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

UPDATE:
Emailed all of my CSR's and informed them of my request for a full cash refund. I lost two big film contracts and over $2000 dollars bc of this hardware failure. I will be making my payments on the financing before I even receive a functioning machine. I told them I no longer feel I am obligated to pay for a product like this. I was willing to set all that aside because of the offered upgrades, but to call me back, apologize for a "miscommunication", and send me a "like" machine with no upgrades or reimbursement whatsoever for my time and loss of revenue? I mean I gave them $3000 Dec. 11th and I won't have a functioning product until mid January? Doesnt make sense. They are supposed to contact me today to discuss my options. I will keep you all up to date.

EDIT: My bad, they offered me an apple wireless remote valued at $20... the keyboard is wireless and has the same functions... thanks Apple. I am frustrated.
-Cliff

Message was edited by: CliffBell87

Update installed but still flickering. Same temp. wake screen from sleep solves the issue like before for a while. Will try the PRAM reset and see if it helps.

im gutted for you cliff, thats very naughty of apple!!!!

i bet a manager saw the list of upgrades and put a stop to it! or their worried everyone will start demanding upgrades of some sort.

im wondering if apple are releasing random updates to see if it has an effect, maybe if they see it reduce it then they know their on the right path

The update to the firmware of the video card has noticeably changed a few things about my system.

The power supply and video card have drastically reduced in temperature. From 71 to about 50 Celsius.

The flickering is still present, although it happens once, then immediately goes away - whereas before, it would flicker then steadily escalate, getting worse and worse until the blackouts started.

Post-firmware-update, i'll see it flicker quickly once, and then it doesn't come back for a while. No longer do I need to put the machine to sleep.

This tells me one thing. They most likely de-clocked the video card to produce less heat, or are somehow ramping it down until the power is needed, perhaps?

What week is your machine?

I have a week 50, have not applied the update (plus System Profiler shows I have the older ROM revision) , and my power supply and video card run in that temperature range as well.

Message was edited by: inandoutofgrace

Does anyone know if it is possible to run the machine with the back opened or removed?

If someone with the flickering problem could do that to see if the problem is still present or not, that would tell us if the problem is heat related or not.

Temperature should be much lower with the back off since heat would not build up inside.

Just an idea!

SOOOOOOOOO basically there is no solution to this problem other than returning to apple and waiting until they have solved the issue? I dont understand... everyone is sitting on this forum tossing back and fourth possible solutions and problems they are having... why hasnt apple done anything to fix this? Im scheduled today at 530 to bring my system to the mac store (which I know from reading all of these posts) is a complete utter waste of time... should I just have them replace my system for me? I need this computer to do my job and this is getting annoying...

SOOOOOOOOO basically there is no solution to this problem other than returning to apple and waiting until they have solved the issue? I dont understand... everyone is sitting on this forum tossing back and fourth possible solutions and problems they are having... why hasnt apple done anything to fix this? Im scheduled today at 530 to bring my system to the mac store (which I know from reading all of these posts is a complete utter waste of time...) should I just have them replace my system for me? I need this computer to do my job and this is getting annoying.

But the back is part of the heat dissipation mechanism, even if possible to remove!

Anyone worried about heat would be better with smcFanControl. Right now, I am glad of a little warmth emanating from the i7. Freezing here.

Kurt Hudson wrote:
SOOOOOOOOO basically there is no solution to this problem other than returning to apple and waiting until they have solved the issue? I dont understand... everyone is sitting on this forum tossing back and fourth possible solutions and problems they are having... why hasnt apple done anything to fix this? Im scheduled today at 530 to bring my system to the mac store (which I know from reading all of these posts) is a complete utter waste of time... should I just have them replace my system for me? I need this computer to do my job and this is getting annoying...

They did. They released a firmware update which does not work for most customers as I see it. The problem I see here is that Apple might have released it to calm down media and I am worried that this issue is being pushed aside. I think the best thing people can do is either return their machine or keep ranting about the problem here (which already helped a lot) or doing both.

I assume there will be a quiet hardware fix (maybe with an official recall in a year or so) like they did with the MB Pros. Until then we can only wait, but at least Apple has now officially admitted to the problems by releasing the FW update.

The bad thing about the FW update is that it is for the graphics card and so I think almost all machines might be affected. Again looking back at the problems I had with my MB Pro the graphics card the problems were due to faulty graphics chips (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2377) and this just sounds to familiar...

thanks for that about the pros (i have a feb 2008 15" pro!!) is that card the low power one? or the higher power one? dont think ive ever used the higher powered one.

interesting to know

Kurt Hudson wrote:
everyone is sitting on this forum tossing back and fourth possible solutions and problems they are having... why hasnt apple done anything to fix this?

The fact that there are so many of us here is surely putting pressure on Apple to fixe this ASAP. The specialized press as noted in several articles that this thread is the most read on Apple's discussions board.That is also putting pressure on Apple to fix it. So we are not all here just "sitting on this forum" for the fun of it. We are voicing our discontent.

Also I believe that the input, comments, and experiences from end users like all of us here could be of some help to Apple's technicians that are working to find a real solution to the problem. After all, this is surely where they first learned that the Firmware update did not work in most cases if not all of them.

They just gave me a refund also do to the flickering and isight dead pixels and caps-lock not working. But I'm going to wait a month after this is hopefully done to see if they resolved this issue.

i agree, and apple blatantly lurk in the background here (i dont mean moderators) viewing problems people have. i wonder if theyve ever found a solution to something by reading a post on here and claiming it as theirs lol

They said that I cannot go past my 14 day to get a refund so I to am having to send back the machine soooooo mad.