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Horizontal lines on early 2009 iMac

A

Aadhil

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 4, 2009
236
0
California
I just noticed there are a couple of horizontal lines appearing on my early 2009 24" imac about an inch from the top. I just did a PRAM reset which did nothing. It vanishes when I change the desktop background to all white. It's a screen issue as when I do a screen capture the lines don't get captured.

Should I call apple support or go to an apple store? I've got the three year applecare.
 
It's interesting but my horizontal lines have almost completely gone! I have to stare at it really hard to be able to notice it. I guess I'll wait a bit until it gets worse before going to see an Apple genius. Thankfully I can afford to risk a complete iMac failure cause I have a new macbook as a backup :D
 
Aadhil said:
It's interesting but my horizontal lines have almost completely gone! I have to stare at it really hard to be able to notice it. I guess I'll wait a bit until it gets worse before going to see an Apple genius. Thankfully I can afford to risk a complete iMac failure cause I have a new macbook as a backup :D
Click to expand...

Do some maintenance on it first to see if the lines go away such as resetting the PRAM, repair permissions from Disk Utility using the restore disc. If it's gone then good, but I would wait it out to see if it becomes more prominent because if you take it to Apple and they don't see anything it will be a wasted trip and you'll go home annoyed thinking something is really wrong and you can't prove it.
 
Just be sure that if there is ANYTHING there take it in before your warranty is up, that could mean a free new graphics card with it's own 60 day warranty.
 
upaymeifixit said:
Just be sure that if there is ANYTHING there take it in before your warranty is up, that could mean a free new graphics card with it's own 60 day warranty.
Click to expand...

Yea thanks. I bought the iMac in August and I purchased a three year applecare. So there's about 2 and a half years left of warranty. The lines are more noticeable now :(
 
My guess is if it is the graphics card, it will most likely go in and out. I would just take it in, they shouldn't give you too much trouble.
 
The GPU is probably on its way to death. I have the read things over at Apple's forums... In some cases it would take down the entire logic board. I would backup all of your data right now and take it straight to the Apple Store.

Never listen to the people that tell you to do permission repairs. It does absolutely nothing other than just that (repairing access permissions on the files/folders). PRAM resets might help, but it mostly likely won't do anything for the GPU (though it might be able to fix the fans).

Since you are under warranty I would strongly suggest you take it in now. Things like this is a sign of worst things to come!
 
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