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

"Warning: Visiting this site may harm your computer!
The website at computerworld.com.ph contains elements from the site unlock.mn, which appears to host malware – software that can hurt your computer or otherwise operate without your consent. Just visiting a site that contains malware can infect your computer."

Sorry pazuita, I'm going to go with Google over your promise that there is no malware.

Anyway - you still haven't addressed my point or my math - even if the ~800k figure is true (which I have no reason to doubt), nothing whatsoever in there suggests or can be deduced that they've sold "millions," or even close to over a million 27" iMacs.

My ask for you: Don't throw around figures if you're not willing to back them up when challenged.

The facts are these: All evidence so far suggests that there's a pretty high level of defects for the new 27" iMacs - at least a 2-5% defect rate.

I respect your strong passion and willingness to apologize for Apple's mistakes, but I think it does a disservice to its consumers to pretend like there's no real problem.

Again, everyone forgets about the 21.5" iMac. What's the defect rate on these ? It's weird because the entire world has excluded the issues on the 21.5" iMac. Maybe because there are a lot less defective units than the 27". And I know this thread is titled 27". But I know from reading, I am NOT the ONLY person with a defective 21.5" iMac. It just seems that everyone including  forgot about us. Again, it ****** me off.

Yeah Dino, I'm hoping it will be corrected by firmware...if not, then like everyone else, we'll just get new machines once they do resolve the problem. He didn't mention anything about the 21.5" machines or the yellow tinge. Apple has obviously been grasping at straws trying to figure this problem out. I'm also hoping that the time frame given to me for the firmware update is the REAL reason there is a 3 week shipping delay on the imacs. At least that would make sense regarding the delay timeline.

Hey Dino - yeah, that s*cks - but yeah, it does seem that the defect rate for the 21.5" is pretty low compared to the 27" models (judging by the imac.squeaked.com data). Good luck getting your stuff fixed.

Brought my computer in to the apple store and couldn't get the screen to flicker in the hour I was there. Luckily (?) it wasn't a wasted trip because they're going to replace the super drive that claws at any disc you put in there.

During that hour, I loaded the CPU to make it as hot as possible and stress the video card as much as possible. I was playing a video from hulu, itunes with visualizer, parallels with a browser running hulu as well, photoshop, the 'yes' command running in 4 different terminal sessions. Amazingly, the hulu feed was still really smooth with the CPU pegged at 100% for an hour and the temp of the cpus around 72deg. I was very impressed with the machine. But again, I wasn't able to reproduce the flicker.

Sometime the day before I had cleared the pram with cmd,opt,p,r on bootup and hadn't seen the flicker since then.

I'm also wondering if it might be partly a power conditioning issue. *I'd be interested in finding out if people who are not experiencing any problems run through a battery backup.* I do, but it's a really old one, and I think my surge suppressor is on the fritz.

I ran mine through an APC ES500. It flickered after 5 days of use.

My first Imac was the 21.5" ATI. I didn't keep it long enough for it to flicker,
because the yellow tinge was really disgraceful.
I didn't need any grey bar test to see it, the tinge was all over the place!
None of this bottom third of the screen stuff, it was two thirds of the screen with a blue hue in between, and the other third mostly blue hue with another Yellow streak all the way down the left hand side.
The odd thing is, is that although the other two imacs had a lesser degree of Yellow, they all shared the same pattern of of Yellow and blue hue..

Have you since upgraded to 27"? Do you remember your 21"'s Week Number?

smooshy wrote:
During that hour, I loaded the CPU to make it as hot as possible and stress the video card as much as possible. I was playing a video from hulu, itunes with visualizer, parallels with a browser running hulu as well, photoshop, the 'yes' command running in 4 different terminal sessions. Amazingly, the hulu feed was still really smooth with the CPU pegged at 100% for an hour and the temp of the cpus around 72deg. I was very impressed with the machine. But again, I wasn't able to reproduce the flicker.

I'm also wondering if it might be partly a power conditioning issue. *I'd be interested in finding out if people who are not experiencing any problems run through a battery backup.* I do, but it's a really old one, and I think my surge suppressor is on the fritz.

When it flickers/blacks out the next time around, I recommend taking a video of it using a digital camera and saving it on your iMac. Include the following:

1. Yourself at the beginning of the video.
2. Pull up "About This Mac" and click on the gray text under "Mac OS X" twice to bring up your serial number. Zoom in on that briefly.
3. The current date and time shown on the computer.

I brought in a few videos like that and that was enough for me to get a replacement unit. To update everyone on my replacement which arrived on the 18th, it seems to be working better lately. After the two occasional backlight wavering issues, I did an SMC and PRAM reset and so far it has been working nicely. Warren, I downloaded some 2560x1600 nature wallpapers and indeed they are amazing. Thanks for the recommendation.

As for the question about power conditioning, I am using an APC Back-Ups ES500 with a brand new battery and it wasn't enough to prevent the first computer from flickering/blacking out. The replacement hasn't flickered once yet though (thankfully!). Keep in mind that most cheaper UPS units do not truly provide pure sine wave alternating current, so it's not true power conditioning.

Obviously, you are having some problems with your Safari settings...

Here is another link to the same article.

http://computerworld.com.ph/mac-sales-to-set-another-record-says-analyst/

It took about ten seconds to find a second link, with dozens of other similar articles out there, but I suspect you are aware of that.

Keep denying if you insist. But it does get boresome.

As Donny pointed out, do not leave out the 21.5ers, they are also one of the new models, that also suffer from some of the same defects as the 27s. Why do you insist on leaving them out of your "equations?"

I only base my assumptions on what the professional analysts are saying.

1. Apple sold 728,000 desktops in Q1 2009.
2. IMacs comprise the overwhelming majority of all Apple desktop sales.
3. iMac sales rose by 74% over the previous years quarter according to analysts, driven by demand for the new models, (which includes both the 21.5 and 27" models).
4. Add in sales for the first three weeks of January.......

And you claim only 150,000 new models sold?

Absolutely Ridiculous.

We are not going to agree, so it's probably best to leave the issue alone until Monday, we should have real answers then.

Feel free to continue if you wish.

21.5" week 45. (I think)
27" 3.06 week 46.
27" i5 week 48.

Day 1 of owning my iMac went fine. Day two and I started to see the dreaded screen flickers. All software was up to date, including the firmware update that was supposed to fix the flicker.
I called 1-800-MY-APPLE and the representative set me up an appointment at the local apple store for later in the week. The rest of the week the computer ran without a hitch and I actually considered canceling the appointment, but last night after running the itunes visualizer in full screen mode, the flickers came back with a vengeance.
I just returned my CTO iMac at the Apple store today for a full refund. I'm disappointed because the machine is beautiful and exactly what I want... it just doesn't work. I will most likely steer clear of the iMac until I hear that this issue has been resolved or until the next iteration.
I hope Apple is able to resolve this issue and that they can at some point compensate loyal customers for wasted time and energy in dealing with a broken product.

my 21.5 was a Week 45 also.

Maybe you got my one!

Smooshy, I am also running my imac through an APC Back-UPS (725), and I do have screen flicker/blackout issues (as well as very occasional loud fan noise and strange backlight surges that create a bright cyan tinge on the display).

I wonder if this might be factor of the working environment, considering why many owners have had repeat problems with their replacements. Could it be the reason that the smaller imacs don't always exhibit the same behaviour (reports of screen flicker/blackout issues occurring on a smaller scale than on the 27"), because of the amount of power being drawn?