Greyish Smudge marks behind the glass screen.

Lain,

This is how it looked on my screen just before the replacement.

A few days before, it faded away and was barely visible for a few hours, but then it came back again.

So, it did change on my machine as well but as far as I can tell, it did not move.

Also, "a straight vertical line" of dust sounds strange to me. But who knows? 🙂

Just wanted to chime in on this one. I am taking my (mid 2010) iMac back for the second time to correct this issue. It has been covered under AppleCare each time. If it happens after AppleCare expires, I will evaluate moving back to a PC. How can I trust Apple after seeing how they handled this issue for people that didn't have AppleCare?!

First Issue: 10/2011

Second Issue: 02/2013

Hi Guys, I have been an apple user for about the last 12 years and have had many macs. The last imac (27 inch) I had, purchased in early 2011 developed the smudge marks inside the screen about half way up on both sides of the screen. I had apple care and they were very good and sent an engineer to replace the screen. The apple support guy I spoke to said that they notices more of this for machines that were used in a high humidity environment (I live in HK) however I explained that I had aircon and de-humidifier on pretty much every day. Anyway, I was very happy with the service and sold my imac in November last year. I ordered one of the new models which arrives just before christmas. I was/am very happy with it, got the highest spec possible and the speed of this machine is amazing. Anyway about 3 weeks ago I started noticing smudge marks appearing again, this time on the bottom left hand corner (see photo - the marks are under the screen). I have apple care but have not yet contacted apple about this as wanted to see if it would go away or get worse. Just wanted to share for the moment as I also thought that this problem would go away with the new model - looks like that is not the case!!

I wonder how they will fix it as the screen on the new model is going to be much more difficult to replace. I will update this post of developments as think I will be contacting apple very soon.

This is my second iMac and 7th overall Mac product. After 2 years my original iMac hard drive failed and cost $400 to repair. I repaired it and was very please with the fix but ending up selling it on eBay and purchasing the late 2009 model. The buyer of my old iMac complained to me of a dark spot noticed on the white screen upon startup. I really did not know what to tell him because I only noticed it on startup and then did not see it after logging in. I purchased Apple Care for my newer iMac which has apparently since expired and now I have these gray spots all over the top portion of my iMac screen. What happened to quality control. I was inclined to purchase the new iMac model but now very skeptical based on feedback on this forum. 2-3 year lifespan of such an expensive desktop seems very short. I absolutely love Apple products until recently when my Macbook Pro Retina touchpad started moving erractically rendering it useless without an external mouse. Glad to say Apple did replace the top portion of the Macbook including the battery and Trackpad. I hate to return to an ugly and buggy Windows-based product *cringe*, but why pay what amounts to $712 per year (cost of machine plus AppleCare per year)?

I own an Imac 27 I7 of 2011 still under warranty.
6 months ago I replaced the display because he had yellow undertones.
A few days ago I noticed that startup, and on white and gray backgrounds there are three vertical smear that can not be seen but only the front side.
I contacted the assistance hoping to solve the problem.
In addition, the sensor for adjusting the brightness sometimes it works and sometimes not.
I'm really amazed that lately Apple has lost quality.
Greetings.

So I just got the dreaded grey smoke/flame looking problem on my 27" Apple Cinema Display (non-thunderbolt version) that it seems like a lot of people have here:

What irritates me the most is that this display was PERFECT. It literally took me months and hundreds of dollars trying around the Tennessee state looking for a display that didn't have dust behind the glass and/or dead pixels and after like the 6th one I finally found this one and bought it off someone a few years back.

I recently moved to Hawaii and I'm thinking the monitor getting shipped from an airplane made this happen due to the pressure/humidity differences since I think it started to appear shortly after I got here.

So from me reading this topic it seems like I only have 2 choices. Either call apple or bring it into the apple store. I'm not even the original owner of this monitor so I don't even have a purchase receipt plus of course it isn't under apple care or anything. Do I literally just need to beg to death for a new monitor via phone call or the geek bar? What are my chances?

Hey all, this is on a 27" 2011 imac. Still under warranty in Australia, so i'll see if i can get this replaced (let you all know how it goes), but it definitely sounds like the issue that others are experiencing! pretty shocking really - it grew from one small smudge to this. Has happened more than once, the first time i contacted apple care and they told me to reset the PRAM.. Now i think i will just go in with the pictures, as it tends to disappear when the imac has been left for a few hrs. They do not seem to be aware of this? tends to occur when im doing my audio stuff (when it is doing high intensive work) so i feel heat must be part of the issue?

Sure, I'll post pics since I didn't when I originally joined the thread. You can see in the first image that the smudging has taken over the top-right of my 2009 27" iMac display.

And a closer view in this second image:

Sorry the second image is flipped. For some reason the file uploader keeps re-orienting it on me.

Here's a pic of my 27" screen too. It started in the upper left corner 4-5 months after I had the screen replaced. It is now on the right side and making its way across the top third of my screen. Quality.

