Q: Red and green square dots?

Has anybody here with colored squares replaced their hard drive? The freakest glitches on OSX and Windows boxes (in my experience) has been hard drive issues.

jmf

And when or if you do replace the hard disk drive, be sure to get one (or cable, too?) that allows the heat sensors to keep working.

Or the fans may run fast and create a new issue to ponder.

This has been an issue with some DIY or non-Apple tech

replacements of iMac hard disk drives.

One should be able to troubleshoot an internal drive problem

through use of an external bootable clone.

Good luck & happy computing!

For what it's worth, here is my hard drive experience (posted on another thread this morning):

The hard drive in my 2010 27" iMac (2.8 GHz i5 with 4 GB RAM) running 10.8.5 Mountain Lion had the red and green squares issue, which I was experiencing with increased frequency and severity. On New Years Eve day the machine refused to wake up. It tried to boot, but it could not boot from the system partition, from the installation CD, or from a bootable external drive. I took it to an authorized Apple service shop and they determined the hard drive had failed, and it actually prevented the other bootable devices from booting the machine, even though the operating system could find them in the diagnostics screen. Anyway, they replaced the hard drive and that fixed the booting problem. I should mention that this was the second hard drive replacement this machine had, as it happened in November 2012 and was part of the Apple HD recall. This time, unfortunately, I had to pay for it. The dead drive was a Seagate 1TB 7200 Barracuda.

While they had the machine taken apart I had them do a thorough cleaning of the dust that had accumulated inside. I knew that it might be building up, as I had pulled the RAM while I was troubleshooting it myself and noticed an accumulation of dust and lint. I restored the machine from my Time Machine external USB drive. Thank goodness my Time Machine backup was on a different drive, unlike many people do, because my original drive was no longer bootable and data could not be recovered by other machines.

The good news is that I could restore everything from my Time Machine backup AND the red and green squares are GONE. Of course, this is only Day Three of my testing, but I'm cautiously optimistic.

Needless to say, I am extremely disappointed that a $2000 machine that is only 3.5 years old can be such a lemon. I paid much of that money for the superb display; I certainly would have bought something else had I known about the red and green squares issue. I am seriously considering switching back to the Windows world, where at least the hardware is standardized and throwing away a motherboard is only $200 instead of $700+.

has anyone actually resloved the issue permanantly?

dgd2000,

Let us know if the drive swap fixed your video problem. This would explain why no artifacts are present when an iMac is used as a monitor only, and why there are reports here that changing the video card and motherboard did not eliminate the problem.

jmf

"The good news is that I could restore everything from my Time Machine backup AND the red and green squares are GONE. Of course, this is only Day Three of my testing, but I'm cautiously optimistic."

jmf,

This is Day 3, and so far the hard drive swap (or cleaning the dust and lint out of the iMac interior) has eliminated the red and green squares. I'll report back if they reappear...

I meant to pass this along last night but got caught up with too many things.  Also wanted to say that I did have Apple do the hard drive replacement just slightly before the program ended.  Below is some additional documentation I made regarding this issue (pictures included to show most of the graphical distortions I have seen so far).

I ran across some other forums of people observing these issues (pre and post Mavericks).

Links to the additional forums below.

https://discussions.apple.com/message/24452202#24452202

https://discussions.apple.com/message/24452195#24452195

https://discussions.apple.com/message/24450773#24450773

https://discussions.apple.com/message/24450561#24450561

I completely agree with browsers intensifying the issue(s) but I have observed the issues with

Firefox/Safari/Chrome (separately so it doesn't appear to buggy browser apps, instead more likely

related to a draw on memory).

I have not really paid significant attention to the Activity Monitor since Mavericks and I fell like I have

accidently come across something that may be useful? After searching online I am not the first to

notice these "features" as of Mavericks. My kernel_task is using up over 500MB on launch and hitting

close to 900MB when the iMac starts to freak out. Additionally I see the the

com.apple.IconServicesAgent is using up 150MB on launch. Others are also noting that Mavericks is

hogging a ton of memory in either/both processes. Basically it seems that these features were observed

in different OS versions but Mavericks is likely drawing significantly more memory that just pushes

the bug out of control?

To get everyone on the same page regarding the features... I have seen several "features/bugs" now with

the 27"iMac. As noted recently I have seen some very strange features in WoW/Minecraft and have

also observed a strange pixelation in Bioshock Infinite.

In my experience, the pixels/squares are the start of the issue. I usually see them shortly after

video/gaming. They usually start as blue squares, progress to red squares and are clustered together in

a specific pattern. After that they progress to different colors and are less clustered at that point.

After the pixels get going, then I start seeing the more interesting/crazy features. I have seen massive

blocks of browsers just completely re-organizing itself. Basically taking text/colors and rearranging in

some strange pattern (makes english look like a new language). I have also observed bands of

colors/pixels over the top of active applications.

I believe that all of these features are somehow related and get progressively worse with increased

memory usage (whether that is the logic board, gpu, video card, RAM I have no idea).

Below I have added some screenshots in reference to many of the features that I now see.

Hopefully some information here will be helpful

Multicolored Squares (Browser is also white due to flashing normal/white based on some other issue.

