My mid-2009 MacBook Pro just had a high speed meeting with my floor. (I thought those magsafe cables were supposed to disconnect when you tripped over them… sigh)
Now I get strange glitches and flickers on my screen. Strangely, these occur only at high brightness settings. They start to show up when I'm three brightness levels away from the maximum.
Another apple.SE question suggests that the glitches could either be due to a short circuit on the display cable, or a defective inverter board.
Is one of those two issues at play here? Which one? More generally, what's my problem and how do I fix it?
I'm not covered by applecare, so, if possible, I'd prefer to do the repair myself.
Best Answer
I wouldn't imagine an inverter board would be relevant here, its sole purpose is to control power flow to the backlight. If the screen flickered black or the brightness seemed to flicker then you might look at the inverter board but I highly doubt it could cause graphic anomalies similar to yours.
Your examples look more video related, which would point to either the logic board, LVDS (display) cable and/or LCD panel itself. You can narrow it down using the following diagnostic steps...
Hopefully that helps and at least points you in the right direction, good luck!