Q: Greyish Smudge marks behind the glass screen.

Yes there are more than one problem here:

1.  Dust between the outer glass and the LCD easily cleaned.

2.  Fine Smoke Dust discoloration between the layers of diffusers in the LCD assembly it's self. Difficult to clean but possible.

3.  Discoloration of the diffusers due to over heating.  This usually is a brownish/yellowish smudginess that cannot be fixed without replacing the diffusers.

1 is not a problem it's normal maintenance.

2 is a design flaw due to heating.

3 is a design flaw due to heating.

Also, Cleaning the layers of diffusers is EXTREMELY difficult becuase they are not smooth.  They have grooves in them like a Frenzel lens.  The smoke/dust get's in those grooves and is almost impossible to get out.

I had to SCRUB each layer front and back for hours to get it back to perfect.  Most people give up long before they get to that stage but I'm a bulldog. I don't give up.  The other problem is if you use things like windex or amonia it will eventually yellow the diffusers.  If you scrub too hard it will cause a smoothing of the surface and it will cease to be a DIFFUSER.... this will cause you to see bright and dark lines from the ultraviolate bulbs inside the display.

It appears as if it is burned into your screen it is true... HOWEVER if you had dissembled as many screens as I have you would know that it is actually a fine layer like smoke that DOES COME OFF it is not actually burned in.  Unless you really try to OVERHEAT your machine this is not going to be literally burned in. 

Burning in is not something that LCD screens do like normal old fashioned screens.  And with certain screen savors that move the Liquid Crystal around it will go away unlike a really BURNED in screen from the old Cathod ray days when the phosphoros was actually burned off the inside of the screen leaving physical marks what were not fixable.

Just because it can be cleaned by dissassembling the LCD does not mean it's not a design flaw,

quick tell me a few of those screen savers and maybe I can salvage some of the screen at least...

seriously if you know some I would really bee interested in trying them

Is there any legal action regarding these screens? My mid 2010 27" has been to Apple repair 3x and this last time they refused to fix the screen saying it was environmental. I have 12 Apple products right now and after this I think it's over, I can't afford disposable computers. I've never had issues with dust on any system dating back to my first XT.

I wonder, then, if those with most problems are the ones who use the machine a lot.

Perhaps if you just come in from work, check some mails, play with YouTube, upload some pics to FB and quit - the machine hasn't got that hot - you might not run into the problems so quickly as someone, like myself, who has the machine on all day, sometimes into the night, running graphics programs, etc?

(The problem for me showed up within the first few weeks of using the machine, btw. And I run mine in a very clean 'office' type environment.)

Its disheartening to find that although the problem came to light back in 2009, the newer 2011 machines are still showing the same problem: nothing has been done to address or resolve it.

I'd hoped getting a new one would see the end of it...

I asked earlier if anyone knew of other 'all-in-one' products having the same problem. I've checked around the various-message boards and there are no mentions of this kind of staining. Plenty of glitchy screen issues, but not this one. So why just iMac?

What is it with the iMac that does this but not other 'all-in-one' machines?

The sentiment above -- "after this I think it's over" -- is one I'm beginning to share. Which is amazing after all these years of dogged loyalty. What a horrible feeling...

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Hi IanSn

###  I asked earlier if anyone knew of other 'all-in-one' products having the same problem. I've checked around the various-message boards and there are no mentions of this kind of staining. Plenty of glitchy screen issues, but not this one. So why just iMac?

I asked exactly the same question a dozen or so posts back  (January 6th)    Sadly there has been no comments on that subject since.

Because of the alliminium casing........ I think.

Don't remember seeing that point mentioned ... worth looking into.   It would certainly explain Apple's (seeming) resistence.

same problem here (iMac 27" Late 2009)

Apple don't just stand there and admit it's design flaw.

Anounce replacement program already.

My 27" late 2009 i7 iMac has developed a difuse grey line towards the top right of the screen  - bloody annoying and after paying out for such a premium product very dissappointing too.

