Graphical issues with 2011 iMac and Lion

This issue shows up occasionally for me as well - usually manifesting as the menu bar and app switcher becoming distorted. All my software is up-to-date (Mac OS X 10.7.1) and I'm running a 27" iMac with 4GB RAM/1 GB video card.

Hopefully this gets addressed soon. I use my iMac as a server (among other things) and it's a hassle to have to restart.

Ditto. 27" i7 2gb Video Ram.

My iMac is less than 30 hours old out of the box.

[27" 3.4GHz 2gb Vram preinstalled w/ Lion]

I performed all the updates before using it -- this happened today when previewing a screenshot on my desktop.

http://i.imgur.com/F82Ou.jpg

Anyone else having this problem? Logging out & back in again made the border go away but I hope this is not indicative of future things to come...

Another 2GB user with this issue! Fix this please Apple!

Problem still present:

iMac 27''

3.4 i7

2GB graphic

Lion 10.7.1

Unable to install iMac Firmeware Update 3.0

Same problem here. 2011 iMac 27, i5 with 1GB 6970M. First was the freezing problem, which seemed to be fixed by 10.7.1, now the graphical artifacts. I think it's a driver issue and an overheating problem. My GPU is around 70-72 degrees celsius idle. Screenshots:

Same Problem here!

Tha machine seemed to work fine until the last update 10.7.1. Now I seem to get this everyday, and video will starts to play back jerky and flash a green frame ever few seconds.

Processor 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7

Memory 16 GB 1333 MHz DDR3

Graphics AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2048 MB

Software Mac OS X Lion 10.7.1 (11B26)

I too have this issue...

Brand new 1 week old iMac fully loaded.

Processor 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7

Memory 16 GB 1333 MHz DDR3

Graphics AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2048 MB

Software Mac OS X Lion 10.7.1 (11B26)

SSD Main Drive ++++

This is really dissapointing.

Do you think this is a driver issue or do we all have bad graphics cards?

I am guessing this is a driver issue, as I have had my Mac for a couple months ago, and this issue did not show up until OSX Lion for me. I loved my mac until I installed Lion. I installed the SSD drive myself and it was a pain! It would really suck if I had to take that out before sending the machine back.

Same here ...

iMac 2011 i7 3.4GHz

I have the base imac 21.5 inch with the core i5 i've not had issues with add on displays so far i've used 2 different displays and both work great seems to be with the 27 inch only how odd that is.

I think this is mostly affecting the 6970M GPU's. They run much hotter. IDLE my GPU temp is around 70 celcius. It might also be a driver issue and something to do with the SMC fan control. The machine doesn't automatically ramp up the fans when the critical temps are reached. If you ever overclocked GPU on PCs back in the day without proper cooler you would see the exact same kind of GPU artifacts that are happening with 2011 iMac users (mostly 6970M 1GB and 2GB GPUs).

yeah I agree I remember my last PC that I built had an AMD quad core processor and a ATI 5780 graphics card in it when I overclocked both The case got hot even with the coolant system that I installed in it.

and similar things happened when the graphics card got hot.

I agree. What is strange, is that logging out and back on fixes it. This is what points me into thinging this is a driver issue.

Yes, things seem to run very hot in this machine. The back of it for the most part is always to hot to touch. I was thinking of running smc fan control, but from reading other people's take on it, it seems to over ride the macs ability to increase the fan speeds when need be.

@bobbristow, that's correct same with iStat Menus. But I think this bug exists even without SMC or iStat. On a clean install without installing SMC or iStat, I did some heavy graphics load and rendering and the machine got hotter and hotter without hearing an audible fan speed increase like I would with Snow Leopard under the same load. Apple messed something up in Lion that it doesn't read the temp sensors correctly and auto adjusts the SMC fan speed accordingly like it did in Snow Leopard. So this is a 2 part problem. GPU Driver and SMC functionality.