Fuzzy line over Desktop Picture..

[lieb39]

Hello everyone -

One of the relatives were complaining about a fuzzy/colourful line over their iMac screen.. I figured it would be a display/hardware issue.. Until I remote desktop'd into the machine. Somehow, the line is showing through Remote Desktop..

Its' just on the background, and stays over the background picture no matter what (I've tried to change it, etc.) Tried to repair permissions too - nothing.

Any suggestions?

 

[MrMacintoshBlog]

It will disappear when you select a different background picture right?

 

[lieb39]

It will disappear when you select a different background picture right?

Nope - Stays there regardless of what background picture is selected.

 

[iVoid]

And if you have a dark window/picture over that area it doesn't appear?

I'd guess a video card failure, but if it only shows on the background and not any foreground window, that's very odd. Even using remote access, the video card memory is where the data will be read from to send to the remote computer.

If it is only on the background image, then something is up with the system software. Unless it's writing the file to same spot on the hard disk every time it's changed (seems unlikely to me), it couldn't be a hard drive bad block.

I imagine some glitch in CoreImage could cause only the background image to be affected.

I'd try creating a new user and see if the problem shows up in a new user. If it doesn't, then the user profile is messed up.

If it does, then a reinstall of the OS will probably be needed.