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

Hello all!

My brand-new 27" iMac arrived on Thursday, and while the screen color seems OK, it is cursed with a flickering/brief blackout screen problem.

I just called AppleCare, and apparently, a bulletin was issued today (he said it's dated 1/23/10) to the support staff about continued flickering with the 27" iMac, even after the "27-inch iMac Graphics Firmware Update 1.0" has been applied.

From what the AppleCare technician told me, Apple is aware of the issue and anticipates a fix in about 3 weeks. This would clearly explain the extended shipping times we're seeing.

The bulletin instructed them to collect contact info, and Apple will proactively contact us when the fix is released. There were no other diagnosis steps or anything else to do at this time. Obviously, exchanging the machine isn't going to help - I'd just get another defective one.

I'm going to go into "wait-and-see" mode -- I've got confidence in the engineering staff, and hopefully this won't require a hardware fix (the bulletin was unclear about that). If it does, I'm going to ask for a new machine instead.

So it seems there's light at the end of the tunnel folks!

The bulletin instructed them to collect contact info, and Apple will proactively contact us when the fix is released. There were no other diagnosis steps or anything else to do at this time. Obviously, exchanging the machine isn't going to help - I'd just get another defective one.

That would mean, that all new iMacs are defective.
Is my conclusion correct?

You are correct. My 3rd imac (my current) flickerd only after 1,5 month, just once. Now, a week later it is still good. I know people that have flickering after 3 months others... after a week. My point.. sooner of later you gonna have flickering.

Yeah, they took my number today too and said they would call me once the update is released. Seems like they're going to have to make a lot of calls to people!

It appears; from my conversation with an Apple advisor, that they are only capturing the units made after the release of the FW fix and units repaired, that apparently didn't solve the problem. Since mine was one of the original batches, I do not qualify. I was hoping it might, but instead was told they would put me on this list, as has been mentioned a couple posts previous to this one by "Dennis Murphy"

Three weeks later when they have the supposed fix, they will contact those on the list directly with the recommended course of action.

I've got to say Apple has done very well so far, but I really hope they come through those of us who stuck it out waiting for this fix. If Apple drops the ball on these people, it will leave a bad taste in their mouths.

Yes, pazuita, I must have accidentally checked the box that says "give me false malware warnings." Besides, I'm using Chrome. And your second link is still on the same server, so I'll stay away, thanks.

Now, down to business - we are debating the failure rate of the 27" iMacs, are we not? Sure, 21.5"s can have problems like any new computer, but not nearly to the same rate as the 27" iMacs. Just look at the imac.squeaked.com site - 671 reports of screen flickering on the 27" iMacs, 7 reports for the 21.5".

If you want to start counting the 21.5" iMacs, yeah, I can buy into overall sales being on the order of a million. (They are, after all, far cheaper.)

"Feel free to continue if you wish."

Dear pazuita, my only wish is for you to stop trying to sweep the issues with the 27" iMac under the rug.

A fix in 3 weeks?
I've got a replacement iMac shipping on january 28th. Does that mean it's an iLemon?

zedmin:

Check the latest posts on this topic. It seems Apple is working on a fix which will ready in about 3 weeks or so. It seems that anything shipped out earlier than that will most likely have the flickers. My advice would be, if you can work it out and if you can wait that long, is to get yours in a month to two months time to make sure the flickers are definitely gone or you may still have the same problem with the one Apple will be sending you.

Hello everyone it's slickrick and I just wanted to update the thread on my 2nd Imac. So far so good on this second unit. I picked it up 1/10/2010 and returned the first one. The build week is 51 and not an issue yet. I went ahead yesterday and registered the computer and apple care so lets see what happens.

Speak to all of you soon.

Rick.

Hello Again Everyone,

Just a quick update . . .

I have now passed the first three days with my new 27" 2.8 GHz i7 iMac without incident, other than the dead pixels. I hope that the trend continues.

Today -- three days after the G4 mini-tower died when I had to move it over in order to make room for the new iMac -- I decided to try one final trick.

I have another G4 mini-tower -- a 10-year-old 500 MHz DP unit -- that died a number of months ago. It's been sitting in a corner of my bedroom floor ever since. Not only that, but I took out its hard drives, RAM chips and graphics card, because I needed to use them in my other 733 MHz G4 Mini-Tower.

So, this afternoon, I took the hard drives, graphics card and RAM chips out of the dead 400 MHz machine that died three days ago, and put them in the 500 MHz G4 that died months ago. I also removed the main fan assembly and gave it a thorough cleaning. It had to be the dirtiest fan that I've ever seen...and that may possibly be why the 500 MHz unit stopped working a number of months ago.

At any rate, after cleaning the fan, and putting the hard drives, RAM chips and graphics card in, the 500 MHz DP G4 mini-tower is now working again. I have an old ViewSonic 17" LCD monitor connected to it. The only problem is that I cannot turn down the brightness, possibly because the graphics card is so old -- 10 years -- and may not be fully compatible with the ViewSonic monitor. Who knows.

So, while my BBS and website and services were down for three days, they are now back online...until the machine decides to die again.

As far as my new iMac is concerned, I am loving every minute of it!

Dennis Murphy wrote:
From what the AppleCare technician told me, Apple is aware of the issue and anticipates a fix in about 3 weeks. This would clearly explain the extended shipping times we're seeing.

The bulletin instructed them to collect contact info, and Apple will proactively contact us when the fix is released.

Thanks for sharing that, Dennis.

Has anyone else received similar explanation from Apple support regarding their screen issue (whether it's flickering or yellow tinged)? In having read so much about these problems in this forum and the Mac Rumor's forums, I know there's a lot of inconsistency in what Apple's support (whether AppleCare or at a Genius Bar) having been telling people.

Message was edited by: Libertine Lush

Hi Warren Beasley,

we're all computer-freaks here, but nobody of us found out, when and why the flicker starts. This is unbelievable, nobody found out a plausible coherence. Some of us have Apple-Computers for more than ten years, some of us can open and modify them, but nobody had a logic idea, how the flicker starts. This has to be a very complex and absolutely new phenomenon. We don't even know, if the resolution could be a hardware or software related fix. We know nothing and that makes it more than strange.

Well, I've just got my first replacement. Been on all day an no flickering yet though I guess that doesn't say much. It's a 2010 week 3 build.

The screen is gorgeous this time, no dead pixels, no yellowing. One gripe (has anyone else seen this??):

When I turn the contrast down, or put the display to sleep, I get an annoying buzzing sound coming from the top left of the imac, behind the display. For god's sake, what's wrong with it now?! I'm really starting to regret the move to apple. I've never had this much trouble with any other computer before!

After watching this thread very carefully for the past weeks/months and seeing in the recent days that Apple may have a reported fix. I called up Apple today to confirm this. Per George who I talked to at Apple, they are well aware of the issue with the screen flickering. Further, George *stated that they ARE releasing a combination of firmware and a driver in roughly 3 weeks.* *This will reportedly resolve the issue of the screen flickering (it is not hardware causing the issue).* I do not know about the yellow screen (I do not have this issue). If someone with this problem could call up apple to confirm if the firmware and driver will resolve the yellow tinge I'm sure people would be thankful.

Well I order mine Dec 31 and I have had two postpone, but on the 19 of July I had a prepared for shipment, and still nothing, still waiting my original shipped day was suppose to be on the 15 of this month and receive it this coming week.
Postpone to the 29 and receiving it between the 9 of Feb and I believe my computer is a week 3 as yours, because the 4th digit is a 3. Let see that it ships this week and I get a good computer.