MBP 2017 Display fades to black with "lines" like a venetian blind

[rcoe74]

Hi I am encountering a problem with my Macbook Pro 13" 2017 256GB Core i5

Most of the time it's normal, but every so often the display fades to black almost like a venetian blind effect with horizontal lines across it and then remains black until restart. I thought this was a crash as it seemed unresponsive, but then I tried plugging in an external monitor and it's still working fine, I can use the external monitor as a second display or mirror the retina display. I can reboot using the second screen and then the retina screen comes back on.

It seems unlikely to be hardware as the reboot solves it and I'm not touching the computer/distorting the screen when it happens.

I updated to Catalina to see if that solved it (which it didn't), and have uninstalled a bunch of apps down to the bare bones that I need but that hasn't solved it. I tried to do a clean install from Recovery Console but I got a message saying not could not create Pre-boot Volume for APFS Install.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? Any tips?

Thanks

 

[MacInWin]

Sounds like the display hardware is failing. Software won't fix it.

 

[rcoe74]

I've now done a clean install but the behaviour is the same. I've also worked out that if I just close the lid when it happens and wait a few seconds, then open the lid again, the screen is back to normal. It's weird, if it was the graphics card surely the external monitor wouldn't work. If it was the screen I can't see why putting it to sleep/closing it and then opening it again should solve it.

 

[MacInWin]

If it was the screen I can't see why putting it to sleep/closing it and then opening it again should solve it.

Heat, maybe some component in the video circuits is overstressed or failing. Lots of reasons why giving it a rest "fixes" it temporarily. But that temporary fix will get shorter and shorter and eventually quick working.