Whilst I’m very happy with my new Mac Book Pro, there are a couple of longer term gripes.
Firstly, the heat. Everybody has heard about it, but it beggars belief at times that it can get quite so hot when doing CPU intensive operations. I generally try and keep it off our new wood floor when, for example, it’s sat in the corner doing some DVD backups.
There is another problem that’s come to light, so to speak, recently. This is what I’ve loosely called “the blue tint problem”, specifically that the display takes on a light blue (some might say cyan) tint. It’s really weird, and it had me horribly worried that it was because of a loose connection in the display. I generally noticed it after opening the computer up after it was folded down, and I was beginning to think I might have to get apple care involved.
But it transpires it has a less serious cause, and a much easier solution. It’s apparently brought about by fast user switching getting a bit confused. This fits with my laptops usage, as my better half makes use of an account on the computer, as does her brother who pops by occasionally. I’d rather they had their own accounts to do as they will, than tramping all over my stuff, including client-sensitive documents, details and so forth.
Mac OSX Hints has more detail, but the solution, if you get the tint problem, is simply to run the following in Terminal:
/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/ Versions/A/Frameworks/CoreGraphics.framework/Versions/A/Resources/DMProxy
Sorry - this wraps around rather badly. It’s really one very long command, so make sure there are no spaces. Personally, I’ve added an alias to my
alias fixtint=/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/ CoreGraphics.framework/Versions/A/Resources/DMProxy
to define the alias (ditto that it should be one long line, with only a space between ‘alias’ and ‘fixtint’. It fixes the problem immediately. Here’s hoping that Apple work out how to properly solve this issue in a forthcoming update.
July 30th, 2007 at 4:32 am
Richard, a quick thank you for documenting this MBP tint problem on your site. It’s really helped me out.
regards, Maki
November 3rd, 2007 at 11:06 pm
Thanks for posting this tip. I’m encountering the same problem on my MBP and it’s over a year later than when you posted this! The solution (thankfully) still applies, though.
November 7th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Thank you so much for this - it is also affecting the normal (!) Macbook - a 2.16Ghz Intel in my case
All the best! R
June 25th, 2008 at 8:46 am
It is not only caused by user switching, mine does it all the time and there is only one user.
A simpler fix is to just open System Preferences and click on Display one time.
July 7th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Thanks for great post. The system preferences and click on display by Darryl Cannon worked for me
July 21st, 2008 at 5:35 pm
That works. But an easier fix is to turn on ‘Hot Spots’ to initiate the screensaver. When the Blue Tint pops up, hot corner the screensaver and immediately exit it and the problem is gone. No terminal necessary.
August 29th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Amazing it’s still present on current MBPs&Leopard, cmd+option+eject also works