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how widespread is the screen blotches / dirt problem
- Thread starter Acorn
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As long as you aren't touching your screen all the time you should be fine. My dad always has this incessant need to put his fingers all over the screen and his screen always looks like hell and my OCD makes me clean it every time I'm there.
this problem seems to come from the inside of the screen not the outside. apparently you need to take it to apple to fix. this bothers me since the imac is the size of a uhaul truck and the nearest applestore is in a mall. so i dont want to be walking through the mall with this huge thing to have to get it fixed.
Honestly, you always take a chance when buying electronics and no hardware or manufacturing will ever be perfect. It will happen to some people and not others. If you need it, get it.
I asked this a similar question about two months ago before buying my first iMac. You can find the thread here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1303359/
Long-story short, it doesn't appear to happen to most folks, but it does happen and get talked about frequently. The main culprits seem to be a combination of heat, dust, and humidity which cause the slow development of black smudges in the inside, upper right-hand corner of the iMac screen -- basically in front of the graphics card. Most people believe that the next upgrade won't fix this at all, that it'll take a major redesign as the iMac casing & design is just too "tight" in that area.
FWIW, I went ahead and bought one anyhow, and I love it. I've had it for two months now with no black marks to report, though from what I understand, they take time to develop.
If you do buy one, be sure to buy AppleCare.
Long-story short, it doesn't appear to happen to most folks, but it does happen and get talked about frequently. The main culprits seem to be a combination of heat, dust, and humidity which cause the slow development of black smudges in the inside, upper right-hand corner of the iMac screen -- basically in front of the graphics card. Most people believe that the next upgrade won't fix this at all, that it'll take a major redesign as the iMac casing & design is just too "tight" in that area.
FWIW, I went ahead and bought one anyhow, and I love it. I've had it for two months now with no black marks to report, though from what I understand, they take time to develop.
If you do buy one, be sure to buy AppleCare.
thanks crouch. I wonder if that mark that develops if its by the video card an actual burn mark. if you hold up extreme heat to glass it will blacken. hrm. I will have to think. I havent decided yet what my next mac will be.
It's not burn marks. I used to think the same, i.e. that the issue was related to heat. But it's not that, it's dust collecting inside the display.
My friend has it on his 21" iMac. The blotches are on the upper left and upper right corners of the screen.
His hard drive is also failing...
What makes this disturbing is that the computer is barely 2 yrs old.
His hard drive is also failing...
What makes this disturbing is that the computer is barely 2 yrs old.
After my 27" iMac developed this issue after around 2 years of normal use, I would say that if you're buying an iMac, I would definitely get Applecare because it will easily pay for itself should your screen develop this issue.
Alternatively consider the Mac Mini + Thunderbolt display. The fact the Thunderbolt display does not have any hot CPU/GPU components inside along with fans pushing hot, dusty air around inside should mean the display doesn't develop this issue. Another plus side is you can change/upgrade the computer at a later date and keep your display, making the upgrade cheaper.
Alternatively consider the Mac Mini + Thunderbolt display. The fact the Thunderbolt display does not have any hot CPU/GPU components inside along with fans pushing hot, dusty air around inside should mean the display doesn't develop this issue. Another plus side is you can change/upgrade the computer at a later date and keep your display, making the upgrade cheaper.
I thought about this too -- buying the Mini + an ACD instead of the iMac -- but I started doing research and learned that ACDs have the same problem:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1183925/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1079993/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/861355/
It's frustrating. What's worse is that Apple seems to blame customer's environments for the problem.
I had the problem so i took the machine in, the reseller (no apple stores down here) had the lcd changed, i bought apple care in case the problem returned, and they were giving a raffle ticket for every 100$ purchased with the brand of credit card i use, the person in front of me got like 10 raffle tickets to my single one, i won an 11" MBA 64GB SSD/2GB of RAM in said raffle, so i thank apple for the problem XD.
It hasn't come back in 5 months now, it started appearing at around 3-4 months the first time, so hopefully it's solved now.
It hasn't come back in 5 months now, it started appearing at around 3-4 months the first time, so hopefully it's solved now.
Thanks for those links, I wasn't aware the ACDs had that issue as well. Quite odd though, as I'd imagine the ACDs are fairly well sealed from the elements, compared to the iMac where there's a lot of hot, dusty air constantly being pushed up through the system. Bloody nuisance though, how can it be so hard to properly seal the displays to stop dust getting inside? Are there any non-Apple displays which exhibit this sort of issue, if not, why not?
I don't know, but I can tell you that (unfortunately) it's impossible to tell by asking the question in an internet forum.
For my part, my late 2009 iMac has developed blotches in screen to the point where they are faintly but plainly visible on flat white or pale backgrounds. I'm going to have to do "major surgery" on the thing soon to clean it.
Still, I can't say I regret getting the iMac. It's awesome despite this issue.
wow I had been eying the mac mini to avoid the issue and pair it with a TBD but ive heard the TBD is affected also noted by the links a few posts above me. well then looks like i will be getting a dell ips or eizo display after all.
strange that they want to replace the panels instead of cleaning them. if its just dust it doesnt sound very cost affective to do that
strange that they want to replace the panels instead of cleaning them. if its just dust it doesnt sound very cost affective to do that