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

It would be interesting to see if the same cables are being replaced in all of these repairs. My cable replacement was item 922-9161, Cable, V-Sync, LCD.

A little noise is no big thing, some drives make a little more noise than others while they are spinning up or down, even within the same manufacturers lots.

Now if you are talking about a chainsaw type of noise, that's a little different.

hitachi does make good drives, not my first choice, but they are good.

Nah... No Chainsaw. Just a slight Noise & only when accessing. People complained about the Seagate being Loud but my las one was extremely Quiet. I'm a fan of Western Digital myself. What brand do you prefer?

I also Verified HD in Disc Utility. It report OK.

No problem sparkie, apology accepted.

While you and I may not agree on some issues, I appreciate the cordial debates.

I have always preferred the WD as well, I have about 6T in external devices, primarily WD's in a variety of models and sizes. I also have two Hitachi's that have performed flawlessly as well.

I haven't really noticed any difference in noise levels between the different brands, although there is a slight difference between even the WD's of the same model.

good !!!

one thing about me, im never afraid to admit if im wrong!

oh and i love wd, just bought a wd green 2tb for my macpro to store movies, got a wd black 640gb for windows 7 and the pro came standard with a 640 wd black too i believe.

also got a 1tb wd green in my sky hd box

Yes WD has never failed me. The only HD that has failed me was a Maxtor. You know the Apple Service Center where I live. It's my only choice for Service where I live. No Apple Store. Anyway, when I first got my Mac Mini, I had a problem in iTunes crashing & the elderly gentleman who owns the business told me it was my WD MyBook. He said WD make the worst Hard Drives ever. He said you need to get a HD with a 3 Year Warranty, not WD. I finally figured out the issue myself. It was Locked & corrupt files in iTunes & guess what? , 3 years later my WD MyBook is still going strong. So now you can see why I don't trust him to repair my iMac.

I think you are correct Ettore dn.

Even if the issue is hardware related, it is still possible that a firmware update could resolve the issue, although as some have stated, it is really just putting a band aid on the problem.

Apple may not be able to isolate the defective components in the first place.

I find it hard to believe that a component as significant as the displays is not serialized. It carries only a coded date of manufacture, which could be a single day, or even a month. If a whole days run of these components were bad, and carried the same number as the whole weeks batch, it would be impossible to isolate them, and remove them from circulation. It would not be prudent to scrap so many good components when only a few were bad.

The problem could be even worse if the issue is primarily the cables themselves. Can't help but wonder how many of those cables are produced at a time. If they are not shielded properly, they may allow rf interference between the card and display in some environments heavy with inferference, while displaying no issues in others. The same could happen with the alloy of the wiring itself.

As some have suggested, it could very well be a cascading affect wherein one component that may be defective, or on the low side of the specs, could stress, and damage another.

Obviously, there are no simple answers, otherwise, we would not all still be here. Apple is simply handling the situation in the best way possible for Apple, and a large part of what is best for Apple is keeping their customers happy.

If they could do more, short of making a public statement, I have no doubt they would.

Hi Nexus600

Yes I thought I was rid of it, for good.

I was writing about the flickering screen, which happens to be my main issue. But more generally there could not be a single fix, because there are many failures reported on 21” and 27” iMac.

So, if I can imagine they can possibly find a software fix for the flicker (after all the sleep/wake procedure is a sort of reset action), for the color variability (yellowing) I see – maybe I’m wrong- a hardware fix since it is more likely a manufacturing defect or the result of rough Handling.

See this interesting post of a guy that fixed himself his LCD panel.

http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=7407

Obviously the rumors of delays are not true, ...

pazuita, we can see, that negative reports are becoming rarer, but new positive reports are missing too. It seems that there are not a lot of new machines out there. What makes you so sure, that there is not a delay? We have so many people here reporting, that they have to wait until Feb with their replacements and if you want a new machine, you have to wait for more than three weeks. Another interesting point is, that we can see no more refurbished 27" iMacs in the Apple Store. For me Apple is trying to calm the situation, but it's still difficult to understand, if they already found solutions for all screen issues. Yes, the problems must be complex, if they were not, Apple would immediately stop this thread and all these speculations in the internet. So I totally agree, when you say: "If they could do more, short of making a public statement, I have no doubt they would."

Of late I have been disappointed with this thread. The last page or so has been filled with comments about hard drives and personal types of comments that belong on a "social network". In those comments there was precious little about "screens, flickering"etc. We should keep this thread for its intended purpose.

The Hard Drive Questions may be off topic I admit, but they are still related to the issues with the new iMac. We also talk about Yellow Screen issues on this thread as well, which is not in the Title of this Particular thread, & has nothing to do with Screen Flicker/Tearing/Shutoff. If there was only one isolated issue with these iMacs, it might be easier to stick exclusively to this threads topic. I still believe the Thread is valuable to a lot of new iMac owners who are experiencing these issues. Good point though. We have gone off topic quite a bit.

I have not had a problem with the computer since early yesterday morning. The Apple reseller I bought it from told me to bring it in anyway on Monday as I told him the problem was still happening on and off. I am scared if I don't and my 2 weeks are up to get a new computer then the problem reoccurs I am screwed??

What would you do?

Has anyone had the flickering problem come and go, and maybe even never come back?

Thanks

Mark

YES. Definitely. If it was Flickering, it will come back. My first iMac did not start flickering until the 5th day. It would stop flickering for 2 & 3 days at a time & then come back. But it ALWAYS came back. It is an Intermittent problem. It's hard to make it Flicker if you even wanted to show your Tech. In fact, you know how it works. It will be Flicker Free when you give it to him. Take a Video of the Flicker to show your Tech.