Q: iMac 2011 27inch i7 screen flicker dark left side

As I have mentioned here before If you are in the UK, I took my iMac to The iT Store in Canterbury, who fixed it for £150 inc VAT and put a 6 month warranty on it. I fould them through their eBay listing for this repair.

I have had two of these iMac's fail and they have repaired both. The first they organised collection and return via insured courier for an additional £50, but £200 is still better than a £600 new LCD. The second more recent repair I couldn't do without the iMac for even a couple of days so they agreed that if I drove it to them they would repair it same day. I popped into Canterbury city centre for a spot of lunch and within two hours I was driving home with a fully repaired iMac. The engineer even told me they have repaired a few from across Europe, and in total they have successfully repaired over 50 of these units. They even add an extra heat shield to prevent the issue re-ocurring.

Can't recommend The iT Store enough. Saved by bacon, and around £850 on the two units!!

Chesron - I wish they had a branch in Greece

You must be furious having two machines go down and I would probably do the same if I was in your shoes in getting them fixed but I really don't think we should let Apple get away with this. I don't expect they are going to help me out so perhaps if we (those who reside in Europe) all get together we can take them on - we could all chip in to cover the legal costs but perhaps the logistics of that are too complicated.

Of course if that chap in Idaho is succesful then it's job done, does anyone know how that is porogressing or when the hearing is?

I am having the same issue with my 2011 iMac 27 inch.. Apple please do something about this!

Hello, just for the sake of ... whatever

I've been experiencing the same problem, with my

sometimes varies in brightness, not yet a full black-out. Fingers crossed. Canno locate the problem (to the bottom-left side yet, though. Just called Apple support; no chance of revoke yet. Let's keep on trying, this situation *****.

This is my FOURTH mac in a row with trouble:

G4 'windtunnel' problem (new fans)

G5 power supply failure

Macbook Pro mid 2008 Graphics Card failure...

Let's all but PC's!

At the Apple store they said that the iMac was over 4 years old and the repair would not be covered.

I told them that under Australian consumer law a product show be free from defects and fit for purpose for a reasonable time,

and I argued that a high end $2,500 computer should do that for over 5 years.

The store told me to contact Applecare and ask about consumer law and warranty. I got a really good understanding rep (Dale) who told me that an agreement with the ACCC and Apple meant that products were covered for 2 years (I had purchased AppleCare which gave me 3 years anyway), but he said he would forward my email and photo of the problem to the engineering team. The next day he called back saying that engineering had agreed to cover the replacement of the screen in the iMac, and I picked it up yesterday, and now my iMac should function well for years to come

So don't give up, it seems that Apple have finally recognised this fault.

Now, a few months later, my screen will darken considerably a few minutes after waking up/ starting up, and then get even darker on the bottom left side:

27-inch, Mid 2011, 2,7 GHz Intel Core i5, AMD Radeon HD 6770M 512 MB.

Wonder what Apple, Netherlands will say...

Latest update: Inspired by Kopthat's story, I decided upon claiming my European Consumer right with Apple, arguing that a machine like this should function without problems for three years at least. I should mention that my Mac is slightly over three years, but doesn't show any signs of wear and has never been opened, so warranty was not void. Guess what? Apple decided upon costless replacement of screen and backlight! I'm happy and back up and running.

I had these same sort of issues and tried everything. Turns out it is a known issue and Apple has a replacement program for the bad video card in many iMac models. The bad card causes grey screens, black screens, sleep issue, hard drive slowness, system spins, kernel panics, and more!  Wow, all fixed at no charge at my local Apple Store! 

See:

iMac (27-inch): AMD Radeon 6970M Video Card Replacement Program - Apple Support

My case is slightly different in that I opened my 2011 27" iMac to install a new OWC SSD drive.  Their video was quite detailed about how to disconnect the 4 different cable connections, but when I fired it up after installing the drive, I had the same half dark screen. Thought for sure I had totally screwed the display.  I went back and redid every step I took in disconnecting and connecting the cables, sealed it back up and voila! back to normal.  I'm sure it was the display connector which has a very fine set of connect pins and a very awkward way of connecting.  I'm quite sure something wasn't quite lined up.

A lot of iMacs suffer this issue, it's a HEAT problem, where a lot of hot components are close to the screen. Hopefully the new thinner genration iMacs are using laptop components now so this shoul dbe less of an issue.

I think it may be especially the case for users like mine who rarely turn the Macs off, just sleep them.

Anyway, I am in the UK and have had my Late 2009 iMac repaired FREE under Consumer Law which is 6 years here.

Good luc.

Mate, you should have claimed under Consumer Law (6 years in the UK) and gotten it repaired for free. Only at Apple directly or Authorised Repair centre of course.

Add my mid 2011 27" iMac to list....No more apple products here. iPads dead pixels, MacBooks with blown power supplies and dead pixels now this.

Thought I had the same problem, so took my mid 2010 27" apart and jiggled the white plug. Did not make any difference. So, happened to reset the SMC and the left hand LED backlights came back on again. They are not 100% bright, but close to it, quite bearable. Try that first before taking it apart.

Greetings, I to have the same problem with my 2011 mid year iMac 27 inch. It just started a month ago that the screen started going dark for no reason at all. I have normal display settings and there is no heavy graphic use during the time that this happens. I to am very disappointed that my system is failing just under years. You are correct regarding the number of complaints about this matter increasing. I have researched for possible recalls on this issue so that I would not have to fork out the funds to fix this issue. If there is no fix to this problem, I am with you regarding a class action suit.

Mike