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iMAC late 2015 Screen ghosting

S

strohscw

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 2, 2010
22
3
Austria
I am writing today to find out if I am the only one with this problem. Just talked to the apple support about having ghosting effects that are a problem for photoshop work.
They told me to activate a screensaver which for sure will "clean" after a while a ghost window. But during my work I have several windows open and during this work activating a screensaver is not really helpful.
The problem is that the warranty is over and they seem to tell me to learn to live with this effect.
And I am not willing to sell this iMAC to someone while I see it as a problem.
I thought to buy the XDR monitor but now with this information I think I might go another way, maybe the Eizo.
Included You will see a photo of such a ghost window.
 

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You are not the only one. I've a late 2015 iMac. Last night after watched a youtuber's channel for 40 minutes, this Youtuber's icon stay ghosting on the screen. I will try to take it to the apple store this weekend...
 
I'm not sure what the official terminology for this is, but I think what you're describing is "image retention" and it's a common problem with the LG 5K screens. I have this issue with my LG 5K Ultrafine monitor as well. It's become a lot more noticeable now that we have dark mode because it's most obvious when you're viewing a dark background.

Bright parts of the screen are retained and become visible when something dark overlays it. If you open up a canvas in Photoshop and make it all white and lay it over your desktop, you will see nothing. Make it black and you will see whatever bright objects were on the desktop previously. This is true even if the monitor has been shut off. The next time you turn it back on, the image from the bright parts of the screen are still retained and gradually fade away. Mine usually goes away in about 10 minutes.

There's no way to deal with this, but there's one surefire way you can make it more noticeable. That's to mix light mode and dark mode. That's unavoidable, but use one of the modes as exclusively as possible.

I only know this to be an issue with the 5K screens. I don't know if the 4K monitors are also affected. As far as I know the panels that go in the Apple laptops aren't affected. I've had 2 MBPs and 1 MBA with a retina screen and none of those have this issue.
 
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smirking said:
I only know this to be an issue with the 5K screens. I don't know if the 4K monitors are also affected. As far as I know the panels that go in the Apple laptops aren't affected. I've had 2 MBPs and 1 MBA with a retina screen and none of those have this issue.
Click to expand...

Yes, mine is Late 2015 iMac retina 4K 21.5-inch screen. I noticed that it becomes quite obvious after watching youtube videos for an hour or so. Is this considered hardware problem since it's still in the extent apple care warranty period?
 
Archemistx said:
Yes, mine is Late 2015 iMac retina 4K 21.5-inch screen. I noticed that it becomes quite obvious after watching youtube videos for an hour or so. Is this considered hardware problem since it's still in the extent apple care warranty period?
Click to expand...

Well, it's disappointing that it also affects the 4K screens. Given that I don't think I've ever heard someone complain about this with their MBP screen, it seems that size has something to do with this.

I have no idea if AppleCare covers this.

Can you tell if yours has gotten worse over time or has it been pretty consistent? I honestly can't tell. I notice it more these days, but a lot of it has to do with dark mode creating more opportunities for this issue to appear. Without dark mode, there are more limited opportunities for retained parts of light and dark patches of the screen to interact.
 
smirking said:
I have no idea if AppleCare covers this.

Can you tell if yours has gotten worse over time or has it been pretty consistent? I honestly can't tell. I notice it more these days, but a lot of it has to do with dark mode creating more opportunities for this issue to appear. Without dark mode, there are more limited opportunities for retained parts of light and dark patches of the screen to interact.
Click to expand...

Can't tell that it has gotten worse. Just noticed this problem recently--I've been using dark mode for since the day it became available. In my case, after watching video full screen the problem surfaces.

As for AppleCare--I will find out this weekend!
 
I have exactly this - late 2015 iMac 5K, too. However, if I have both Compressor and Final Cut running in the background (not actually doing anything in particular), the issue - excuse the pun - disappears. I did run a hefty job using them beforehand, but it's been a few days since doing that and still no image retention. When I have tried this before, as soon as I close the applications the issue arises again and fairly quickly. I'm reluctant to close the apps again. Is this an OS issue? Hardware (assuming running the machine temp up has temporarily fixed the issue)? I get a sneaking suspicion this is OS related, unless it's a manufacturing defect.

