Q: Red and green square dots?

That's great to hear man and thanks for sharing. I'm in the same camp as Citiboy. Removing all the energy-savings features have worked so far for me. That said, I have no problem cracking my iMac open to do what you did. I will wait though, to see if it starts failing again.

I have been following this thread for quite a while.  I have a mid 2011 27 in iMac with a Radeon 6770M.  I had been having issues with repeated patterns of squares flickering across my monitor, usually on my secondary monitor.  See below...

When i finally got frustrated with this, I started with upgrading to 10.9.   I subsequently downgraded back to 10.8.5. Neither that nor multiple attempts at removing various pieces of software has resulted in a fix.  In spite of reading the solution to not allow the monitor to sleep, I did not try it until ten days ago.  I haven't seen a square since disabling display sleep.  I did re- enable display sleep once and the squares immediately returned. 

I was hoping for a solution which does not lead to early burnout of two monitors, but I have not been able to find it, if it exists.

My next stop may be the genius bar for a video card replacement, not sure which I would rather pay for, a video card now, or two monitors later.

Hope this helps someone.

David

This is getting ridiculous. I am now forcing a restart 4-5 times a day because of this issue. I have gone months with these little, annoying color specs, now I can't go an hour without hard restart.

Similar to my other apple products, the more I update the worse the systems get. I understand that on ios, newer apps will slow down older devices, but in an OS environment, you can either run them or you can't. My system has gotten progressively worse with each Maverick update.

I don't want to be one to believe in conspiracy theories, but a 3 year old Macbook that has, all of a sudden, taken a dive to become unusable, truly supports the upgrade or suffer theory. My 2008 Macbook had to be upgraded in 2011 because the video card would freeze and beep until I forced a restart. Now, 3 years after purchasing this late 2011 Macbook, I am forced to restart every hour or so due to color spec lock-ups. Are Macs 3 years and out systems these days?

I've taken the same forced upgrade path with my ipads and iphones. I was forced to upgrade as the software updates made the older iOS devices unusable. iPhone 4 to 5s <<<< 3 years... iPad to iPad Air <<<< 4 years (lucky me)

It's similiar to American cars. You hear more negative reviews about them because more of them are sold in the U.S.. When Apple was a niche business, there seemed to be less problems... directly related to less sold or no? Now that Apple is a global power house, the issues are far more evident. Is this because more are sold or because less effort is going into the build quality? I really miss Steve Jobs, because the mice are playing since he (big dog) went away.

As a follow up, I shut my computer down one night and as soon as I restarted the squares returned, in spite of having sleep disabled.  I took it in to the apple store where they recommended a new video card. 

So far, no squares, however it has only been several hours.  At least the video card is now only $110, with a $40 labor charge.

Also, I had forgotten, but my motherboard had been replaced under warranty six months after I purchased the computer.  I can't remember what was going on to require the motherboard replacement.

I will update when more time has passed.

David

Will you update us in a week or two? That would be great.

I've now been running without energy saving features for over 3 weeks without any issues. However, I'd like a solution to the issue and not a workaround. Looks like a new GPU has worked for several people now so I'm close to pulling the trigger on one.

So far, no return of the screen artifacts.  Hopefully the new video card has taken care of things.  I will update again if they return.

David

A week ago I decided to follow in the footsteps of a few others in this forum that reflowed the graphics card. I haven't seen a single square or had any problems with freezing since.  I don't know why I waited so long to do it.  I will keep you updated if the problem returns. I don't recall anybody that has reflowed their card posting that the problem has returned, so I am hopeful that this will last a while.

I'm curious to know if a "reflow" is still a relevant if the graphics card has been replaced?  I mean would the replacement of a logic board and the 'graphics card' not correct the issue.  Forgive my ignorance, but i've not been inside my iMac.  If both of those items though were replaced by Apple and the issue is still not resolved is a 'reflow' an option for me?  Also I've watched videos online and read all about it but still not certain what i would be doing.  I've even done a local search but no one is willing to 'reflow'.  Any and all help from those that have done it would be appreciated.

CPRodriguez, you wanna say recall, when a defected product is replaced by a new one.

Well, some time ago, they call recall for the i7 models from 2011, mine is a i5 from mid 2011.

After 3 years of normal use, it start to get worst every day. But isn't only the squares pipocating on screen, it lock and freezes, and the only way to use again, is with physical restart.

I call for phone support on Brasil, and the operator checked my serial and told me that mine isn't on recall.

Saad, because this is a malfunction, and need to be replaced.

Apple before Steve jobs, was more serious then now.

I wanna my money back. Or a new machine without bug.

3 years is a young machine. In the past, mac works for life.

This is not a user caused problem. a lot of people complain about the same defect.

This is not a cheap machine!

We need to be heard! Where is that Apple from Steve?

Where is my recall APPLE????

Shame on you!

I would imagine that a replacement should have worked unless there are some inherent issues with the manufacturing of this particular graphics card.  In addition to reflowing the card I also sprayed out the dust and applied new thermal paste to the card heat sink. Maybe give those to things a shot... But then again, if you go that far you might as well bake the card for 8-10 minutes.

I guess I'm asking is the heatsink and thermals paste that people are talking about replacing not a part of the GPU that has been replaced.  If both my logic board and GPU have been replaced would that replace not also have included the heatsink?

I would imagine that they replace both, but I have no idea. Maybe call the Apple Store to see what they do.

This is a Apple Problem.

They did something wrong in this project.

I will not dismantle my computer to try something weird.

Never opened it.

I wanna replacement.

And for worst, i can't stay without machine.

My work don't give me a stop.

Take it to an Apple Store and tell them what you want. No-one here can help with an exchange.

Ok then!

Thank you Csound1