Browser did have information on it but would fade to white completely at times):

Blocky Image (nonsensical language):

Vertical Stripes (Observed through multiple applications):

Regarding a solution, I suppose I have likely found the best solution that I will ever find to this issue.

I recorded evidence of the original video issues that I had before the squares started to appear.  Although I was out of warrantee Apple was completely fine with replacing my graphics card at that point (as noted previously that did not fix my issue in any way shape/form).  The new graphics card was covered for another 90 days in which I returned about a month ago, then finally again today.

Last night I observed the squares, a massive slow down and a bunch of very odd graphical features.  Once again the 27” iMac passed the diagnostics with flying colors.  Also the store could not replicate the issue when I left it there for more than a week.  Since I documented the issues with several videos/images and since this issue is just taking up too much time they made an offer.  I can either get another graphics card installed or they agreed to credit me $600 for any new purchase.  Seeing that is about 25% of the original sales price and I have used my iMac for 3.25/3.5 years now, I think I might just take the plunge into another (obviously maximum coverage in case of issues again in the future).

I don’t know if they will do this for others who are not covered.  If you are still covered I would highly suggest to get it in as quickly as possible and record/document everything that you see.  If recording video make sure to record using a different device as some people have suggested that they don’t see the issues when taking video of their current screen.

Not a perfect solution at all but maybe helpful?

wow... yeah you should definitely take the credit toward a new purchase. Doesn't sound like there's a silver bullet coming from the company that designed and built this generation of plagued systems.

I think it boils down to how sensitive the hardware is from pollutants, heat, contaminants, even altitude in some situations; and how this run of hardware and their remaining supply chain for this gen isn't working out.

If they could fix this with software, you'd have to think they would've attempted it already.

Interesting find niklesko. I find my kernal_task at 940mb and iconservices at 230mb, and I just rebooted last night (and colored squares are all over my screen).

jack fox as I have mentioned many times, I installed a brand new hard drive and a fresh copy of mavericks. the colored squares were greeting me as soon as I logged in. It is NOT 3rd party software, it is NOT the hard drive, many of us had this issue plaging us well before mavericks (since 10.7 for me), and we have seen a few people get their graphics and logic boards replaced multiple times without solving the issue. It is clearly an apple system or driver bug with the 5750 that we all have in common.

Disabling quartz extreme kept the squares extrememly minimal and zero crashes for TWO WEEKS. I needed graphics accel for some video editing last night so I turned it back on. Within hours, crazy blotches are back. I bet I'm crashed by the end of today.

I tried everything. Apple even replace my logic board. The new logic board failed. The second logic board also had an unrelated problem. Subsequently I am now having my Macbook replaced.

The plague is a hardware issue that is probably made manifest and agitated by new software / operating systems and full up HD's. I toiled with the problem for 12months as it got more and more aggressive. Eventually my computer wouldn't start unless it was plugged in and then finally it failed all together. fortunately I back everything up.

If you live in Europe and your comupter is less than 2 years old Apple may repair it even if it is out of warranty. Under new EU legislation computers are expected to work without issue for at least 2 years...

Has nothing to do with new OSX, etc. I had these pixel glitches with a fresh copy of my original OSX DVD disks when I back-installed last month. The first 2 years of ownership it was predominately glitch-free, definitely the first 1.5 years. If it's a software or driver bug, why didn't it show itself in the first 1.5 years of ownership?

soulnational are you sure they are the original disks? Which system version?

I thought they started with later updates to 10.6 or 10.7.

I would believe deteriorating video ram or other hardware, but with several reports of graphics + logic replacements and issues returning that doesn't make sense.

One of these days I will have to open and remove the LCD panel and hit things with a vaccum as that seems to be the best solution so far, but I just don't believe it; if dust was blocking airflow and things were overheating, you would hear the fans ramped up. Not to mention the reports that things are worse when it is cold.

It is just frustrating with no clear solution after years, and this mac still very much a decent system otherwise that even if I wanted to updgrade would resell for a good chunk without these problems.

yep, my original disks, 10.6.

Again, I'm not picking a side to fight for. I wish it was a driver bug... I just look back to the first 1.5 years of flawless performance. The machine was new. Even though it looks new externally today, the guts of this machine require a sterile environment to work for 10 years flawlessly.

...and I did hear the fans ramp up for a period of time this past summer, like an old dog, this machine wouldn't cooperate. Wish I paid attention and cleaned out the case. -Which probably did a number on my sensitive components. I'm telling you, dust is my enemy. And, if you live in a studio apartment--like most of the world does--then you're likely exposing your iMac to micro particules of cooking greases and smokes.

I've seen how Intel makes their chips. No one is cooking dinner 18 ft away. These machines need the cleanest possible conditions to work flawlessly. I'm amazed my iPhone runs as well as it does considering the abuse I put it through.

And a vacuum might not be effective. Compressed air, preferably filtered or the canisters they sell at office supply stores.

would love to know of cleaning solutions techs are using. That would be my last ditch effort to ressurect the innards of my iMac.

Anyone know if the Tunderbolt Displays have fans or vents that draw air?

moving on to MackBook Air in the future. Or maybe a Mini. But never again an iMac. My replies in this forum speak to the reasons why.

Add a charcoal filter strip to your new iMac's intake. Might save you from spending time at this forum and/or the Genius Bar....