New iMac 27inch screen flickering/tearing/shutoff

I'd like to thank all that contributed needed information to this thread. I have been wanting an i7 for about a month now, this thread held me up on the purchase because of the ongoing situation with the flickering and yellowing issues. As of the week 05 builds I feel comfortable about now placing my order with Apple. Thanks again to all that offered up valuable information.

Good Luck to you RickC309. I'm thinking that will be my magic Week Number as well. Ships on Feb 18th.

I'd received my week 05 a few days ago, and although it is completely free of the flicker, I am still sending it back, due mainly to a small mark under the glass (and slight yellow tint, which I could have lived with, if that had been the only problem), so I've moved over to the 'Yellow tint' thread !. Despite this, Apple Support have been great, and they are letting me keep this one until the new one arrives.

Message was edited by: UKOutpost

Week 05 & Still Yellow? That just tells me that something really strange is going on. At this point in time, they should have figured out what's causing the Yellow Color Conformity issue. Thanks. See you on the Yellow thread.

Hi Dino,

do you remember our discussion about Onyx (page 165)? Other posters thought we're crazy frogs, because we said, that the issue has to be software related. Some wrote long posts to convince us, that we're completely wrong and that they were absolutely sure, that only a hardware replacement can help ... This thread is better than theatre. 🙂

BTW pazuita was one of them, but he was friendly and his post was very constructive. He tried Onyx, but the fix didn't work for him.

I know, it's old cheese now, but I really would like to understand the cause of the flicker. I have to admit that I had more than five different theories, but maybe one of us gave Apple-Techs the key to the solution, who knows.

No offence to you UKOutpost - in fact if anything I'm standing up for your rights. But we really should not have to "live with" any compromises for a machine at this price point. Apple is a premium brand, and these are top-of-the-range machines. I know a lot of folks argue that new technology has its glitches, and you can't get a 100% LCD monitor, all that stuff. But at the end of the day, top dollar equals top quality.

If the manufacturer wants to compromise on quality, fine. But then the price has to come down. Can't have it both ways.

In short, don't sell yourself short. If you're putting the dollars in, you should get quality. And we know Apple have it in them to deliver.

Citrus, of course I remember & Onyx worked for me like 3 times. Well it's obvious now that it was Software. We were not wrong.

Apple to me is the Mercedes of computer manufacturers. You expect Perfect! That's what you pay for. A Screen that is advertised as being the "Ultimate Display" has to be better in comparison to anything currently available. The word "Ultimate" to me means The Best. And if my old Samsung 19" LCD has better Color Conformity than the "Ultimate Display", then I know something is drastically wrong, therefore I am not satisfied.

PaoloS wrote:
Last but not least: if you have personal info on your iMac, don't forget to clean up the hard disk from your personal data before shipping it back.
To do so, after deleting all files and directories (and/or entire users) containing sensitive info, use Disk Utility to _physically Erase free space_ (for ordinary people with ordinary secrets, one-pass erasing is sufficient; if you are paranoid or a 007 you may even select multiple-pass erasing, but that will require a lot of time).

I think you have typo suggesting to Erase Free Space. I think you meant to say, Erase because you want all files over-wriiten with zeros, not just the fee space. In the Security Options, one pass may suffice but seven pass is much mire secure if you are with MI5. A seven pass erase on my 2 TB disk took 38 hours, so less than a day likely for a 1 TB system. Worth the peace of mind since most of us either work for MI5 or we have a lot of personal stuff on our drives like bank accounts and passwords.

dang... guys, simcakes got a week 41 iMac in Mid-Jan 2010!... this is kinda worrying no? I'm not saying it's problematic, sounds like the second update fixed his at least, but... isn't it kinda like getting a refurbed machine for a new price if they basically take it in, chop it up, then ship it back out to somebody for their FIRST order about 3 months after this really HIGH demand machine was manufactured? Of course, wherever simcakes got his machine, could be the explanation... i just find it weird... simcakes, if you're listening, where did you order your machine from?
and certainly, maybe all they did was apply the first update, not necessarily change out any parts... I dunno...

I think I might pop the Snow Leopard in Disk Utility, do an "Erase & Install". I don't really have ANY real Financial stuff on my Mac but it's a great idea guys. Thanks for reminding me.

My question as well, to wait or not to wait for a 27" Revision to hit the market.

Anyone care to guess just how soon that would happen?

An update from me...

Last time I posted I was about to box-up #3 iMac because support had called to say that the shipment had arrived at the retail store handling the exchange and that we call and arrange with the guy there.

I call. "Sorry, a Genius can't take phone calls. And I'm not authorised to do anything so he'll just have to call you back."

Fine. I wait patiently for the rest of the day.

No call.

The next day I call again. "I'll have to leave a message with the manager, the guy you want isn't here today."

Fine, call me back. Then the manager calls, and I **** you not, says "Sorry the message I got didn't make any sense so I thought I'd better call."

I explain it all again and the manager is like yeah cool I can see in your records you've got an iMac shipping here and it'll arrive on the tenth." Yes, I tell him, that's what I've been saying... Support called yesterday to say it'd arrived already. "Oh" he says. So it's Friday afternoon and the manager of the effing store can't even determine if the machine has arrived, so he offers to call Exec Relations and get back to me.

You might not be surprised to learn, there was no call.

Now, as mad as I sound now... Two more days later... I've been nothing but patient and polite with all these people, and it's still not enough.

So no, I can't tell you if the other one is still flickering because it's been sitting in a box for days. And I can't report on the state of the replacement because God only knows when anyone will be able to figure out where in time or space it might happen to be.

I've been running the second patch for a couple of days now. So far, I have not seen any more screen blackouts. (It is, of course, far too early to pronounce the problem 'fixed'.)

The yellow tint problem at the bottom of the screen is the same as before. Neither patch affected it -- and I doubt that either was designed to do so.

simcakes wrote:
oops read that wrong! it's 41

Hello Simcakes,

I am very curious as to how you received a week 41 iMac approximately in the middle of January, according to your previous posts. This strikes me as being rather odd. I don't recall anyone here receiving such an early build so late in the manufacturing process. One would think that you would receive at least a week 50 -- or later -- build. My BTO was ordered in the middle of November 2009, and finally arrived at my home on January 21st. It is a week 51 build. So again I ask, how did you obtain such an early build in January?

Obviously, you probably can't answer the question, but I truly hope that Apple is above shipping out refurbs as "new" units. I warned about this possibility weeks ago, and I for one would be very disappointed -- and in fact, shocked -- to learn that Apple has stooped to such levels.

Hopefully, there is a plausible explanation, and my concern is unwarranted.

But it does beg the question: Where have the 100's/1000's of the returned, defective iMacs gone? They certainly haven't ended up on Apple's refurb page. Have they gone into the hands of other new iMac users?

I believe that a clarification from Apple is warranted here . . . not that we will ever get one.