Greyish Smudge marks behind the glass screen.

Is there any legal action regarding these screens? My mid 2010 27" has been to Apple repair 3x and this last time they refused to fix the screen saying it was environmental. I have 12 Apple products right now and after this I think it's over, I can't afford disposable computers. I've never had issues with dust on any system dating back to my first XT.

I wonder, then, if those with most problems are the ones who use the machine a lot.

Perhaps if you just come in from work, check some mails, play with YouTube, upload some pics to FB and quit - the machine hasn't got that hot - you might not run into the problems so quickly as someone, like myself, who has the machine on all day, sometimes into the night, running graphics programs, etc?

(The problem for me showed up within the first few weeks of using the machine, btw. And I run mine in a very clean 'office' type environment.)

Its disheartening to find that although the problem came to light back in 2009, the newer 2011 machines are still showing the same problem: nothing has been done to address or resolve it.

I'd hoped getting a new one would see the end of it...

I asked earlier if anyone knew of other 'all-in-one' products having the same problem. I've checked around the various-message boards and there are no mentions of this kind of staining. Plenty of glitchy screen issues, but not this one. So why just iMac?

What is it with the iMac that does this but not other 'all-in-one' machines?

The sentiment above -- "after this I think it's over" -- is one I'm beginning to share. Which is amazing after all these years of dogged loyalty. What a horrible feeling... 😟

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Hi IanSn

### I asked earlier if anyone knew of other 'all-in-one' products having the same problem. I've checked around the various-message boards and there are no mentions of this kind of staining. Plenty of glitchy screen issues, but not this one. So why just iMac?

I asked exactly the same question a dozen or so posts back (January 6th) Sadly there has been no comments on that subject since.

Imac 27" core i5... same problem. I bought it 15 months ago... for ~3800$ with accessories ( Apple is expensive in my country ) 2999$ for the iMac + 180$ for extra 4GB DDR2 RAM and 240$ for EyeTV Hybrid + 265$ for Airport Extreme

After 10 months, had yellowish/gray smudges whatever you wanna call it. Took it to the Apple store and spent like an hour trying to convince them it was a known issue and I that I don't smoke cigarettes nor weed whatsoever in my office at work... They asked for a new replacement screen which took 4 weeks and had meanwhile a Laptop for 88$ charge ( Macbook ) with 1 month warranty on the screen..

Now after 4 months, a Deja vu... Screen now showing plenty of gray clouds on the upper right side which are really annoying on white background ( I am annoyed at the moment as I can see it everywhere ). Tried to clean the panel but no joy. My warranty has expired 3 months ago and Apple guy asked me to bring the iMac back to inspect it for 33$ ONLY and if the screen needs replacement, they will " UNFORTUNATELY" HAVE to charge me 980$.

Trust me it is not easy to move that thing everytime I need to take it to the Genius guy...

So I said okay I have to live with it, let's run the AHT as advised on the Apple website to check if I have any hardware problem... It appeared that it is not possible anymore after Lion installation. As per forum advices, I can still load it from disk.

So I opened the iMac box and pulled the Snow Leopard Installation DVD and tried to boot from that "SuperDrive" which I barely use ( maybe twice in the last 15 months just to install win7/Bootcamp ) and tadaaaa.... Drive is not accepting DVDs... investigating, it's only reading CDs but ejecting any kind of DVD.

Well, I took it to the Apple guy; they said the screen needs replacement and the DVD drive is failing and also needs replacement: 980$ for the screen and 270$ for the DVD drive EXCLUDING LABOR ( not to mention that the SD card drive only works when I restart the iMac with the SD card inserted which is a known issue )

A charge of 1350$ to fix the screen and SuperDrive. Deal or no deal ? I fold...

Gentelmen, my Apple products are all now on something like ebay in my country. No more Apple ( selling my iPhone4, iMac, Eyetv and Airport ). Thank you Apple, I was not paying for the Design but for the quality as well; fair enough I guess

If someone from the Apple community is reading, I have been in the IT/Engineering field for more than 20 years and the iMac has been for business needs ( no gaming or DVD playback ) . Complaining on a Forum where everyone can register and chat is somehow useless and I seriously doubt you could offer some help as this issue has not been confirmed by Apple since years.

I will be sending an officia/ formal E-mail to the management departement at Apple from work with my signature and contact number ( which is a top ranked multinational firm anyway ) maybe they won't look at me as one of their average-joe customers bragging about their Apple product.

Will keep you posted.

Regards.

Hi Kareem84, sorry to hear about your problems!

