Mid 2011, 27-inch iMac - Grey / White Screen

[Kian32]

Have a iMac "Core i5" 3.1 27-Inch (Mid-2011) and I can be surfing the net or watching a video etc. and then my screen will all of a sudden go like a grey / white colour (Does not happen all the time, and nothing in particular seems to trigger it) then the only way out of that is for me to hold the power button to shut down the iMac and then restart the iMac (Only once it has gone a grey / white screen and rebooted itself). Everything works perfect as in operates normally switches on and loads fine etc etc.

What could be causing this or is it just a case of it is a 2011 iMac and it is coming to it's end, time to upgrade maybe?

Thank You

 

[ThugFreak]

Have a iMac "Core i5" 3.1 27-Inch (Mid-2011) and I can be surfing the net or watching a video etc. and then my screen will all of a sudden go like a grey / white colour (Does not happen all the time, and nothing in particular seems to trigger it) then the only way out of that is for me to hold the power button to shut down the iMac and then restart the iMac (Only once it has gone a grey / white screen and rebooted itself). Everything works perfect as in operates normally switches on and loads fine etc etc.

What could be causing this or is it just a case of it is a 2011 iMac and it is coming to it's end, time to upgrade maybe?

Thank You

Deleted

 

[Kian32]

Does your screen look like this?
(go to 1:41)

Thank you for your reply,

No it just goes a plain grey / white colour, no stripes / lines on the screen. Never happens on boot up, I can be working on something, or surfing the net and then all of a sudden it will just happen but it is not all the time.

 

[TwoH]

It is possible it could either be your RAM or your GPU

 

[Kian32]

It is possible it could either be your RAM or your GPU

Ok is there anyway to specifically test these or is it just a case of running Apple diagnostics to see if it picks anything up?

Thank You

 

[TwoH]

Ok is there anyway to specifically test these or is it just a case of running Apple diagnostics to see if it picks anything up?

Thank You

Easiest way would be to first try some new known-working RAM in your machine - if you have any spare? DDR3 1333mhz SO-DIMM

 

[Kian32]

Easiest way would be to first try some new known-working RAM in your machine - if you have any spare? DDR3 1333mhz SO-DIMM

I actually do have some spare Ram that I can use, I will put that in now and see how it goes.

Thanks

 

[Kian32]

Update: I replaced the ram with new working ram 24 hours ago and have been using my iMac but unfortunately the screen all of a sudden went like a grey / white colour again. so not looking like it is the ram that is causing the problem.

 

[badsimian]

Mine has started doing exactly the same this weekend. 2011 iMac, 3.4GHz i7 with 32GB RAM. I tried stripping out the RAM and only trying one chip. I can get into single user mode but any attempt to load a GUI seems to cause it to hang on a grey screen.

 

[Kian32]

Mine has started doing exactly the same this weekend. 2011 iMac, 3.4GHz i7 with 32GB RAM. I tried stripping out the RAM and only trying one chip. I can get into single user mode but any attempt to load a GUI seems to cause it to hang on a grey screen.

Boots up fine and can use it fine that is the strange thing, it is just when the screen goes like a grey / white colour for no reason at all and now also started with a black screen and then reboots itself (The black screen started yesterday and is also random) and has happened twice already. Looking like it is maybe time for a new mac as I have tried different things and can not figure out what is causing the problem.

 

[Kian32]

What I have found out is it seems to be a failing GPU. A very rampant problem on all MacBook Pro 15” and iMac 2011’s.

Decided I am just going to upgrade my mac.