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Screen Burn-in on iMac G5!

A

Atlasland

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 20, 2005
317
0
London, UK
I was restarting my iMac G5, and on the white startup screen I noticed a faint but very noticeable black line near the bottom of my screen, across the middle.

As I examined the line further I realised it wasn't a software issue, and it wasn't going away. Then it hit me: the line was in exactly the same position as the top of my dock. I believe this is called screen burn in. Has anyone suffered from the problem before?

Anyway I searched this site (and found only 1 reference to the problem). Then I searched on Google and found this excellent webpage, with some guy's personal experience of the problem:

http://www.dslwebserver.com/main/fr_index.html?/main/lcd-screen-burn.html

Anyway, he says that most of the time the problem is reversible but you need to do a few things:


1) Turn your monitor off for several hours/days/weeks.
2) Use a screen saver that uniformly "exercises" each part of your screen
3) Display a white image on your screen for several hours/days/weeks


Number 1 is not possible for longer than a day, as I use my machine daily. So its down to 2 & 3. So does anybody know where can I get such a screensaver and a white desktop image??? Please - I'm in need! Also any advice would be appreciated.


Also, as a word of advice for others, it would be worthwhile if you all took a look at your screen with the dock & other regular fixtures moved. Then see if there are any faint lines. You might be unpleasantly suprised. Anyway, I'll quote the one other post on this site that I could find about this problem - food for thought:

SmegFirk said:
I've had my 20" G5 iMac for 2 weeks and the screen burned in. It's going back for a refund.

I had it set to turn off the screen after 30mins of inactivity and the machine was always shutdown every night. Yet, i moved the HD icon by accident 2 days ago and you could see the 'ghost' where it had been. I then moved the dock to the left and at the bottom there was the top edge of the dock as a dark line. I took some screenshots which did not have the fault on them so it wasn't a rendering issue. Also, when i restarted and you see the apple logo on the grey background you could see the fault then before osx had loaded.

I wonder how common this is without imac users even realising it. If i hadn't moved my HD icon i'd not have noticed.
Click to expand...
 
Change the size/position of your dock? :confused:


Never seen this before, even though I knew LCDs could theoretically "burn"
 
I have read that LCDs do not burn in, they just get "tired" and leaving them sit for a few days will fix it. Looks like you're going to have to stop using the computer for a week or so. It's better than having it "burned" in forever though.
 
blaskillet4 said:
Change the size/position of your dock? :confused:
Click to expand...

Obviously, I have already done this. Though I am mainly looking for advice on how to reverse the current problem. I will turn my machine off for a few days, but I can' do it for much longer than that.

Anyone know where to get a white screen saver from? Or a White desktop image?
 
amholl said:
use flurry for ur screen saver. should come with ur mac
Click to expand...

I use magnification so I don't have this problem but speaking of flurry I'v been noticing weird stuff lately.

On both my iMac G5 and my Powerbook, when the screensaver goes on, the mouse is on top of the screensaver! I assume that this is bad and could cause screenburn right?
 
I'm having the SAME problem you're having.
I'm thinking about calling Apple about this; this is unacceptable!
Very faint line that the dock has carved in my screen; also since I have the status bar in Safari turned on, that bar is also there; very faint as well.
I don't know what to do?! :confused:
 
its not burn in.

if you leave something in the same exact pixel position for hours at a time, what do you expect.

you LCD is NOT ruined.

LCD TVs do not suffer from burn-in, but can have a "retained pixel charge" which may also produce ghosting. Stuck pixels are also possible with an LCD display.

so lets not turn this into another class-action, lol.

try something different before you go off the deep end and blame apple (who didnt make the LCD screen anyway), move a window in front of where the burn is and see if after an hour or two (maybe less) it goes away.
 
Atlasland said:
Obviously, I have already done this. Though I am mainly looking for advice on how to reverse the current problem. I will turn my machine off for a few days, but I can' do it for much longer than that.
Click to expand...

How is it obvious? You never said you did it. :rolleyes:
 
Sdashiki said:
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS LCD SCREEN BURN IN.

do some research.
Click to expand...

Agreed.. It will not happen. 20 yrs. of using computers, and this only happened on CRT's.. Turn the system off as stated for a day or two, and it will be gone. I saw this on a LCD a while back, and it was gone the next day after being turned off. It is not Screen Burn In..
 
ok, it may not be called "screen burn" on an LCD but it's DAMN ANNOYING to see a "ghost dock" even when the dock is hidden.
The same for the status bar in Safari.
 
killuminati said:
On both my iMac G5 and my Powerbook, when the screensaver goes on, the mouse is on top of the screensaver!
Click to expand...

I'm finding that problem in 10.4.3 - it does the same for nearly all fullscreen games.
 
I noticed a faint trace of my Menu Bar last time I started my iMac up. I didn't think much of it at the time and to be honest, it doesn't bother me because I know that it's not burnt in permanently.

By the way, I think any screen saver will help, not necessarily a white one. :)


killuminati said:
On both my iMac G5 and my Powerbook, when the screensaver goes on, the mouse is on top of the screensaver! I assume that this is bad and could cause screenburn right?
Click to expand...


grabberslasher said:
I'm finding that problem in 10.4.3 - it does the same for nearly all fullscreen games.
Click to expand...


Do you have DivX installed?
 
This is what screensavers are great at preventing.

You did enable your screensaver, didn't you? Oh, you didn't? Well.....you may want to start doing so.

"Burn in, it is not."
 
Agreed.. It will not happen. 20 yrs. of using computers, and this only happened on CRT's.. Turn the system off as stated for a day or two, and it will be gone. I saw this on a LCD a while back, and it was gone the next day after being turned off. It is not Screen Burn In..
Click to expand...

Not really relevant but I have definitely seen burn in on an ancient "laptop" pc. This is going back some though, must have been 92 or something and the screen in question was a crap monochrome orange and black number but I think it was still lcd. This pc had a screen saver of a bloke on a desert island and the horizon line burnt in to the screen, ironic given this was the screen saver!

Anyway, burn in or something else it must be annoying to have a permanent dock shadow, although if your docks always there then you won't notice... Not the point I know...
 
I had the same problem with a 20" ADC Cinema Display.

It drove me fecking nuts :mad: I would open Photoshop and after 10 minutes, no more of working on a pic, if I minimized the window, I could still see it, translucent and burned into the screen...

Apple Care claimed that teh ghosting and burnin I was expreiencing was impossible because LCD's don't suffer burn in. Which really pissed me off. It's like the world calling you a liar....

Anyway I managed to get someone at an apple repair centre to see the problem, whilst he couldn't explain why it was doing so, the fact that the burning was replicated meant that Apple finaly acknoweldged my screen as faulty and gave me a full refund.

Thankfully the price had droped when they brought out the Aluminium version, so for less than I paid for 1 20" display, I got 2 newer DVI models.....

Whilst Burn in may well be impossible on LCD, Faults are not, and I would guess you have the same problem I had and hence try and get someone at a repair center or apple store to see the problem, it may help to get you a refund or a repair...


Good Luck..
 
Burn - in??

Here is a good break down:
Plasma burn in like crazy (whoever had the orange laptop, that was an OLD plasma display)
CRTs only if you leave the same image on the screen for a LONG time
LCD's, not at all (although, they will ghost on you)

Just pick any old screensaver (heck, a photo slide show should work). The goal is to "scramble" those pixels all up. I wouldn't worry too much about it, just leave a screensaver on overnight, and it should be fixed (crossing fingers for ya).
 
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