Insect inside my LCD screen

A tiny insect has crawled in between the LCD panel and the backlight of my 27" iMac and died. Close inspection reveals that it is behind the LCD characters. I called Apple support, and they were sympathetic, but said I had to go to the local store. The local store told me it was not their fault I had a bug in my iMac, and in fact, this "infestation" (his words) would probably void the warranty on my 6 month old iMac.

My iMac sits on the desk in my office. My office is not "infested" with bugs. But Apple's LCD screen is not sufficiently sealed to dust and other contaminants so it will prevent a tiny insect from being attracted to the light and crawling inside of it. I am very disappointed in their response.

Does anyone know if there is any recourse to the local Apple store? The woman at MY-APPLE assumed it would be a warranty repair. It seems to me that the LCD component should be sufficiently sealed to prevent bugs from crawling into it. And I live in Southern California, not Northern Michigan.

Does anyone know if I am likely to be able to disassemble the screen and clean it myself?

See for yourself. The bug is next to 14 point Arial in TextEdit:

www.bmumford.com/tmp/Bug.jpg

Posted on Jul 24, 2014 3:30 PM

59 replies

Jul 25, 2015 4:31 PM in response to FanOfSuperman

Hi Folks,

Add me to the list. Today I discovered a small bug inside my Retina iMac screen. It's definitely UNDER the cursor and OVER the other display elements. I am covered by AppleCare and I sure hope they take care of this. This is the third display-related issue I've had with a retina Mac in the past year. (Two retina MBPs had issues with the screen coating.)

Here's a picture of the little jerk:

http://i.imgur.com/Sap25tA.jpg

Aug 12, 2015 8:42 AM in response to Klaus1

A post I wrote yesterday does not appear to have made it through ..... Apple has now replaced the LCD screen in my iMac that started this thread. They had told me they would not, so I never carried the late 2013 model 27" iMac in for a determination. But a few weeks ago the screen hinge broke and it flopped forward. I had to prop it up with a stick. Then the 3 TB Fusion drive failed. I've never had so much trouble with a Macintosh, and it's only a year and a half old. The repair took 14 days. I never would have imagined I could get by without it for so long. To be accurate, the repair only took one day ... but they had it for 14. I had already drafted a negative Yelp posting for the authorized repair center, but since they got me a new screen, I'm letting it go.

But I will end with a warning. My 3 TB drive failed in a year and a half. They replaced it with a Seagate Barracuda model ST3000DM001. These drives have a failure rate of 28% as determined by the BackBlaze people who do cloud backup:

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-smart-stats/

I can't understand why Apple would continue to use the worst possible drive after they've already had so much trouble with the 3 TB devices, and anticipate another hard drive failure before I am through with this machine.

Aug 12, 2015 12:36 PM in response to ZigZagLens

Hi everyone,

Just as an update to my situation, Apple gladly replaced my display. The only time it took was bringing it in (and waiting for the Genius to show everyone - they were quite impressed at the feat that little guy had accomplished.)

Best of luck!

pb100

Level 1

5 points

Oct 8, 2015 11:52 PM in response to FanOfSuperman

Get out your vacuum cleaner!!

I had the same problem with my late 2013, 27inch iMac. A small mite appeared in the bottom left corner of my screen yesterday uuugggghhhh!!!

I rang Apple and the guy there was both astounded and helpful. He'd never heard of this issue before and requested I take it to an Apple store for them to look at.

As taking it in was going to be difficult (and leaving it there for a repair would be even worse!) I decided to see what I could do myself. There is a small air gap between the glass and LCD panel to protect the LCD from people pressing on the glass. That's where the bug was.

With a good vacuum cleaner sucking through the vents at the base of the screen and some light repetitive tapping on the back and front of the screen, the tiny mite slowly fell down below the black screen surround. He's now either sucked out or hidden by the black strip, so that's good enough for me! Took about 5 minutes 🙂

JeanXOXO

Level 1

8 points

Jun 21, 2017 3:41 PM in response to Bryan Mumford

Well, I googled this because my bug just appeared just now and I find it to be highly odd. What is even stranger is that when I take a screenshot of it, it does NOT appear. But it is clearly a gnat of sorts....I too have apple care and intend to have this bug eradicated.....I agree that a bug should not be able to crawl inside the imac display. I have been using imacs for many many years and have never seen this....so weird....

Jul 26, 2017 6:37 AM in response to Bryan Mumford

I too have a tiny spider (discovered this morning) inside my iMac (late 2013) How on earth is this possible???

I'm taking it to the Apple store but if it's going to cost $700 to fix, I'll be ******!

Has anyone tried a vacuum, shaking it upside down, or any other hacks?

bartspud

Level 1

11 points

Aug 4, 2017 6:15 AM in response to Bryan Mumford

I purchased a MacBook pro 15 inch with touchbar at the end of last year have been speaking to apple genius bar and support all day and on the phone for 3 hours and no one is taking it seriously that the is some sort of creature/insect/bug inside of the screen moving around despite me showing multiple videos and them seeing it in person when I took it to my local store today. I feel that the product should be replaced completely following prior issues and as speaking to a genius it seems that it could have only got inside through production of the machine. Really disappointing that this issue is just being shrugged off with there being nothing in place for this type of thing. Repairing the computer and the checks previously done are not even highlighting the issues I've had

Apr 19, 2015 7:31 AM in response to Bryan Mumford

I can't enter the website... anyway here is the picture... difficult to take a pic cos it's against the lit screen...

http://tinypic.com/r/2mdnj3t/8

Jun 19, 2015 2:12 AM in response to Bryan Mumford

Found one in my iMac this morning. Sent copy of this pic to the OP of this thread

Anyone got any updates re getting Apple to take responsibility for this, or to fix it?

Jim

Jun 13, 2017 12:24 PM in response to Bryan Mumford

Domec22

Level 1

9 points

Jul 18, 2017 5:14 PM in response to Bryan Mumford

just another of them...don't know if I should be glad that its not only mine issue or disappointed of the quality of such a amazing piece of tech

Kappy

Level 10

362,429 points

Jul 24, 2014 4:14 PM in response to Bryan Mumford

Take it in. We can't help you. You'll just have to make the inconvenience trip downtown or learn to ignore the bug. By now it should be dead.

Jul 24, 2014 4:44 PM in response to rkaufmann87

It's a late 2013 iMac 27". Any advice on the screen would be a help.

rkaufmann87

Level 10

149,220 points

Jul 24, 2014 5:27 PM in response to Bryan Mumford

LLet Apple handle it.

Mr_Rossy

Level 1

9 points

Jul 30, 2014 7:46 AM in response to Bryan Mumford

Email from my iPhone just sent.

just to confirm that the address is without -at- and directly replaced with @ ? Sorry I'm not used to that terminology.

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

Insect inside my LCD screen