Imac 27" core i5... same problem. I bought it 15 months ago... for ~3800$ with accessories ( Apple is expensive in my country ) 2999$ for the iMac + 180$ for extra 4GB DDR2 RAM and 240$ for EyeTV Hybrid + 265$ for Airport Extreme

After 10 months, had yellowish/gray smudges whatever you wanna call it. Took it to the Apple store and spent like an hour trying to convince them it was a known issue and I that I don't smoke cigarettes nor weed whatsoever in my office at work... They asked for a new replacement screen which took 4 weeks and had meanwhile a Laptop for 88$ charge ( Macbook ) with 1 month warranty on the screen..

Now after 4 months, a Deja vu... Screen now showing plenty of gray clouds on the upper right side which are really annoying on white background ( I am annoyed at the moment as I can see it everywhere ). Tried to clean the panel but no joy. My warranty has expired 3 months ago and Apple guy asked me to bring the iMac back to inspect it for 33$ ONLY and if the screen needs replacement, they will " UNFORTUNATELY"  HAVE to charge me 980$.

Trust me it is not easy to move that thing everytime I need to take it to the Genius guy...

So I said okay I have to live with it, let's run the AHT as advised on the Apple website  to check if I have any hardware problem... It appeared that it is not possible anymore after Lion installation. As per forum advices, I can still load it from disk.

So I opened the iMac box and pulled the Snow Leopard Installation DVD and tried to boot from that "SuperDrive" which I barely use ( maybe twice in the last 15 months just to install win7/Bootcamp ) and tadaaaa.... Drive is not accepting DVDs... investigating, it's only reading CDs but ejecting any kind of DVD.

Well, I took it to the Apple guy; they said the screen needs replacement and the DVD drive is failing and also needs replacement: 980$ for the screen and 270$ for the DVD drive EXCLUDING LABOR ( not to mention that the SD card drive only works when I restart the iMac with the SD card inserted which is a known issue )

A charge of 1350$ to fix the screen and SuperDrive.  Deal or no deal ?  I fold...

Gentelmen, my Apple products are all now on something like ebay in my country. No more Apple ( selling my iPhone4, iMac, Eyetv and Airport ). Thank you Apple, I was not paying for the Design but for the quality as well; fair enough I guess

If someone from the Apple community is reading, I have been in the IT/Engineering field for more than 20 years and the iMac has been for business needs ( no gaming or DVD playback ) . Complaining on a Forum where everyone can register and chat is somehow useless and I seriously doubt you could offer some help as this issue has not been confirmed by Apple since years.

I will be sending an officia/ formal E-mail to the management departement at Apple from work with my signature and contact number ( which is a top ranked multinational firm anyway ) maybe they won't look at me as one of their average-joe customers bragging about their Apple product.

Will keep you posted.

Regards. 

Hi Kareem84, sorry to hear about your problems!

If you haven't already, be sure and Google "imac screen change org" (minus the quotes) and click on the first link that pops up. I think that's the best shot we have at this point, since as you said who knows how effective it is complaining on a forum.

My "SUPER" drive is not working also ( same issues, Will not even read the install discs!! ). Along with the lovely Grey marks.

What an utter waste of money, Getting very very ****** off now!

@paulfromme ... you said the forbidden word! Apple expressly forbids mentioning the "P-word" (p e t i t i o n) and/or linking directly to them, per their forum Terms of Service. We've had a lot of posts disappear in this thread because of that. Thanks for trying to spread the word, but subtlety is key as long as we're communicating in the official Apple forum.

Also just google @omek on twitter. The link to the other one is in the first tweet.

Add my name to the list of 27" iMac's purchased in 2011 that have Grey Smudgitis.  This seems to be a consistent problem with the design.  I've got smudging primarily on the upper right hand corner, but also in the upper left hand corner.  Only 7 months old.  Looks like I'm off to the Apple Store to make use of my AppleCare.