This has been an issue since after installing Mojave. It seems a bit suspect that most machines suffering this (from what I've read online) has happened after installing it.
 
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My OS was Mojave when took it back to Apple. I didn't notice this until that version of OS. But I still tend to believe it's a hardware issue. After all once Apple replaced the monitor, the image retention problem solved.

FogusBogus said:
I have exactly this - late 2015 iMac 5K, too. However, if I have both Compressor and Final Cut running in the background (not actually doing anything in particular), the issue - excuse the pun - disappears. I did run a hefty job using them beforehand, but it's been a few days since doing that and still no image retention. When I have tried this before, as soon as I close the applications the issue arises again and fairly quickly. I'm reluctant to close the apps again. Is this an OS issue? Hardware (assuming running the machine temp up has temporarily fixed the issue)? I get a sneaking suspicion this is OS related, unless it's a manufacturing defect.

This has been an issue since after installing Mojave. It seems a bit suspect that most machines suffering this (from what I've read online) has happened after installing it.
Click to expand...
 
I have the exact same problem on the same type of machine. It started appearing around 6 months after my AppleCare expired. Symptoms and cure (screensavers) are identical to what is described above. I'm on 10.14.6.

I have just had an online "chat" with an Apple assistance representative in France. He asked for pictures of the screen, which I provided. He said he had never heard of such a phenomenon, and suggested I reset the NVRAM and PRAM.

Convinced (as I am now) that this had nothing to do with the problem, I pasted a few links to discussions such as this one, or other posts on Reddit, and he replied that "these are only online forums, which are filled with all the world's problems" and that he couldn't access the URLs anyway.

I asked if Apple's technical assistance was unable to read web pages and he said "it depends". I suggested he try to view the links on an iPad or iPhone because it was pretty easy and worked rather well. He said it was impossible. I asked what the procedure was for contacting Apple regarding a widely-publicized hardware problem, and he said that no such service was available. He suggested I try the Apple forums. I replied that these are run by Apple users, not by Apple, and that they are only online forums anyway. He agreed, and apologized that he didn't have a solution that would allow me to share my problem with Apple.

I said: "Yes, unfortunately I am aware that not everyone has access to technology which allows online sharing of information." We didn't go any further.

In the customer satisfaction survey that immediately followed I opined that Apple ceasing to make fun of their customers would be a step in the right direction. This company reminds me of Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove, recounting how the Japanese had tortured him during the war and adding, "Strange thing is they make such bloody good cameras."
 
talino said:
I have the exact same problem on the same type of machine. It started appearing around 6 months after my AppleCare expired. Symptoms and cure (screensavers) are identical to what is described above. I'm on 10.14.6.

I have just had an online "chat" with an Apple assistance representative in France. He asked for pictures of the screen, which I provided. He said he had never heard of such a phenomenon, and suggested I reset the NVRAM and PRAM.

Convinced (as I am now) that this had nothing to do with the problem, I pasted a few links to discussions such as this one, or other posts on Reddit, and he replied that "these are only online forums, which are filled with all the world's problems" and that he couldn't access the URLs anyway.

I asked if Apple's technical assistance was unable to read web pages and he said "it depends". I suggested he try to view the links on an iPad or iPhone because it was pretty easy and worked rather well. He said it was impossible. I asked what the procedure was for contacting Apple regarding a widely-publicized hardware problem, and he said that no such service was available. He suggested I try the Apple forums. I replied that these are run by Apple users, not by Apple, and that they are only online forums anyway. He agreed, and apologized that he didn't have a solution that would allow me to share my problem with Apple.

I said: "Yes, unfortunately I am aware that not everyone has access to technology which allows online sharing of information." We didn't go any further.

In the customer satisfaction survey that immediately followed I opined that Apple ceasing to make fun of their customers would be a step in the right direction. This company reminds me of Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove, recounting how the Japanese had tortured him during the war and adding, "Strange thing is they make such bloody good cameras."
Click to expand...
I was lucky that found the "phenomenon" prior to my AppleCare expired. Before I took it back to the Genius Bar, I repeated the exact process in order to make it obvious enough. They didn't give me any official reasons or mention other similar cases, but simply replaced the part for me.
 
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