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2010 27" iMac Screen burn
- Thread starter BenjaminMac
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I have the exact same problem on mine. It isn't really noticeable unless I have a white background as it took me a very long time to notice. However, when browsing white pages now I can't help but notice and it can be very distracting. I am planning on going to the apple store and having it fixed since I am still under warranty. However, I was wondering... if I go like a month or 2 after the new refresh, any chances of getting the new iMac instead or would they just fix the screen itself? Anyone has any experience doing this?
That looks familiar in away, mine is fainter but of the panels I own it is by far the worst and a long way short of the clean uniformity of my Dell. I was quite pleased that though my model has a very loud hard drive I didn't appear to have a yellow screen. Adjusting the brightness I did notice a faint-ish yellow stain down the middle but worse, when I put up a solid gray wallpaper, I noticed I have two broad dark-ish gray vertical bands, as in bright band, dark band, bright band, dark band, bright band. The differentiation between the two isn't vast but I would expect better of anything other than the cheapest budget panel. Not living in a city with an Apple store I succumbed and bought Apple Care; I hope to get someone to come out to the house and take it away. It struck me as curious that I bought the iMac late November but the manufacture date appears to be July.
I'm kinda unsure here, but are we talking about image persistence? Leaving something on your screen for so long that it has a 'burn-in' effect'* making it barely visible when the screen changes?
If so, there's an easy fix for that, just set a bright plain white image as your screen saver, set the Energy Saver setting to 'never sleep', turn the brightness down a bit and leave it that way for a day or so (longer if needed). It should get rid of any ghost images and your screen will be as good as new, and best of all, save you a trip to the Apple Store.
Here's an Apple support article that goes into more detail.
Of course this only applies if I've understood the problem correctly. If not, please feel free to enthusiastically ignore this reply. Good luck!
*Yes, I know that 'burn-in' only applies to plasma displays (and really only older ones, at that) but I couldn't be bothered to come up with a better way to describe it.
If so, there's an easy fix for that, just set a bright plain white image as your screen saver, set the Energy Saver setting to 'never sleep', turn the brightness down a bit and leave it that way for a day or so (longer if needed). It should get rid of any ghost images and your screen will be as good as new, and best of all, save you a trip to the Apple Store.
Here's an Apple support article that goes into more detail.
Of course this only applies if I've understood the problem correctly. If not, please feel free to enthusiastically ignore this reply. Good luck!
*Yes, I know that 'burn-in' only applies to plasma displays (and really only older ones, at that) but I couldn't be bothered to come up with a better way to describe it.
Load's of postings on Apple's own site about this with thousands of views, also search this forum as quite a few posts discussing this problem. The issues seems to be increasingly common on the 27" iMac and appears over time. Apple are being rather "evasive" on the issue and their policy is, when pushed, "we'll replace the screen one time only but we attribute this to environmental issues with regard to the computers location". Assorted Apple employee's have blamed excess dust, humidity, burning candles, smoking in the same room as your computer or the best one - "don't put any drinks on your computer desk as this will cause the issue". Upshot is it's a design flaw of the iMac, Apple didn't isolate the rear of the LCD matrix sufficiently from the innards of the computer and it can happen to anyone at any time, Various theories but it's either caused by heat generated possibly by the GPU, small / acceptable amount of dust being drawn into the computer and sticking to the rear of the screen (not the front), possibly burn off of something already in the iMac's construction - so many to choose from.
If Apple refuse to replace your screen, which they have in some cases, push them hard on it as it's not acceptable. I was in dialogue with someone high in the customer support and although they towed the company policy they, in not so many words, "sympathised" with the point that the "one screen replacement policy" was not really fair. Non of us keep our computers in "bubbles" and the tolerance of the imac should be higher - I for one look after my iMac impeccably and suffered the issue after about 10 months or so.
