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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

18 replies

L i o r

Level 1

23 points

Sep 14, 2013 12:47 PM in response to Anon M

Thanks a lot.
I'll make sure to install "SMC fan control" once I'll get my iMac back.

Oct 3, 2013 9:20 AM in response to Anon M

Hi Anon! We very much have the same issue! My iMac just died on me a couple of days ago and is now undergoing repairs. I basically described the problem here on my blog which you can check out: http://www.otakumouse.com/otaku/how-to-backup-files-in-a-non-booting-mac-compute r/22212/ I also added a tutorial there just in case you want to backup your data for a non booting imac.

So i called the technician and he told me i need a new logic board. I was really surprised and angry because they didn't even check the other components. I told them that apple just released a replacement program for mid 2011 imacs purchased between may 2011 and october 2012 and my model is included in that program.

To cut the story short, they just started doing some diagnostics on my video card and will keep you guys posted for updates. Im confident its not the logic board. Before i even send it in for repairs I already told them it's the video card since it was built to fail based on Apple.

Mar 10, 2014 12:56 PM in response to L i o r

I also have the same problem (iMac 27" 3.1 Ghz) I took it to Apple and had it checked out and the graphics card test failed so I thought I was good for the repair to be free. I then received a phone call today saying they need to replace the display and I am kicking myself for not have the AppleCare because this will cost me. They said after they replaced the graphics card they experienced the same problem and when they hooked it up to an external monitor the problem was gone. My question is could the bad graphics card have damaged the display? It's odd that both the graphics card and display both went bad at the same time, unless the graphics card test could fail because of the display issue. Anyone have any thoughts?

What is wrong with my iMac?