Chosen Solution
Hi! Anyone encountered this glitching/flickering screen on their 15” MBP 2016 w/ Touchbar (see video)? It seems, the problem appears when I’ve been using my laptop for a very long time (like almost the whole day) and only when I use softwares like Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, or when I’m watching YouTube or streaming videos. But when I close the lid or restart the glitching disappears, before it reappears again after a few minutes. It gets to “rest” overnight. Then same problem when I start using the laptop again the whole day. Normal computer use, typing and browsing doesn’t seem to make the glitching appear. I don’t know what this is and it only appears on some occasions. I brought it to an Apple service center and they advice me to observe it for now because they’re not sure if they could reproduce the problem. I just can’t figure out what’s causing this! Update (07/25/2020) GOOD NEWS GUYS! I got my MacBook Pro back from the shop! The problem: A screen manufacturing defect from LG (the company who produces the screen for Apple)! The technician said the problem was the screen’s board–I assumed it’s the TCON chip??? What happens is when the computer heats up the defected board starts to show this problem. That’s why some Macs don’t suffer from this issue. Good news is this repair shop I went to was able to fix this defective chip. I DID NOT HAVE TO REPLACE THE WHOLE SCREEN! They were able to fix the board for a cheaper cost of a screen replacement! :-) They also reinforced my flex cable. They said this may prevent flex gate. The bad news is, they said that this fix have a 50-50 percent chance of success. They have units that were fixed and there are some that returned to their shop for a screen replacement. So we’ll see how this fix holds up. And by the way, I bought these. So I could have some clearance at the bottom of my laptop. Hope this helps with heat dissipation and makes this fix successful.
Finally, mystery solved my friends! :-)
Your system has two graphics engines! The intergraded within the CPU (Intel HD Graphics 530) and the dedicated GPU (AMD Radeon Pro 450, 455, or 460). When you are using Photoshop or other heavy graphics app your system runs the dedicated GPU (unless you tell it within the energy setting). When you just start up your system it will use the intergraded graphics until the better graphics is needed. So why is this important? Basically, its a matter of heat! While the performance of the intergraded graphics is not as good as the dedicated GPU which runs hotter, the amount of heat that can buildup within your system can cook things! All of Apples newer system have a an issue with the T-CON board which instead of being placed in a location which tends to be cooler they placed it very close to the CPU/GPU’s heat sink system so if the fans fail to cool the system the T-Con can be damaged by excessive heat!
So what to do? First is make sure the system is clean internally of dust (case, fans and logic board). The next is to install a good thermal management program like TG Pro which I strongly recommend! With it you can see what the sensors are sensing as well as push the fans harder when you have set a set point or when you need to make sure your system is at its best cooling (turbo). You also need to make sure the vents are not blocked. Don’t use your system on a bed or other cloth surface. I would also make sure the drive has enough free space. SSD’s while fast also have housecleaning tasks which can cause the CPU and drive heat up when there is not enough free space. Ideally, You want to have as a minim 1/4 of the drive empty (more if 512 or smaller - 1/3) and you’ll want to reduce the amount of apps open at the same time. As an example Chrome is a memory hog! And when memory is lean will leverage Virtual RAM which is space on the drive to emulate RAM. Photoshop and other graphics apps also leverage scratch space which again uses the drive. The more free space you have the better! As an example I have a 2 TB SSD in my 2013 Mac Pro which I use photoshop and the images I work on are quite large, I need about half of the drive free fo me to render and I’m not running anything else on the system (dedicated to image work)
Sir, I have this exact same issue. I have been searching for someone with same problem for months, I even got support for this and they told me this was related to a failing screen, but I didn’t take that info as certain. I had my hypothesis about the source of the flickering and concluded it was heat as Dan says. I’ll try purchasing TG Pro as he recommends and see if it works. I hope your computer got a solution or maybe a replacement, thank you really much for sharing this issue so I can try to solve mine as well. Cheers.
Just sharing this video I found. Apparently, you can fix flexgate issue just by replacing the cable. I just don’t know who can do this. It seems like a complicated process. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYtDVjYN…
