Ahh, please help

I've got a potential problem with my new macbook.

everytime i touch/move/tilt the screen - it goes brighter then goes dimmer. Its as if there is a sensor onboard trying to gage how dark or light it should be and adjust accordingly?

Anyone else have this problem

No, never had this problem, must be a dodgy one, should take it back and hopefully get replaced

If it is still under warranty, I take in and have it looked at to be sure its okay.

Mmmmm! yep! Get it back to um! its not right,

well... there is a sensor that detects ambient light and adjusts display light accordingly...

I would disable it just to eliminate it as a possibility..
1) open up system prefs
2) click displays
3) un-check "automatically adjust brightness as ambient light changes"

what it's actually doing is flicking between power adapter and battery settings?

is this a fault you think?

Have you tried a restart of the computer?

when you unplug the power from the wall the screen will go a little dim to preserve the battery when running on it. all you have to do is turn up the screen brightness on the keyboard.

RadioMarky said:

what it's actually doing is flicking between power adapter and battery settings?

is this a fault you think?

Click to expand...

That was going to be my guess. Troubleshoot this way: unplug from power - the screen should dim. Can you get it to go bright like before? Now plug in - the screen will brighten. Can you fiddle with it to recreate the problem? My thought was that your MagSafe connection is dirty or loose, and moving it makes your MB think it's plugged/unplugged/plugged/unplugged. Maybe try cleaning the power contacts? Give it a go. Good luck.

NPuter said:

well... there is a sensor that detects ambient light and adjusts display light accordingly...

I would disable it just to eliminate it as a possibility..
1) open up system prefs
2) click displays
3) un-check "automatically adjust brightness as ambient light changes"

Click to expand...

Note: NPuter is kidding.

Neo said:

Note: NPuter is kidding.

Click to expand...

how is he kidding? this is 100% the truth. there is a sensor and a setting to change it.

there is no sensor on macbooks on pros there is.

when i unplug the power cable - yes my screen dims and i get a time on the battery telling me how long i have left etc - if i got to move/open the screen some more - ie. actually tilt it either towards closed or open - it switches between plugged in mode and battery - i.e. goes brighter and tells me it's plugged in ... if i move the screen some more - it goes back to battery mode

Neo said:

Note: NPuter is kidding.

Click to expand...

whoops... my fault

did not notice it was a macbook with the problem

Sounds a bit like a flicker problem. My wife's blackbook developed a flicker, and this was after a lot of controversy out there on the net where users were saying "this is a problem, Apple needs to address it" countered with "Macbooks don't have a screen flicker, you're hallucinating." My conclusion was that it wasn't happening with mine, so I went on with my life.

Then one day I happened to be looking at my wife's Mac and it did it. Blinking a couple of times, I asked her if it did that before and she replied yes, it's been happening for awhile. Why she didn't tell me about it...well, let's just say that's not the first thing she hasn't told me about her computer that needed to be addressed ASAP.

So it was off to the Apple site to make an appointment with the genius bar since it was still under warrantee, then off with the machine to take it there.

Of course, it didn't do it for the tech, but he told me that there was stuff they could run that could test for condition of 'bad inverter' which is what it was, and it was fixed under warrantee.

We have since upped her Macbook to have Apple Care just like mine is covered. Notebooks need as much insurance as you can get considering how much you end up relying on them, and what sort of things that could happen since they go out into the field more than desktops.