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iTunes Resolves eMac Display Flicker?

iTunes Resolves eMac Display Flicker?

CNET staff
2 min read

Apple's eMac has been notorious for minor display problems, including video Discoloration, shrinking video, jittery video, and "popping" with a flash of light. Danny Ricci discovered a strange, processor draining workaround for the problems on his eMac that requires no hardware repair:

"My brand new 800MHz (SuperDrive) eMac suffers from the infamous 'bottom corner flicker.' While trying to see if this was due to a problem with interference in one area of the room, I moved it to another area, but still had the same problem. My flicker happens whenever there's any disk access, network access, mouse/keyboard use, or redraws on the screen. (It happens constantly when running StimpSoft's 'Halloween Dock App,' which flashes an animated pumpkin in the dock).

"Out of curiosity, I opened iTunes to see if it's visualizers also caused the problem. As soon as I started the windowed-mode Visualizer, my flicker was 100 percent gone. Even with Halloween Dock App flashing in the dock, and me typing/clicking and playing sound through the speakers, there is no flicker. But, the second I turn iTunes visualizer off, the flicker is instantly back.

"Also, to make sure it just wasn't iTunes's fast redraws fixing the problem, I shrunk the iTunes window (with visualizers on) and hid it behind several browser windows so that none of iTunes could be seen. The problem was still fixed. Even at 1280 x 960 @ 72 Hz, the highest res, the problem is gone. (I have been running in 1152 x 864 @ 80 Hz to minimize the appearance of the flicker).

"So this leads me to believe that the flicker may not be the CRT or bad shielding as many have suggested, but something wrong with the NVidia GeForce 2MX chips being used in the eMac, that is 'cured' when OpenGL is being utilized by the iTunes visualizer."

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