Q: New iMac 27inch screen flickering/tearing/shutoff

Well folks I do not have the latest imac ( have the 07 24") but many older Mac users of the Performa 603 series feel your pain. We went through many months of the same trauma you too are going through. The bottom line was when all said and done, Apple did come through and our machines gave us 5+ years of a great multimedia usage. I am sure the issues are as frustrating for our company of choice as it is for us. It just *** to have a first run do fantastic and then when it goes into major production become a nightmare. I know it is of little help but I will tell you this, I have never been dissatisfied with any Apple product purchased over the many years of computing. All my issues with any of the products purchased have been fixed to my satisfaction. It may have taken a while to get the final fix in but all were eventually rock solid till worn out or just left behind due to advancement in technology.

Hi Oriesko,
There are a number of posts in this thread with folks using power conditioning devices to no avail.

This implies that the flickering has more than one cause. Quick question for those of you who still have a problem (mine has been fine for more than a month now): Do you have the menubar in the center of the screen as well, or "just" the flickering? Because flickering I can see being hardware damage (like delivery damage, or bad power), but I could never square that with the menubar being misplaced. If the firmware update solves that problem, things make a little more sense again.

Warren Beasley wrote:
I don't wish to dampen anyone's expectations, but considering everything that has occurred over the past two months, I think we all need to be realists about this situation. Hoping and wishing, crossing one's fingers, and knocking on wood is not going to fix any of these problems. Quite frankly, we might not know at least until the end of January -- or later -- if the problems have really been resolved.

100% agree - even if I don't like it all.

mpat,

shortly after the firmware update I experienced not only the flickering (which in fact is more like flashes of lightning suddenly affecting the screen) but also the menubar suddenly moving downwards and settling about one third down the display.

There is some circumstantial evidence of power quality being a possible factor. I have had no problem here with either direct to mains for the first day or two or on ups when I relocated the i7. Now on day 27 of satisfactory behaviour. I ran the recent firmware update although there was no obvious need to do so.

Yes, ..............W8951.............week 51, and it still flickers.

I, for one, am really impressed that an exclusive firmware update was released now, before Xmas, to address the flickering issue. I thought we would have to wait sometime into January for the regular 10.6.3, and have our needs addressed with some fix shoehorned onto this update.

Now, the FLICKER WATCH begins!


Just to balance out some of the griping, I have found that the update has smoothed out some of iMac's operations. For instance, safe sleeping is quicker and smoother. And graphics seem to load much effectively than before. Temperatures and fan speeds, for me, seem to be unaffected--very stable.

So, touch wood, no flickering or blackouts after less than a day (premature, I know). But, at least after updating I didn't experience an immediate worse experience (like some are "reporting").

Thank You Apple.

Yes Don, I completely agree with you, Apple will resolve the problem, hopefully soon.

The most frustrating thing about it is that this is such an incredible machine, and the leap in performance, particularly speed is substantial over the previous models. Even with the flickering issue, I'd still prefer this machine over any I have ever owned, or used, Mac or PC.

Apple users have simply been spoiled by perfection, and even though the issue is only cosmetic, at this point, we all still want, and deserve that perfection, after all, that is one of Apples chief selling points.

They are working on it, and will resolve it.

It is not cosmetic, at all. It's impossible to work on a machine which is flickering all time, or with the screen going black.

I have a question on the 27" flickering problem:
Is it a flickering of the back light source, or the content drive is somehow intermittent (or both)?

Tom B.

Carlo...........I refer to it as cosmetic, simply because there does not seem to be any data corruption, or any other damage to the machine other than the occasional flicker, it's purely visual.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have found that the flickering also adds a new level of excitement (rage) to even the simplest of games.

Even the older pangea software becomes challenging.

I've had my i7 for 2 weeks and 5 days with no problems at all. For those with the flickering it looks like apple has released a firmware update. Let us know if it is solving the problems. Good luck everyone. When the machine is working, it is very nice.

I have had my Core i7 for 13 days. Although i have never had a flicker before installing the Dec 21, 2009 4850 firmware fix, I just experienced my first screen going black twice for a second while browsing in Safari, followed by a several quick partial black flickers usually when I do something that refreshes the screen!!! Unbelievable!!! Thank you Apple engineers for your unusually thorough testing of this fix! I'll be rebooting now and hope the flickers are gone.

Now that is both disturbing and disappointing. Still enjoying a healthy i7 here but it makes me wonder if trouble is brewing.