Weird blue and green dots on my iMac screen. I can’t not move off it

iMac 21.5″, OS X 10.11

Posted on Aug 16, 2024 12:56 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Aug 16, 2024 2:19 PM

IF you are really running 10.11 as your profile says my guess is the iMac is pretty old, please tell us what the model year is and confirm it is running 10.11.x. If it is, then my guess is your iMac is telling you it's time to be replaced as the display or the GPU may be failing. If you have an external display you can connect, please do and then test with that. If the artifacts appear on the external display then you know for sure it is the GPU and if they disappear then you know it's your internal display.


Other things you can do is to run Apple Diagnostics or Apple Hardware Test (run both at least 3x back to back) and see if any errors come up. You can also restart the computer in Safe Mode and then restart normally and see if there is any difference.

5 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Aug 16, 2024 2:19 PM in response to dvrkxknght

IF you are really running 10.11 as your profile says my guess is the iMac is pretty old, please tell us what the model year is and confirm it is running 10.11.x. If it is, then my guess is your iMac is telling you it's time to be replaced as the display or the GPU may be failing. If you have an external display you can connect, please do and then test with that. If the artifacts appear on the external display then you know for sure it is the GPU and if they disappear then you know it's your internal display.


Other things you can do is to run Apple Diagnostics or Apple Hardware Test (run both at least 3x back to back) and see if any errors come up. You can also restart the computer in Safe Mode and then restart normally and see if there is any difference.

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

Weird blue and green dots on my iMac screen. I can’t not move off it

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.