see a very fain vertical black line running down the left side of the monitor. Thinking of poking around to make sure everything works before applying a new chin

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@lex1 - Sure itching your ear fixed your broken leg ;-{

This is a physical defect not a software issue. Installing the OS does force the system to work harder which in turn creates heat! Temperature can effect the ribbon cable connection.

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Lex Zahv will be eternally grateful.
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