Member Avatar for Blade10878

After I move my mouse or touch my keyboard while the screen saver was on, my screen flashs black and white rectangles on the screen then takes me back to the desktop. The computer runs fine, and everything seems in order, i just cant figure out why my computer does this, can someone pls help

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Dani AI

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— the transient visual artifact you and are discussing usually falls into two categories: a software/driver/screensaver-module problem, or a graphics/display hardware issue. A normal screensaver fade behaves smoothly; a brief, high‑contrast flash or checkerboard when the saver ends is a different symptom and deserves methodical isolation.

Start with quick software checks:

  • Boot in Safe Mode (hold Shift at startup) and see if the artifact appears. If it stops, the cause is likely a third‑party extension or screensaver plugin.
  • Test in a fresh user account to rule out per‑user prefs.
  • Remove any non‑Apple screensavers from the system and user Screen Savers folders, and try a simple built‑in saver.
  • Look in Console.app for WindowServer, Quartz, or GPU-related messages timestamped at the event; logs often point to driver or process failures.
  • Install the latest OS combo/patches available for the machine and reinstall any graphics-related updates.

If software checks don’t help, investigate hardware:

  • Run the Apple Hardware Test / Diagnostics that came with the machine to check video memory and logic-board errors.
  • If possible, attach an external display (or mirror to it) to see whether the external output shows the artifact; that helps distinguish internal panel vs. GPU/VRAM problems.
  • Reset PRAM/NVRAM (Command-Option-P-R at boot) and perform the model‑specific power/PMU/SMC reset per Apple guidance.

Back up important data before firmware updates or repairs. If the problem persists after these steps, document reproduction steps and capture a short video of the flash for a technician; that evidence is very useful when diagnosing intermittent graphics faults.

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Member Avatar for kc0arf

Hello,

What kind of computer is it? Has this just started happening, or been doing this for a while now? What OS version?

I notice that my Powerbook will fade the screensaver away, and work just fine. Waking up from sleep can be a problem once in a while. Also noticed that when I would power the computer off, my desktop picture would kinda fade and the colors be eaten up. That happened under 10.2 10.3 robustly shuts down now.

Christian

Member Avatar for Blade10878

It is an imac g5 running os 10.3 it has been happening for about 2 weeks now, im just concerned if it is a problem or a glitch or something, so i can fix it

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