If Apple refuse to replace your screen, which they have in some cases, push them hard on it as it's not acceptable. I was in dialogue with someone high in the customer support and although they towed the company policy they, in not so many words, "sympathised" with the point that the "one screen replacement policy" was not really fair. Non of us keep our computers in "bubbles" and the tolerance of the imac should be higher - I for one look after my iMac impeccably and suffered the issue after about 10 months or so.
Be calm, educate self, polite but firm, always a winning approach in retail. But... the very loud hard drive iMacs, for instance, shouldn't be getting off the assembly line and into boxes to become topic of discussion that puts people off buying. And iMacs sell because of that fabulous screen. I don't doubt that our experiences are the exception rather than the rule, that most users have happy experience. I also don't relish returning mine but I would rather be dealing with Apple than any number of companies I can name.
Actually, overheating can cause this - my previous monitors (not Apple brand) were always very warm, had poor cooling, and because I didn't know better and juryrig my own cooling solution at the time of purchase, ended up having the same burn marks made over time as well - particularly vertical lines going down the edges. Image ghosting became a problem, too. All this took a couple of years to develop, but overheating will reduce the lifespan of electronic components. I didn't want to shell $650 for two new monitors (one was just starting to go and the other was already sigificantly bad.)
I love iMacs in concept, but they need more cooling. One thin vent strip at the top isn't adequate.
That's why, in 2009, I went from an iMac to a Mac Pro. My next desktop Mac will probably be a Mac Pro as well, but I'd much prefer to get an iMac that doesn't heat up. (even the new 27" models at the college I attend radiate a lot of heat, which I can feel 2 feet away. )I read a rumor - got to love half baked rumors - that Apple were thinking about introducing water cooling in the iMac. I assumed if I did a search I would find some bored DIY modder who had fitted their own custom cooling to their (2010) iMac but I found no one who had done this (and that's not to say there is a reason anyone should; the iMac runs hot by design, efficiently so; put another way, why would Apple sell Apple Care on something they anticipate will break down; they wouldn't). I did find a few other folks directing cool air at the back of their iMac (which I found makes only 2 - 4 degrees C difference to the reported internal sensor temps with Temperature Monitor, despite the case then being very cool to the touch rather than close-to scalding; I was alarmed at how hot the glass is - on my particular iMac - though that area of heat does not correspond to the discoloration bands, if I can call them that, on my screen).
Again, I don't want to put people off getting an iMac, I see no reason to be, this is a forum where people either share their bad luck stories or more productively offer advice on problems that turn out not to be problems at all; the iMac is a genius design, a wonderful thing to behold and own. I simply got unlucky and know statistically it is much more likely that I would have got unlucky if I had gone for another brand. Out of a bored tech's curiosity it made look at the design in some detail, though.
Ifixit's strip down pictures are excellent. I intended at some future point, when the warranty expires, to remove the DVD drive and fit two slot fans and channel some thin ducts inside the iMac. The DVD slot is of course thin, though; it is hard to see how that wouldn't introduce a howling sound from the intake and outake slot fans if they were run at anything but at an ineffectually low speed. I thought more so about designing a desk with flush mounted (invisible) fans to direct slow-moving cooler air up toward the iMac's intake fans, 'slow moving' so as not to strain the iMac's fans (though again my experiments with Temperature Monitor showed only a 5 degrees C drop in temperatures at best when combined with my fans pointing at the upper back of the iMac). This could increase the intake of dust, though. Then, and how about this for a crazy thought, I thought about strapping the back of an iMac's case with polished copper pipes and radiator grill attached to the stand along with a water pump, to make the case cold. At that point, though, not knowing a great deal about water cooling, I would be worried about the possibility of condensation? Also, I imagine a fairly large water pump would not be inaudible, which the fans I am using are.
I think Apple's design solution for the iMac is extraordinarily elegant and refreshingly quiet but I have some sympathy for people who ramp up the internal fans rpm a little on the 2010 model so that the temperatures when the computer is idle/light surfing look less like my PCs temperatures do when playing games on said PC. Whether running third party fan control invalidates your iMac's warranty I have no idea, nor do I know how durable those fans are in the long term. Unless you were unlucky and have definite problems, relax and enjoy.
