Mac Cinema Display "Flickering"

[jfmarch]

I have a 20" Apple Cinema Display with clear enclosure and it is connected to my PowerBook G4 with a 'VGA to ADC' Conversion Box by Gefen. We have 2 other setups that are the same, but my problem occurs only at my station.

When I view large files on the display, the viewing area of the VW window tends to refresh or 'flicker' itself often, usually after I zoom or pan the drawing, but sometimes it will flicker when no work is happening. The screen goes white for a fraction of a second, and up to a second or two, and then will stop and rest in normal appearance. It's an eye strain and a can slow down work because I have to wait for it to stop flickering before I can proceed with drawing. I do notice that it will occur more often when text is visible, but not always. It is very evident on a 17.4 MB file I work on that was started in VW 11, and is somewhat evident on a different 4.3MB file that was started in VW 9.

I did not have this setup with versions 9 or 10 so I don't know if it is related to version 11. My PowerBook screen gives me no problem at all, and curiously, when i 'drag' the VW window off the cinema display onto my PowerBook, the flickering ceases. The Display works fine with other application I use, by the way, and the flickering occurs ONLY within the VW window, not the window itself.

I think I will be posting this issue on Apple's tech board, but wanted to see if anyone out there could give me some tips on this problem. Thanks.

[tgm]

Jim,

I have a similar situation with VW11 on WinXP and I have posted this before with no confirmation or answer. I have a new video card and the latest drivers and the flickering still exists, ONLY in VW. I use Rhino for all of our 3D work and the file sizes are huge and realtime rotate in 3D will show up thes problems real quick. I did a little bit of 3D in VW11 to test it out and when you rotate most of the image ghosts out and then re-appears. Not a good sign for a supposedly 3D program.

I still believe the flickering is VW11 related as I have the old standby 8.6.2 and no flickering. I even get flickering when I go and delete items. It appears to stall momentarily, flicker and then delete.

Strange.........

Tom in PA

[matto]

You say you have 3 of the same setup. So i guess you have tried mixing the setups to see if you can isolate if it is a particular piece of equipement.

A couple of thoughts, VW being this a carbon app and quite Graphically intensive could be why the issue is only showing up with vectorworks.

We have a similar setup powerbook in the office, sometimes the power management gets a bit confused and trys to keep running in battery power mode even if it's pluged in to power.

But it to me sounds like the convertor box, seems like the most likey weak link.

maybe second would be a dirty or loose connection to the vga port on the powerbook.