Persistent horizontal lines appear on iMac screen

It’s from the U.K. unfortunately I don’t have AppleCare. I would have never expected the hardware to fail after 2.5 years.

I have the same problem with my iMac. I just noticed that many people are experiencing the same. Hope Apple can pronounce about this issue and give all of us a reasonable solution. If anyone has any update, please let us know.

Thanks,

I'm a long time Mac user, specially for video editing apps and rendering. I loved the 24 inch iMac, my wife and I bought two. AND NOW THIS!! I had a 2011 27 Imac for long time, NO issues at all. What's this? Apple should do something about this!!

I got an iMac (24”, M1, 2021) in July 2021 when it first came out, almost 3 years ago. It has been in daily use since; however, last week flickering black horizontal lines suddenly started appearing in the bottom half of the screen.

Even after restarting and updating, the annoying lines keep appearing on the screen, making it unusable. Turned the iMac off for a few days, but the problem persists. Apart from the screen, everything else is working as it should.

It’s very frustrating to use the iMac with these unnoticeable, irritating horizontal lines on the screen. It's such a disappointment to see this issue; without a cause, within such short time.

unfortunately I'm having the same problem. Such a beautiful product at such a high price (at least in Brazil). Apple. please: let's recognize serial failure and provide the usual good customer service. thanks.

"They charged ne 30USD for inspection"

Who exactly is "they"? In the US, the Apple in-store diagnostic is certainly free; I've taken advantage of that twice in the last six months.

If there is a "consumer product protection" agency in your country. I suggest you file a complain. Please post the final results of that here if you choose to do so ... if you can file such a complaint of course.

Considering the millions of Apple Macs worldwide, the number of complains here is an exceedingly small percentage of the whole. Problems happen for sure, but just because it happens to you does not mean it happens to many. That's known as a "hasty generalization".

Took it to Apple Store today, I was offered screen replacement for $648 plus tax, which would be $690.93. I am thoroughly disgusted. I will look into filing a complaint with the state division of consumer affairs.

@cristobal2

Has it returned? Have you increased the brightness to 60% or more? Perhaps it's triggered when things heat up inside and the board experience thermal expansion and contraction causing the CPU/GPU SOC to fail because of heating up, cooling down reaction?

To make the best of a bad situation you could always use a separate monitor with the iMac. It's an annoyance given that there's already a display taking up desk space but at least you wouldn't have to get another computer. I kept several older iMacs going that way. Just make sure that if the display is really starting to go that you set this up before it is fully gone. You set up the second display as mirroring the first one and with iMacs this has to be done while you can still navigate the main display.

Please, everyone:

1. Show the photos of the problem;
2. Which model do you have: 2 or 4 ports?
3. Publish your model number suffixes. It may help to scope out the problematic models;
4. Report it to Apple here https://www.apple.com/feedback/imac/. I'm afraid it's the only way to let Apple know about this problem and motivate them to start an investigation.

Sadly, this is not a software issue. You can easily see that if you make a backup. Wipe your drive and reinstall the OS NEW. As many have tried, it won't go away. Component has failed and will need hardware repair.

Is Apple not aware of this issue or just trying to ignore? I am also located in Singapore, went to Apple Service Center last Sept 2023 and was quoted of SGD900++ to fix the issue. Very expensive and this is not caused randomly by any mishandling, this is really an issue on Apple's hardware and design of this iMac model.

I did not proceed to have it fixed, I just bought a second hand monitor and attached to this iMac for just $100.

But then again, Apple should not ignore this. How we can make this a trending topic in Social Media? Once this trends, I am sure Apple will do something as that will affect their future sales.

Any suggestion to make this trending? Maybe we can post a video in Youtube and TikTok?

It´s a hardware issue.

But, because the (1 dollar) component it's causing it is not accessible, the only fix is an all-new (600-800 dollar) LCD.

My advice, at this moment, is to get a second monitor and turn the brightness of the iMac monitor to ZERO to protect it and delay its definitive failure as long as possible.

A 4K (27”-28”) monitor, with 350nits (or cd/m2) minimum, should work fine.

Color calibration will be the biggest problem if you buy a cheap monitor, but I was taught a trick which is to use the iPhone (or iMac monitor) to do it easily, by matching the monitor to the phone (or iMac) display. There are several videos to help with this technique.

I have discovered that if you keep the display at half, the black lines remain at a barely there level and the screen remains cool to the touch. I think it is using the display at full that causes the problem. It is burning too bright and the machine is not equipped to handle it and then the screen burns itself out.