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New 'Anti-Flicker' Firmware Ready to Download...

7031 said:
I haven't installed the update yet, but I actually managed to stop the flickering problems by just increasing my fanspeeds. Don't live by this yet though, I haven't actually tested it much today since I have a lot of coursework etc to do, but you get the point. I'm starting to suspect it's heat related, but I don't think it got much hotter than 70C at most.
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For me a large part of the iMac's beauty is it's next to silent operation. I'd hardly consider that a fix myself and it's why I never mess with the fan speeds.

Also, the fact that it's getting worse over time implies to me that it's a hardware issue, and that this update either has:
A: The placebo effect
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This argument might be made for those who no longer see yellow tinges they detected before the update but it hardly applies to flickering which has either stopped or not.

B: Masked the problem (underclocking, perhaps?)
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I doubt that. I had no flickering prior to the update and none after and my GPU temps have not changed appreciably either.
 
after 12 hours of working on the computer with the update, i did not get a single bit of flickering. they may of actually fixed it this time.

i assumed it was a firmware/driver thing because under windows 7 my screen NEVER flickered.
 
mrjoshzombie said:
after 12 hours of working on the computer with the update, i did not get a single bit of flickering. they may of actually fixed it this time.

i assumed it was a firmware/driver thing because under windows 7 my screen NEVER flickered.
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I've had my 27" for a little over a month and have only had flickering issues come up once in OS X. It has occurred multiple times in Windows 7. I've been playing Mass Effect 2 in boot camp and after playing for a while the top back of the case gets extremely hot. That's when the flickering starts.

I haven't had any flickering since the update but that doesn't really mean anything.
 
I haven't noticed flickering but didn't really push the machine hard. I did however apply the firmware update which updated fine, been running it since yesterday.

Hopefully will not have to experience any flickering:rolleyes:
 
update

I'm following this thread because I'm wondering if I should update the firmware or not.
First of all I am not having any problems with flickering or yellow color. My iMac is from Dec 09, and I did't update the previous graphics driver either.

So, do I need to update? If yes, do I need to do the previous graphics update first?

Thanks.
 
Ecoh said:
My i7 was doing the garbled horizontal bands, never flickered though. There was nothing wrong with the screen but yellow gradient, week 46, then just two weeks ago it started the horizontal banding problem. Apple support told me to do PRAM reset, and if that didn't help, bring in for replacement of graphics card. It has been over a week now and the screen has behaved, the PRAM reset seems to have fixed it.
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Hmmm... Interesting. I did a PRAM reset on my own the day before applying the update, but I don't really remeber if I got the last couple of horizontal band flashes before or after doing it. So now if, as I hope, my iMac also behaves, it'll be a moot point.

As for the fan speed and noise, I always thought it might be too low (and good, for me at least) to be true and good (for the iMac, that is). So I installed Fan Control and lowered the upper and lower temperature threshold, and slightly increased the fan speed to 1300-1400 RPM, which is still very quiet by my standards (and is easily masked by my über-noisy LaCie Quadra external hard drive). I think I'm getting very reasonable mean GPU temps., at about 50ºC. I'm just hoping that this doesn't reduce the fans' lifespan significantly, as their speed would rise well above the default lower limit during processor intensive tasks anyway.
 
Has not addressed the Red/Yellow vertical stripe issue

Even tho it said the update only addressed the flickers I hoped it would address the vertical stripes a minority of us are also having.

For pics of my issue after the update see

http://www.slayford.com/drupal/node/4

Oh well :(
 
So Ive never had any flickering issues before (Ive had my 27 inch Imac for about three months) now I downloaded the firmware update, and now I DO have flickering! Or at least what I am assuming is flickering. My screen randomly flicks black and white bars (looks kinda like snow from a tv). This is incredibly frustrating! What should I do???

I really cant afford to be without my Imac! Im a student :(
 
BigGroll said:
So Ive never had any flickering issues before (Ive had my 27 inch Imac for about three months) now I downloaded the firmware update, and now I DO have flickering! Or at least what I am assuming is flickering. My screen randomly flicks black and white bars (looks kinda like snow from a tv). This is incredibly frustrating! What should I do???

I really cant afford to be without my Imac! Im a student :(
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I've heard some stories like yours which is why I held off running the updates on my own i7 for the longest time. I've had no problems myself after finally going ahead and flashing the updates. It didn't flicker before and it doesn't flicker now.

First off, have you run BOTH firmware updates? It is important that you do both the GPU firmware update from December as well as the just released display update.

If so, sorry to say but I think you're left with no choice but to send it/take it in to Apple. You cannot reverse firmware updates or rather, Apple doesn't generally offer that option.
 
BigGroll said:
So Ive never had any flickering issues before (Ive had my 27 inch Imac for about three months) now I downloaded the firmware update, and now I DO have flickering! Or at least what I am assuming is flickering. My screen randomly flicks black and white bars (looks kinda like snow from a tv). This is incredibly frustrating! What should I do???

I really cant afford to be without my Imac! Im a student :(
Click to expand...

The fact that your Mac wasn't flickering before the update doesn't mean it didn't have the issue - this is an intermittent problem, people's machines have started flickering a month or more after they arrived, and some go weeks between bouts.

All this means is that the update does not (or at least not always) work to prevent flickering on a machine that has the problem. Return your machine, or be prepared to live with it indefinitely.
 
boot time?

I installed the update on my 27-inch iMac, which had not shown any previous problems with flickering. However, it now takes over 3 minutes to boot up. 75 seconds of gray screen with the Apple logo and a spinning clock, then 105 seconds of blue screen, and finally the login screen. Also, my external Time Machine disk doesn't show up when I boot.

Any ideas? I re-selected the internal drive as the boot drive.

Thanks.
 
Haven't had any flickering in OSX at all, before and after the firmware fix.

Seem to be getting flickering in Windows though, mainly after I've spent a few hours in a game and go back to desktop. It's not as severe as the videos I've seen, but a tiny flicker every few minutes or so.

I'd assume it's either a driver problem or heavy duty/use over time on the display or graphics card is causing it.
 
I thought Apple got the Nehalem processors first before anyone else when they came out? Might be the same thing this time, they might be released Q4 2011 to everyone else.
 
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