If you haven't already, be sure and Google "imac screen change org" (minus the quotes) and click on the first link that pops up. I think that's the best shot we have at this point, since as you said who knows how effective it is complaining on a forum.

@paulfromme ... you said the forbidden word! Apple expressly forbids mentioning the "P-word" (p e t i t i o n) and/or linking directly to them, per their forum Terms of Service. We've had a lot of posts disappear in this thread because of that. Thanks for trying to spread the word, but subtlety is key as long as we're communicating in the official Apple forum.

Add my name to the list of 27" iMac's purchased in 2011 that have Grey Smudgitis. This seems to be a consistent problem with the design. I've got smudging primarily on the upper right hand corner, but also in the upper left hand corner. Only 7 months old. Looks like I'm off to the Apple Store to make use of my AppleCare.

Prepare to be outraged: Most likey they will tell you it's a problem with your "dirty environment", and not a problem with the design of the iMac. And if they do agree to repair it (under warranty or not), you can expect the same problem to occur again in a few months.

Is a typical non-smoker's home office a "dirty environment"? Apparently it is.

Let us know what they tell you...

I share the same problem with my mid 2011 iMac 3.4Ghz i7. It was only 3.5 months old and already developing bad gray smudge on upper right of the screen. So I brought it in, and in two weeks they have my LCD replaced under warranty. And now after the same period of time, it's coming back.. Again .. in the same position!

I play games with my iMac quite often, maybe 7 8 hours/week. I ordered iMac with 6970M 2GB GPU, why wouldn't I play games with it? So dont blame me for "too much gaming" on this Mac. I simply use this iMac for what it was specced.

Definitely going to buy AppleCare for this, otherwise I'm screwed once I run out of warranty. I've already been screwed after spent $2400 on this iMac. I couldn't complain much further though, beside this notorious smudge display problem, my iMac runs fast, smooth, quiet, and perfect. But this smudge problem ruins all of the experience, and that's what all Apple about .. user experience.

Now let's discuss why did I pick an iMac?

1. Macbook Pro/Air is underpowered (as any laptop out there) computer. It's just slow, expensive for what it is (looks nice though), and I dont want to be crammed working on a laptop. Connect it to 27" Cinema Display wont help either. Slow is slow .. period. So yeah I killed the idea of having a laptop years ago. For mobile computing, iPhone or iPad works fine for me. Showing some works for client can be done easily on those, or I simply plug my HDD on their laptop. No biggie.

Simple physics man .. size does matter, bigger size means you can have much more power with a computer. I might sound conservative, but it's go big or go home for me.

2. Mac Mini .. well it's basically a headless Macbook Pro, same mobile CPU/iGPU/HDD .. still no.

3. MacPro .. now this looks big boy on the block, but let's see.. for what it is: outdated hardware, no refresh for a long long time from Apple, I have to say no. $2500 for lowest end MacPro and I still have to buy monitor means +$1000. Now if I had $3500 to burn, I wouldn't think twice to buy it. Unless the price tag already includes the 27" display... that would be tempting.

I know .. I know .. TL;DR .. in short, for a $2000++ Apple computer, surprisingly iMac have the best performance/price ratio among all Macintosh line today. It does compete with basic MacPro + monitor ($3500) with only $2500 display included (and we're talking about 27" WQHD display) .. Plus it has Thunderbolt now, great possibility for hardware expansions in the future .. so, who doesnt want that? It's really great on paper.

This smudged display problem simply *****, even after AppleCare I really have to bring it in regularly like a sick baby and have display replacement for like, next 3 years. After this, no more iMac for me. I'll bit the bullet and get a MacPro, and if somehow MacPro being discontinued (you know Apple love MacBook line and iOS now), I'd go Hackintosh.

Same problem here unfortunately is out of warranty. Today i was asked to pay €520 if i want the screen to be replaced. iMac 21.5 3.06Ghz late 2009 model. Bought it early 2010. WHAT A JOKE €520!!! Of course i will live with the smudge as it not that annoying.

Just brought mine in for the 2nd repair. This time they said they will replace the LCD but this is the last time since I put in a SSD and that voids the warranty. Ugh!

One interesting note, they said there were two part #s for the LCD screen. One was a newer one. I'm wondering if they have fixed this w/ the new LCD?

Well .. they told and promised me the same thing the first time I brought my iMac in.

They said that they will use newer kind of LCD for my replacement so that the problem will less likely re-occur, and BAM .. that's a total PR bulls. I still have the same problem after 3 4 months with this so called new type of LCD. Either they're lying, or the newer LCD still does not able to overcome the problem.