Again, I don't want to put people off getting an iMac, I see no reason to be, this is a forum where people either share their bad luck stories or more productively offer advice on problems that turn out not to be problems at all; the iMac is a genius design, a wonderful thing to behold and own. I simply got unlucky and know statistically it is much more likely that I would have got unlucky if I had gone for another brand. Out of a bored tech's curiosity it made look at the design in some detail, though.
Ifixit's strip down pictures are excellent. I intended at some future point, when the warranty expires, to remove the DVD drive and fit two slot fans and channel some thin ducts inside the iMac. The DVD slot is of course thin, though; it is hard to see how that wouldn't introduce a howling sound from the intake and outake slot fans if they were run at anything but at an ineffectually low speed. I thought more so about designing a desk with flush mounted (invisible) fans to direct slow-moving cooler air up toward the iMac's intake fans, 'slow moving' so as not to strain the iMac's fans (though again my experiments with Temperature Monitor showed only a 5 degrees C drop in temperatures at best when combined with my fans pointing at the upper back of the iMac). This could increase the intake of dust, though. Then, and how about this for a crazy thought, I thought about strapping the back of an iMac's case with polished copper pipes and radiator grill attached to the stand along with a water pump, to make the case cold. At that point, though, not knowing a great deal about water cooling, I would be worried about the possibility of condensation? Also, I imagine a fairly large water pump would not be inaudible, which the fans I am using are.
I think Apple's design solution for the iMac is extraordinarily elegant and refreshingly quiet but I have some sympathy for people who ramp up the internal fans rpm a little on the 2010 model so that the temperatures when the computer is idle/light surfing look less like my PCs temperatures do when playing games on said PC. Whether running third party fan control invalidates your iMac's warranty I have no idea, nor do I know how durable those fans are in the long term. Unless you were unlucky and have definite problems, relax and enjoy.
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Is it the specific size 27" model that has the issue? I have one that was purchased in '08 (new) and it has the same issue, particularly at the top where the various browser tabs are burned in so that they partially ghost through the grey tops of the window boxes.
I am going to be getting 32" when they refresh the line -- did the 32" previously have the issue as well? Or just 27"
You've got me worried now ...
This problem is not 'burn-in', but fine dust accumulation within the LCD panel. I have it on my 2009 i7, first noticed after about 9-10 months.
Your issue does sound like burn-in, and is not related to the issue described here on the 27" iMacs.
Why? Supposed to be pretty soon, no?
Hmm will have to check that out when I use the computer again tomorrow, I'm surprised that I've never noticed the other problem given that I use it in a city with bad air quality. Better than a systemic flaw with the one I'm trying to get I guess.rnb2 said:
Because unless you know something the rest of the world doesn't, there's no way there's going to be a 32" iMac. Believe me, I'd love to be proven wrong, but a 32" model ain't happening.
A thought train that leapt the tracks into retarded land is what resulted in this derail, I apologize and can't even explain here how I got "21" and "32" confused.
Starting Monday off on the wrong foot
I've had the same problem with my 27" I-mac. I telephoned technical support who immediately gave me a service ref No. and told me that the service company would call to arrange a pick up. Approximately 2 minutes after putting the phone down to Apple I got a call from the service company who arranged a pick up for the next day, asking if I wanted am or pm. They were on the doorstep at 8am the next day with a packing box to to transport the i-mac. The company has stayed in touch, leaving me updates and appologising for the delay. It turns out they got a new screen, but weren't happy with the fit, so sent for another. They tell me that they will deliver it back to me this morning.
They described the issue as screen burn. Although I am worried that this has happened on a machine that is under a year old, I can't fault the after care that I received from Apple and the service company.
They described the issue as screen burn. Although I am worried that this has happened on a machine that is under a year old, I can't fault the after care that I received from Apple and the service company.