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Apple pulls MacBook graphics update

Just two days after posting a software update meant to fix some issues with external displays and Nvidia's integrated graphics chips, Apple has removed that file.

Tom Krazit Former Staff writer, CNET News
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Google, as the most prominent company on the Internet defends its search juggernaut while expanding into nearly anything it thinks possible. He has previously written about Apple, the traditional PC industry, and chip companies. E-mail Tom.
Tom Krazit
A software update meant to fix some issues with graphics on the new MacBooks has been removed by Apple. CNET

Correction, 11:48 a.m. PST: This story misstated when the Apple notebooks were redesigned. It was October 2008.

Apple has withdrawn a software update that was supposed to help MacBook owners deal with graphics issues, but that apparently failed to solve many of the problems.

AppleInsider spotted the disappearance of the update on Wednesday, after Apple had released it on Monday. The Web page that hosted the update has been removed from Apple's site, but a copy was available in Google's cache; missing the pertinent file, of course.

As AppleInsider notes, it's not clear why Apple pulled the update after just two days. It was designed to fix issues with flickering displays raised by some MacBook owners with the use of external monitors over the miniDVI ports on the new MacBooks. A scan of Apple's discussion boards shows that the update didn't seem to fix the problem for everyone and in some cases, made the problem worse.

This issue only affects those with the MacBooks, MacBook Airs or MacBook Pros redesigned in October, and it seems to only be a problem when running the integrated graphics on those machines; Nvidia's discrete graphics don't appear to cause the same problems. A separate issue involving HD video playback on Macs running the older Nvidia GeForce 7300 GT graphics was also contained in this particular update.