What is wrong with my iMac?

Question

Level 1

17 points

What is wrong with my iMac?

I can't start it anymore. I turn it on, and instantly the screen becomes gray with green vertical lines. See yourself:

http://imageshack.us/a/img267/8931/imagemzeu.jpg

I've read that it is the graphics card that has an issue. I'm wondering how can it get damaged in the first place? By over-heating, but how does it over-heat? Could a game make it over-heat?

But I've also read that it might be the damaged RAM. I have 32 GB of RAM that I have bought from Crucial, one of them I sliiiiiightly damaged it when I pushed it in (pushed it in the wrong way basically). But I had no issues with them, so I thought okay, I didn't really damage it.

I swapped the 32 GBs against the original 4 GBs again, and the Mac started and worked again normally. I forgot about the problem my Mac had and went on Youtube to watch a video, when suddenly a grey screen with lots of vertical lines appeared, I had to force to shut down the Mac.

I tried Soft Boot or whatever it's called at some point, and at some point I got a blue screen, apparently called the blue screen of death (it's a dark blue one, just saying because I also had a light blue one with the vertical lines).

Either way it's all very weird. I heard graphics cards that are in Macs have 3 year warranty? My Mac is a 2011 iMac 27" Intel Quad Core i5 (3.1 Ghz).

All help is appreciated, I'm dying right now 😟

Cheers guys and gals

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Feb 20, 2013 9:00 AM

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Answer 1

Anon M Author

Level 1

17 points

Feb 20, 2013 2:07 PM in response to Anon M

Nobody? Sorry for the bump!

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Answer 2

SeaPapp

Level 7

26,486 points

Feb 20, 2013 2:29 PM in response to Anon M

I think it's obvious that your iMac has a hardware failure. You need to take it in for a proper diagnosis and estimate. Hopefully you'll still be covered by either AppleCare or a repair program on your specific machine. Good luck.

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Answer 3

Anon M Author

Level 1

17 points

Feb 20, 2013 2:34 PM in response to SeaPapp

Thanks, and yep looks like that is the case. What do you believe is it? Graphic card?

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Answer 4

Anon M Author

Level 1

17 points

Feb 20, 2013 2:42 PM in response to Anon M

Or actually, might it be the RAM? I installed it without grounding myself sadly, I didn't know this could have consequences :(

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Answer 5

MichelPM

Level 10

80,968 points

Feb 20, 2013 3:28 PM in response to Anon M

If it turns out to be the graphics card, it probably is heat related.

These aluminum design iMacs do, in fact, get really hot!

Between fans that run too slow, not enough external venting, these iMacs can and do get hot enough to, in effect, slow roast internal conponents over a period of time.

There have been enough GPU and logic board failures posted here in the time I have been involved with this particular Apple iMac forum. Also plenty of SuperDrive failures, too!

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Answer 6

Anon M Author

Level 1

17 points

Feb 21, 2013 6:16 AM in response to MichelPM

Well, I really hope it isn't the hard drive. But I doubt it is anyway, I've searched for hard drive failure symptoms and it's nothing of what I've got. I believe it's either the graphic card or the RAM.

You say it can overheat easily, and that would make sense: there's a game that I play every day, and the Mac would always get really hot. I was told by Apple that this is normal and that the Mac would shut down itself if it becomes too hot.

It crashed several times when I launched the game, and the picture of the game got completely stretched and distorted before it happened. Later I was editing videos in iMovie and it happened again at this point.

But sometimes it also happened after I used Virtual PC. Not sure why. There's a learning CD that I need to work with for my driving exams, it started doing strange noises in the drive as if the CD would be touching something. I decided to quit then and finally I got one of those grey/white/light blue screens where I was stuck and had to force to shut down. Not sure if this is related however.

I thought maybe the graphic card is near the CD drive; perhaps something was wrong with the CD drive and the CD damaged the graphic card? I don't know.

Waiting for the call of a pro now :) Hopefully nothing serious.

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Answer 7

MichelPM

Level 10

80,968 points

Feb 21, 2013 8:12 AM in response to Anon M

Good Luck to you!

😉

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Answer 8

Anon M Author

Level 1

17 points

Feb 21, 2013 10:23 AM in response to MichelPM

Thank you, I will need it I believe :)

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Answer 9

Anon M Author

Level 1

17 points

Feb 22, 2013 4:13 AM in response to Anon M

I will be sending it to someone to replace the grafics card (he says it's the grafics card), will he be able to read my hard drive even if my Mac is password protected? I have lots of important documents concerning my family.

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Answer 10

MichelPM

Level 10

80,968 points

Feb 22, 2013 9:58 AM in response to Anon M

I Will suggest, if you can do this, purchase an external hard drive and use an app called Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper to clone all of your internal hard drive to an external drive before getting this replacement done.

Just in case something bad happens and there is the possibility of data loss.

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Answer 11

Anon M Author

Level 1

17 points

Feb 22, 2013 10:13 AM in response to MichelPM

How would I install this app if I can't boot the mac? ;)

Maybe there's a trick, I don't know, but I don't think I need it: the hard drive is not the issue, it's the graphics card (the guy checked it).

As for my question... I was actually just wondering if he might get access to the hard drive, which has private documents (the Mac is password protected). :)

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Answer 12

MichelPM

Level 10

80,968 points

Feb 22, 2013 1:02 PM in response to Anon M

I Was hoping you could get the data off of the internal drive and onto external drive and completely erase the internal drive and reinstall the OS, but I can see that will not happen.

The person doing the work shouldn't be able to get to your data, but my thoughts were why risk it if there was a way to get that data off of the drive.

Another concern I have is this person doing a replacement graphics unit familiar with Macs?

If that person is not a Mac tech savvy person, you may end up with a completely "bricked" iMac and end up taking it to a more expensive repair at an Apple Store or authorized Apple repair center or purchasing another Mac.

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Answer 13

Anon M Author

Level 1

17 points

Apr 6, 2013 4:38 PM in response to MichelPM

Hard drive is ok, I'm writing from it right now 🙂 (It's hooked to a Mac Mini that I got borrowed)

Wasn't the graphics card it seems, might be the Logic board now.

If it's not that, might it be the RAM? I told the guy that I have new RAM, but perhaps we should look deeper into that. 32 GB from Crucial!

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Answer 14

L i o r

Level 1

23 points

Sep 14, 2013 11:19 AM in response to Anon M

Just got the exact same problem a few days ago (mid 2011 iMac 27" i7 3.4 GHz).

What was it at the end?

An Apple support guy told me on the phone that it might be the graphics card.

I see that it wasn't, in your case.

I sent the iMac to an Apple lab (it's still under AppleCare). Hopefully I'll get it fixed soon.

Thanks.

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Answer 15

Anon M Author

Level 1

17 points

Sep 14, 2013 12:09 PM in response to L i o r

Hey!

Actually, it was the graphics card. The guy who fixed my computer thought it wasn't, because after a few hours of the computer working he got the same problem again. Logic board seemed to be okay, however. In the end the new graphics card was faulty too.

I received another one then which he installed in my computer, and it works fine now.

But it might also be something else, such as the Logic board.

One thing you need to be careful with: the fans. The dude installed me "SMC fan control" which allows you to raise the minimum speed of the fans. The default settings are just way too low, especially if you're doing stuff such as video editing or video games with it. That's all because Apple wants their computer to be super quiet… or maybe they want people to bring their iMacs to the Apple lab to get some more cash.

So when you get your computer back, be sure to install this program, read up on how to use it properly and normally everything should work. 😉

Good luck.

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