I don't think you will find a more devoted Mac user than my family. We own a 3rd generation iPod Nano, 2 first generation iPads, an Apple TV3, a late 2008 Macbook, a 21.5 inch early 2008 iMac, and a 27 inch mid 2011 iMac. All of which have been working flawlessly until recently.

Can you guess what the problem might be? That's right, another smudge-marked Apple iMac display.

I've taken some out of focus pictures which look far too familiar to the rest of the photos in this post.

Now of course, I do not have Apple Care which means that according to the Apple Genius that I spoke to today means that I will have to pay $500 for a new display. Very unusual since my 2008 iMac looks exactly as it did 5 years ago and it was purchased refurbished from the Apple Store online!

I will attempt to pusue this with Apple since 73 pages on a support forum is far from coincidental.

My enthusiasm for Apple had taken a severe blow and I'm not sure that Apple realizes how important solving an issue like really is. There are many Mac users like myself who are questionning the future of Apple after the premeture departure of Steve Jobs and wonder whether the previous inginuity and creativity will be part of the Apple future.

When my coffee arrives lukewarm at a restaurant, I don't complain. If the server messes up my order, I'll eat it anyway. But when I purchase what I beleive to be a quality product from Apple, I don't expect it to begin to fail in 2 years. I will let you know what my follow-up coversation will be like with Apple. My hope is that they will decide to support loyal customers by making things right.

Well, I've learned to somehow live with this (avoinding plain and uniform backgrounds, etc.) but sometimes it gets (more) on my way and it really annoys me (more). Like it happened just now: I downloaded the OmniWriter app for writing without being distracted (a very nice app, by the way, if you don't know it) and there they were, in the background, ruining everything and destroying the whole purpose of the program — of course you can't concentrate when instead of a neutral gray screen you have something that is stained all over.

This is my second screen. I got the first one replaced because of the same problem just when the warranty was expiring. But it happened again to the replacement after a few weeks. I couldn't interrupt the work I was doing, so I let the 3 month warranty expire and I got stuck with it. I don't have Apple Care either.

I don't smoke, and the iMac is not in a particular wet or dusty environment.
Here it is, my "leopard-skin desktop iMac", then:

I have a early 2009 24" iMac that I purchased used 2 years ago. I too noticed these smudgy marks on my screen a few days ago. I did some searching around and finally found this ginormous thread with a gazillion posts about this same issue. When I read about how much this repair would cost out of warranty I decided that I would just have to live with it. For the hundreds of dollars in repairs I thought it would be better spent on a new iMac. Besides, I had started having problems with the spinning rainbow of death becoming a long time visitor on my screen so I was figuring it was just time for a replacement anyway.

Well a few days ago I got an advertisement email from SquareTrade and went to their site. I logged in and to my amasement realized that I HAD bought a warranty on my iMac when I purchased it off of ebay. Get this, the warranty expires in less than 30 days. So I made a claim online Wednesday, they called me Thursday and discussed the issue and are sending a technician to my home this coming Tuesday to replace the screen. This repair will cost me zero for a warranty that I paid $120 for 2 years ago.

So I lucked out on this by the hair of my chinny chin chin because if I had waited I would have been SOL. The only issue I see is that this seems to be a "recurring" problem after the repair as well. So I'm going to watch the technician take the screen off in case I have to do it again myself to clean it.

This doesn't sit well with me since I have everything Apple (iPads, iPhones, MBP's and a iMac). When I made the switch 3 years ago I made everyone in the household go Apple each with our own devices. I was seriously entertaining a new iMac but I read in another forum reports of how even the brand new ones are having this issue.

This HAS to be a known quality issue with Apple, but if they don't step up thier quality problems, they might as well change their name from Apple to Lemon.

Here are some pics of my screen:

Hi

I did clean my 2009 27™ iMac on the way it is descripted on the net.

I took it apart, and took apart the LCD unit, cleaned it two times. (ones dry next with cleaning liquide)

And no change it is just as it was before!!!!

Mine is probably not dust related but something else.

Does anyone has seen anything like that????

Thanks

rockjano

Dear Everybody

Now something interesting!!!!!

My gray smudge just DISAPPEARED!!! It was not dust I took apart the LCD unit and cleaned it two times it was something else but no one knew what was it (not even in the service)

What happened is that my HD died in 2-3 days period. First it did not wanted to mount or just sometimes than I found bad sectors on it more and more, than it did not mount at all and Disk Utility and Drive Genius also reported thet the HD just died. Since it died there is NO SMUDGE on my screen!!!!!!!

I don't know why it might be that the dying HD overheated and that caused the problem. I don't know it is just a guess

But now although I still mourning the HD at least I am happy of the screen.

Question what will happen when the replacement HD will go into???

I will report back soon....

Thanks everyone and a Happy NewYear

It looked like that now it is perfect:

g

i would like to dedicate one of my favorite song to you cupertino infinity loop / in the air tonight by phil but to act as if you cant understand why is questionable of prestige lol metric @ never blame those who dont know any better but focus on those that have been provided the chance of choice and blatently disregarded it