[Josh Reid]

Hello,

I have a 1Ghz 12" PB running 10.3. Since I purchased it in November, occassionally an icon would become temporarily corrupt where the image would either be distorted with pink/green/purple cross-hatched lines or sometimes just a completety different icon altogether. It was always short-lasted and never a major problem.

This weekend in iPhoto, this problem happened to a photo; half of the photo slowly turned into a shade pink/green/purple lines. iPhoto self-quit and I tried rebooting the computer. The gray Apple logo appeared on start-up for one second, and then turned into a purple/greenish/pink square. I logged in as normal, but the computer was not stable, froze, and then had one of the "You must restart your computer now" messages. (This is like a cleaner version of a kernel panic or something, right?)

Anyhow, I know this problem must be addressed, so I'll be calling Apple this evening. I just want to try to transfer all of my files to a FW hard drive before I send it off. Is this a common problem, and/or can someone explain to me what is most likely causing this problem?

Also, since my 90-day phone support has passed, will they give me hassle when I call them, saying I need to purchase AppleCare or pay like $49.99 per phone call? In the past they tried to tell me I was having a technical and not hardware problem, when after the fact, it was a hardware failure (an old iBook).

Well, thanks for your help!

-Josh

[iREZ]

I'd take it to an Apple store and see a "genius" about it. Hopefully its covered and I dont see why it shouldn't unless of course the 12" got this problem after some physical damage. I have the same comp and I've never experienced that nor have I read about your problem. Hope things work out for ya.

[Detrius]

Originally posted by Josh Reid:
...Anyhow, I know this problem must be addressed, so I'll be calling Apple this evening. I just want to try to transfer all of my files to a FW hard drive before I send it off. Is this a common problem, and/or can someone explain to me what is most likely causing this problem?

Also, since my 90-day phone support has passed, will they give me hassle when I call them, saying I need to purchase AppleCare or pay like $49.99 per phone call? In the past they tried to tell me I was having a technical and not hardware problem, when after the fact, it was a hardware failure (an old iBook).

Well, thanks for your help!

-Josh

Don't bother calling Apple. Their notes don't help us techs any when you bring the machine in.

Basic possibilities from the description: LCD, VRAM, Graphics Processor. Just go ahead and take it in.

If you're really curious, I could tell you based on photographs.

[bighead]

I've seen icons and photos go scrambled like that (and if it is only CERTAIN data files that do it, ie. icons, photos, etc.) and it was usually a heinously violated directory. First off, I'd run your Apple Hardware Test in a loop (when you're booted to the CD, hit Ctrl-L) overnight. If that doesn't find anything, I'd run DiskWarrior and see what it says about your directory.

Whether or not DiskWarrior finds anything wrong with the directory, back up your data and ZERO the hard drive. After a zeroing and a clean OS install and software setup, your problems should go away.

About the only times I've seen things like that happen that weren't bad disk structures were rendering issues in video (especially around antialiased text and dock shadows) that ended up being processor errata. You're most likely experiencing file system issues.