My analysis? It's a burned out LCD matrix, most likely happens on upper right corner since it's where your GPU heatsink is located. No easy fix, matrix is broken so you'll have to replace the whole display.

If you ever see a DSL modem hung on wall, after some months the wall on its back being blackened due to heat from the modem. Do you ever see that? Happens on many heated surfaces too. So that's what happened to the LCD matrix on your iMac. It's baked by GPU heatsink and burned out overtime.

How to solve? Keep replacing the display wont fix the problem permanently, it'll come back sooner or later. The cultprit is the GPU heatsink, you have to move it to another insignificant position (i.e the chin below) .. but that's impossible. So yeah, the very least you can do as a user is keep your GPU cool, don't play games on it, don't do anything GPU intensive, and the heatsink won't get heated. As the end result, the screen will be fine in a long time.

You know what's funny? If I'm not allowed to utilize my GPU power (It's a frickin 6970M .. decent for gaming and then some!), I could just buy a mere Macbook Pro/Air with lousy GPU for half the price of my iMac!! Now I paid A LOT supossedly to have this great spec and maximize its potential. So it's kinda stupid to not be able to use it.

I came back from a 2 month vacation to find once my led cinema display had warmed up I had a bid grey splodge on the top right hand side of the screen maybe 6-7 in in diameter. I put this down to the display being off for two months and a little bit of condensation had got in. I put a hair dryer on the area for a few minutes and its seems to have rectified the problem for now... Maybe a different case from others but work a try and you wont invalidate any warranties that way 😉

Same problem here with my 2010 27" IMac. Grey smudges in upper right (mostly) and upper left corner. I got the BS line about candles, smoke, etc. Didn't argue too much b/c they agreed to replace the LCD free since I have remaining apple care warranty. But they said if it happens again, they WILL NOT replace the LCD again as they claim this issue is not supposed to be covered under apple care warranty. There is NO WAY this is a user / environment problem. It's a design flaw either from the sealing of the lcd assembly or the effect of CPU heat on said assembly. Don't bother mentioning this forum to the apple store employees, they just say they never heard of the issue and give u a blank look. They must be trained on what to say for certain problems. I just hope Apple fixes the design flaw because otherwise my machine is flawless and I love it just as much as my two iPhones and my IPad.

Hey guys, I found something! Apparently our "smudged display" is not exclusively pwned by iMac, or all-in-one PC. It is something common in LCD world.

Commonly it's called clouding, or MURA (Japanese, means unevenness). You can google "Mura LCD" and you'd be amazed knowing that your iMac is not alone in this. Basically anything that use LCD display (anything from HDTV, monitor, iMac, Cinema Display) induce the risk of this problem.

To sum things up, this Mura problem caused by stress applied to the LCD matrix (heat, mechanical) and yes, it is irreversible. Once you have this defect on your LCD, you'll have to replace it. I had a thought earlier that this smudge was caused by heat came from GPU/CPU heatsink behind. And yes it is. Continuous heat causes this problem.

So, things you can do to reduce smudge display or prolong your LCD life:

1. Ramp up your fan (yeah, smcfancontrol)! Stock fan speed is just not enough, the reason of iMac having so much of this problem is due to heat. LCD HDTV is not heated as much as iMac because it has so much less component inside, so it'll less likely happen on them (although it's still very very possible, remember it's still LCD).

But yeah, ramp up your fan a bit for normal usage, 30 - 50% from stock RPM should suffice.

2. Reduce gaming time, yeah yeah if you bought hi-end 27" iMac (like I did) you'd bang your head to the wall because it has a nice GPU, but really, limit your gaming time. Don't do it too long, 1 2 hours a day or 7 - 10hours a week top. It is for your own sake and your iMac longevity. You want to bang your $2000 computer, well suit yourself.

3. Make sure your iMac has enough ventilation and breathing room. Air circulation is important to keep your computer, and the display cooled.

With that said, I think it will be useless for us to sign up some p e t i t i o n regarding this problem. To be fair, it's not the Apple's fault either. It's just the nature of LCD itself. And all Apple should do is moving the heat source (heatsink mainly) to be not in behind LCD (i.e the chin). As long they keep the same design, this problem will come back to you, again .. and again .. and again.

I really hate LCD for a long long time now. I had a bad experience with 2 LCD HDTVs I owned earlier, it fails between 2 years! Now I only go Plasma for TV, if only iMac comes with plasma, CRT or LED option, well I won't take the LED LCD for sure. Real garbage display technology IMO, too much drawback induced for the thinness sake. 😀