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Do not buy an imac - bad screens

Madmic23 said:
You don't need permission. As long as one party in the coversation is aware of the recording, you can do whatever you want with it.
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True, to a point. You can't make a recording of a call and use it as evidence in a trial (so far) because it's ruled hearsay and therefore not admissible. Also the person that you are talking to at Apple's support site may be covered under some fine print somewhere that forbids callers to record the call to their employees. Sounds odd, but they could do it.
 
WilliamG said:
Don't forget, people are much more likely to go on the Internets to post about stuff that doesn't work, rather than to praise the product.
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Agreed. My praise of the product has been unconditional. Except for this issue, which I thought was just my bad luck, but I subsequently came to learn that it has plagued many others. And  needs to acknowledge it and address it, in my opinion. Will my next computer be a Mac, or specifically, an iMac? Absolutely. Stuff happens, I understand that. But this particular bit of stuff has happened often enough for it to be taken seriously by , I believe. And, of course, since one pays a premium price for an  product, I do suppose that one tends to hold them to a higher standard than HP or Dell, for example. It is in 's best interest to protect the brand by taking this seriously, in my opinion. But what do I know.
 
spcdust said:
No trolls here, just members of an Apple forum, many with countless posts over several years to their name, discussing an issue they have experienced. It's up to an individual wether it puts them off purchasing....personally I still believe the pro's out weigh the cons however it's useful to discuss Apple product short comings (and from experience there are a fair few). It would be helpful if people didn't put Apple on some pedestal.
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There's a difference between "members of an Apple forum [..] discussing an issue they have experienced" and an OMG drama-seeking post such as "THE PRESS NEED TO START REPORTING THIS"/"Do not buy an imac - bad screens" as if every one of them is bad and nobody anywhere should ever buy one, which was the nature of the first post.

FWIW, I have one room of 35 x 27-inch iMacs, one room of 30 x 27-inch iMacs, and three rooms of 28 x 21-inch iMacs. No problems. Aside from fingerprints. Not saying it's not a fault, but if it was particularly prevalent, it seems like it would have happened once or twice among all of these.
 
I wonder if it has anything to do with brightness settings.

Could people who have the problem state if they have their brightness set to full all the time.

And the same for those who don't experience problems.

This might add something useful to the thread.
 
TinHead88 said:
I wonder if it has anything to do with brightness settings.

Could people who have the problem state if they have their brightness set to full all the time.

And the same for those who don't experience problems.

This might add something useful to the thread.
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Have the issue, my brightness is always set at around 6 bars.
 
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My assumption is that Apple have been unable to recreate this effect reliably in their own labs. They've been asking users with this problem about their use, position etc of the machine so that they can determine a common factor and either devise a workaround or a design change to solve it.

It's not in their interests to just ignore the issue as its hurting their profits and potentially causing harm to the iMac and Apple brands. Obviously only they know how prevalent it is.

Until Apple can identify the cause of the problem, it's not unreasonable to assume its an environmental issue that hasn't been identified. The fact that it repeatedly happens with machines having the same issue after replacement suggests that it's not a problem with the LCD panel. From what I read in this forum, it also isn't happening in the same place on the screen either so that suggests its not due to heat problems in the unit behind the screen. While not an expert in these matters, it doesn't seem unreasonable for Apple to believe this to be an environmental problem.

I have to say though, it is putting me off buying an iMac myself.

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Ps its unlikely to be a manufacturing flaw as that would show up very quickly in their databases if the problem occurred in a pattern. Presumably as well there are no clues in diagnostics.
 
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TinHead88 said:
I wonder if it has anything to do with brightness settings.

Could people who have the problem state if they have their brightness set to full all the time.

And the same for those who don't experience problems.

This might add something useful to the thread.
Click to expand...

Brightness setting doesn't seem to affect the intensity of smudge on iMac display.
Increasing brightness = more heats coming from LED backlight, true .. but I don't think it's significant enough to cause occurrence of smudge just by increasing brightness.

I'm still positive that smudge comes as a result of continuous/excessive heating from heatsink fins behind the machine, in my case it's the GPU's.

@Mocassin: We'll never know if Apple even care enough to test it and try to reproduce the problem in their own labs. But if you doubt that this is an environmental issue, well .. you can do random check with iMac unit on several Apple Store. Generally Apple Store is a clean and nice environment. Mostly even cleaner than our own house.

In my place here, I can safely claims that many in-store iMac demo units experience the same problem. One of them is an ancient 24" iMac and seems really really really dirty, even with stock Aurora wallpaper (which supposed to be dark and hide smudges pretty well if you don't have it bad enough).

But many of those iMacs are replaced with newer one, I don't know if this is done just to show they have update really well and showcase the latest gen of iMac, or to hide this problem from customers?

Moccasin said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

Ps its unlikely to be a manufacturing flaw as that would show up very quickly in their databases if the problem occurred in a pattern. Presumably as well there are no clues in diagnostics.
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Well PS: This problem generally never occur in a short period, some report it starts to appear after 3 4 months of usage (like in my case), some reports to be even longer, more than 1 year. It's not exactly easy to notice, it needs rigorous test and time to prove the case.
 
I've seen it in a previous generation 24" Cinema Display in the Glasgow Apple store, big nasty streak coming up from the bottom left corner. I'm convinced it's caused by the LCD component's seal being slightly open, as from what I've seen, it can appear at the top or bottom.

Another poster on here called Oggy explained how he fixed it by opening the LCD and removing dust that had accumulated inside the panel. He provided a guide also, if your machine is out of warranty and is suffering from this problem it'd be worth having a look at. Should be easy enough to search for it.

