Screen saver not working. Ruined iMac!

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Level 1

9 points

Screen saver not working. Ruined iMac!

Upgraded iMac to Mountain Lion a couple of weeks ago. Screen saver was working well until Sunday or Monday. Did not know! It was working before. The screen now has burn marcs! Ruined! Screen saver still not working except forced with hot corner. Furious! Tried permissions, restart with OC p r. Is there any way to fix this? And the screen? Took great care of this iMac and now because what seems like a bug from Apple, it's ruined.

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Oct 15, 2012 5:16 PM

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Answer 1

petermac87

Level 5

7,447 points

Oct 15, 2012 5:59 PM in response to HotPez

HotPez wrote:

Upgraded iMac to Mountain Lion a couple of weeks ago. Screen saver was working well until Sunday or Monday. Did not know! It was working before. The screen now has burn marcs! Ruined! Screen saver still not working except forced with hot corner. Furious! Tried permissions, restart with OC p r. Is there any way to fix this? And the screen? Took great care of this iMac and now because what seems like a bug from Apple, it's ruined.

What was the screensaver? Was it a built in one, or something you added?

Pete

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Answer 2

Oct 15, 2012 6:02 PM in response to HotPez

How old is your iMac? Macs made for the past several years use cool LED light, which is not capable of causing "burn-in". Check your Energy Saver settings in System Preferences to see if the system is still set to go to screen saver.

If there is a hardware issue I would take it into the Genius Bar for a look.

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Answer 3

HotPez Author

Level 1

9 points

Oct 15, 2012 6:43 PM in response to petermac87

The screen saver is the one that came with Mountain Lion. National Geographic, Ken Burns slide show.

iMac from 2008, 24 inch, 3.06 Intel Core 2 Duo, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS 512 MB, Memory is 4GB 800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM. Never had any problems before.

I have checked the screen saver many times, had also set energy saver to sleep display after around 5 minutes. Not working now. Can only activate screen saver with hot corner. Previously had that hot corner to turn off screen saver, but I know it was not selected. Now I reverse its function, screen saver kicks in, but this is not the way I want this to work...also, as I mentioned the display is not going to sleep.

I know it just happened because I can see burn images from email from a couple of days ago.

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Answer 4

Lanny

Level 6

13,183 points

Oct 15, 2012 6:46 PM in response to HotPez

I've never heard of such a thing, a LCD screen ruined by a non-functional screensaver.

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Answer 5

HotPez Author

Level 1

9 points

Oct 15, 2012 7:03 PM in response to Lanny

What do you mean you have not heard such a thing? The screen is static on the same display all night and day without change. The screen saver and energy saver are not starting. I can see the shadows from email window which remained open the last couple of days. This morning I noticed the computer was on...it always went to dark...same when I got home today from work, on, not dark. Makes sense? Screen was very sharp and clear, but now it has shadows from recent images on email. This just happened.

Adding to the problem, as I wrote earlier, the Energy Saver is not working either, not putting display to sleep. Again, new problem. Never happened with Snow Leopard or Mountain Lion (installed about two weeks ago).

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Answer 6

HotPez Author

Level 1

9 points

Oct 16, 2012 3:44 AM in response to HotPez

Hello,

Don't call me crazy but...last night I activated a hot corner to put display to sleep, no screen saver, nothing, just off. This morning, a minute ago, I checked the display and it's fine again. No shadows, as if the "memory or imprint" of the images were cooled off and erased. The display is clear again!

The screen saver and energy saver are still not working automatically and I need to use the hot corners. I read other people are having this problem, is this i a bug, what's going on? Thanks.

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Answer 7

petermac87

Level 5

7,447 points

Oct 16, 2012 1:39 PM in response to HotPez

Please add link to where others are experiencing this same issue.

Thanks

Pete

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Answer 8

Kurt Lang

Level 9

57,864 points

Oct 16, 2012 1:57 PM in response to HotPez

From what I can see through your various descriptions, your Mac was in sleep mode. The "ghost" you saw was most likely being caused by the screen being dimmed, which you can choose in the System Preferences.

So my guess is you were looking at the mostly dimmed screen of a Mac in sleep mode. I don't think moving the mouse wakes it. You usually have to press a key on the keyboard.

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Answer 9

thomas_r.

Level 7

31,989 points

Oct 16, 2012 2:18 PM in response to HotPez

Don't call me crazy but...last night I activated a hot corner to put display to sleep, no screen saver, nothing, just off. This morning, a minute ago, I checked the display and it's fine again. No shadows, as if the "memory or imprint" of the images were cooled off and erased. The display is clear again!

Not crazy at all, it's what I would expect. LCD screens can experience a temporary image persistence, if an image remains static for a very long time, but it is not a permanent effect. Letting the screen rest can help eliminate the persistent image, and if that doesn't, you can get rid of it by displaying a white full-screen image for a while with the brightness turned down to low.

For more information, see:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2807

As to why your screensaver quit working, I don't know.

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Answer 10

petermac87

Level 5

7,447 points

Oct 16, 2012 2:23 PM in response to HotPez

It may pay to trash your energy setting preferences and screensaver preferences and then restart and reset and see how things go.

Pete

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Answer 11

HotPez Author

Level 1

9 points

Oct 16, 2012 2:24 PM in response to thomas_r.

Thank you, this makes sense. Will address the image persistence issue with your suggestions! It's already better.

As for the previous message, the computer was not in sleep mode, been aware of that, nothing seems to help the screen saver or energy saver. I will search for link where I saw the issue and post later. Thanks.

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Answer 12

HotPez Author

Level 1

9 points

Oct 16, 2012 2:25 PM in response to petermac87

What do you mean trash? Reset? Removing file from library/preferences? Thanks.

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Answer 13

HotPez Author

Level 1

9 points

Oct 16, 2012 3:03 PM in response to HotPez

I created another user and logged in. The screen saver worked fine. Deleted the user...

Now, I guess it IS system preferences that's messing up the screen saver and energy saver. I went to library preferences and already had deleted a couple of files, as per a post I read previously...

How do I restore the settings for just screen saver and energy saver? Do I have to reinstall Mountain Lion? Again, thank you for your advice.

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Answer 14

HotPez Author

Level 1

9 points

Oct 16, 2012 3:07 PM in response to HotPez

AND NOW, right after last post, the screen saver is working on my original account. Puzzled, but pleased.

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Answer 15

thomas_r.

Level 7

31,989 points

Oct 16, 2012 3:09 PM in response to HotPez

You can delete the screensaver settings. Hold down the option key and choose Library from the Finder's Go menu. Then, in the window that opens, go to the Preferences folder and move the com.apple.screensaver.plist file to the trash. Log out and log back in.

As to Energy Saver settings, I'm not aware of a preference file for those. If you're having problems with sleep in addition to the screensaver, though, you could try resetting the SMC.

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