It really does just seem to be bad luck if it happens, but it is fixable, with or without Apple's help.
 
I have also experienced this problem with several iMacs for years and posted in various threads here and on the Apple board. In my case, the blotches were caused by heat (white plastic iMac) once, and dust twice (aluminum iMacs). I fixed two of them myself since they were out of warranty anyway.

I recently took my last iMac to the Genius Bar. I didn't want to fix it myself this time since that particular machine was still under warranty. The Genius plugged it in, started it up, took one look at it and immediately saw the blotches. From his reaction, I would say he was familiar with this issue. He apologized and insisted that this was the first time he ever saw something like this. At that point, I actually explained to him what causes the blotches and how you can fix the issue by "simply" opening the panel and cleaning the diffuser with a cloth. He seemed completely puzzled the whole time. Hard to say if he was just acting. In any case, he explained that Apple would replace the screen for free since the iMac was still under warranty. If it happens again, I would have to pay for the next replacement since Apple believes that issues like this are usually caused by environmental conditions. For the record, this iMac was kept in a very clean office environment and never used for gaming. There is another all-in-one computer in the same room, plus another monitor. All of them have been there longer than this iMac, and none of the screens show a similar problem.

I realize there are many many happy iMac customers out there, but for me, this was the last iMac ever. Sure, you can fix the blotches yourself, but this should not be happening in the first place, and I have no intention of taking apart my iMac every couple of months. More than half of the iMacs our household owned over the past 6 years eventually developed the blotches, and we also had one yellow screen and two power supply unit failures. They look nice and perform well, but this is just too much.
 
^^
Painful, right?

This smudge problem can be easily forgotten if you plug your iMac to external display and be done with it because the machine works just fine.
But again, we buy iMac because it has built in display!!

That would definitely defeat the purpose of having an iMac. Plus .. If I have to buy another thunderbolt display just to forget this problem once and for all, thah would be waste and ridiculous! (unless you need the multi monitors setup)

If I have to use external display to permanently overcome the problem, well A MacPro can do that just fine, plus I get the expandability.
 
I have a 27 inch iMac. I purchased it about 0.5 years ago, around the time they came out. I suppose it is too early to know whether this batch of iMacs is affected by the blotchy screen problem... but suffice to say, I have not noticed anything yet.
 
TinHead88 said:
I wonder if it has anything to do with brightness settings.

Could people who have the problem state if they have their brightness set to full all the time.

And the same for those who don't experience problems.

This might add something useful to the thread.
Click to expand...

I developed the problem, and I keep brightness at 5-6 bars. It took over a year, but it did happen.
 
I have an iMac 2008 model quad core. I have had this blotchy issue and guess what???


Apple Care


replaced LCD in my home

No problem


No new blotches in over a year, took 2 years for it to start.
 
Wrathwitch said:
I have an iMac 2008 model quad core. I have had this blotchy issue and guess what???


Apple Care


replaced LCD in my home

No problem


No new blotches in over a year, took 2 years for it to start.
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Wow, that's impressive. If I could get them to come to my house and replace the offending part I wouldn't worry about it so much. It took mine (mid 2010) over a year before I started noticing symptoms. I really wish they'd get this sorted-out, because I'd buy another one without hesitation. Not sure at this point.
 
I bought the 27" imac about a year ago.

I noticed the blotches a month ago and did a bit of research. Because it is not that bad at the moment I have left it, I have 3 years applecare so want the screen to last as long as possible before I get my '1 time replacement'.

I have only ever had my screen on 2-4 brightness. I only use the imac for light stuff like streaming, plugging my playstation into etc.

Andy
 
Funny reading this..

I just recently ditched a Late 2009 27" with this issue. I got Apple to repair it but I had some other issues with the computer so I thought it would just be easier to start fresh with a new one (3.4 Ghz 2011)

I had no idea this was a common issue. When I brought this to Apple they told me it was an exception for them to replace it due to it being caused by outside debris.. I flipped out! I never once opened the screen of the computer. But like I said it was changed regardless so all is well now.
 
i have not noticed any symptoms yet. i have a mid 2010 27" so it's been 1.5yrs. i use it for everything, graphics, streaming, gaming, etc. i have my brightness at one bar past middle point. it's on most of the day. i guess i'll wait and see. hopefully, if something develops, it better happen in the next 1/2 year so i can get amex to take care of it. i don't have apple care but amex gives an extended year of warranty on electronics you buy.
 
You state this as if it is a fact for _All_ 27" iMacs. Mine is great.
 
27" imac replaced screen out of warranty! can't calibrate

well, I have a 2010? or such imac 27" and noticed the dust problem in Dec. Finally went to the apple store in canada and they now have a new "quality" program (that's what they called it) and said the screen was to be replaced under that program free of charge! Totally great day!

As a side note;, and why I'm actually posting. Since the screen replacement I cannot calibrate my monitor. NOt with my spyder 3 elite, or with the apple calibration tool. While in the monitor control panel, I can choose all sorts of pre-set calibrations but they make no difference on the screen view.

However, inside Apple aperture, I can change my view to any calibration I want and the aperture window will respond.

Anyone else get their 27" lcd replaced and can't calibrate?? I"m using 10.8.2.

thanks!
 
So the new imacs 21.5 and 27 (late 2012) are with so much issues...i read endless screen problems..
So who has problem post here model and year, i work in press for East EU if i get enough users/info i will post/make a press conference
 
Serban said:
So the new imacs 21.5 and 27 (late 2012) are with so much issues...i read endless screen problems..
So who has problem post here model and year, i work in press for East EU if i get enough users/info i will post/make a press conference
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You'll "make" a press conference based on forum posts?

Apple must be quaking in their boots.
 
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