How widespread is this screen flickering problem?

[Btom]

The thing to do is to keep on returning these failing machines until Apple gets it right. Spending close to $2000 for a new computer and getting one clunker, or one clunker after another, is not acceptable.

I agree that we should keep returning faulty units, the problem with this is that we can't really enjoy our new, and very nice computers, while doing what is really Apple job of quality control and troubleshooting. On top of this we risk being stock with faulty units, if fault doesn't show in the first 14 days.

Tom B.

 

[CeeZee]

I agree that we should keep returning faulty units, the problem with this is that we can't really enjoy our new, and very nice computers, while doing what is really Apple job of quality control and troubleshooting. On top of this we risk being stock with faulty units, if fault doesn't show in the first 14 days.

Tom B.

I think I'm soon to get #3. The first one (Week 47 build), bought on the 27th (BF) got the flickering after 5 days and there was a slight yellow tinge from day one. Returned it to the store and they gave me a new one (Week 48 build) that has an optical drive problem. There is one particular DVD that simply will not mount. All others mount fine. And that disk mounts on every other Mac I can find - from my PowerBook to other iMacs at the Apple Store. Anyway, spent an hour on the phone with Apple Support to no avail and have an appointment tomorrow at my local Genius Bar. See what they can do. My guess is that I'll end up with another new iMac.

One thing is that both my first iMac and this one have zero dead or stuck pixels plus a super quiet HD (one was a WD and the other a Seagate). And this iMac has no yellow tinge or flickering whatsoever. But what can I do? There's no way I can live with a computer that may or may not read a DVD.

Frustrating and you're so right - I just want to bring home a gorgeous iMac that works and not have to worry about what's going to go wrong next.

 

[JimAtLaw]

I think I'm soon to get #3. The first one (Week 47 build), bought on the 27th (BF) got the flickering after 5 days and there was a slight yellow tinge from day one. Returned it to the store and they gave me a new one (Week 48 build) that has an optical drive problem. There is one particular DVD that simply will not mount. All others mount fine. And that disk mounts on every other Mac I can find - from my PowerBook to other iMacs at the Apple Store. Anyway, spent an hour on the phone with Apple Support to no avail and have an appointment tomorrow at my local Genius Bar. See what they can do. My guess is that I'll end up with another new iMac.

One thing is that both my first iMac and this one have zero dead or stuck pixels plus a super quiet HD (one was a WD and the other a Seagate). And this iMac has no yellow tinge or flickering whatsoever. But what can I do? There's no way I can live with a computer that may or may not read a DVD.

Frustrating and you're so right - I just want to bring home a gorgeous iMac that works and not have to worry about what's going to go wrong next.

Man, given the prevalence of the screen problems, I'd have them replace the Superdrive rather than replace the unit - it would truly suck to get a new one with a working drive but other problems, esp. a yellow tinge if the guys at the Apple store may not (or may choose not to) see it for some people.

 

[CeeZee]

Man, given the prevalence of the screen problems, I'd have them replace the Superdrive rather than replace the unit - it would truly suck to get a new one with a working drive but other problems, esp. a yellow tinge if the guys at the Apple store may not (or may choose not to) see it for some people.

Good idea, I'm going to ask them to do that. Hopefully, that won't take a long time. I have no idea how busy they are.

Edit: Genius Bar agreed it was the SuperDrive and after the new one arrives (they had to order it from CA) they'll call me to bring the iMac back in and replace the drive. So until then I get to use the Mac. Hopefully this will address the issue. Gettin' kinda tired of lugging a 27" iMac to the store and back, though! But it is worth it just to have all that screen real-estate. Not sorry I didn't buy the 21.5" even if it would be lighter.

 

[quagmire]

Not good. My friend has a i5 that is flickering. I advised him to email "Jobs" through his email because doing that usually gives you a direct answer or get referred to someone high up.

Well he got referred to a Executive Relations guy and they are replacing it and wants his iMac to give to engineering. Which means they still not have figured out what is causing it. The guy said that not all machines are affected, but is a known issue. That they are checking replacements to see if they have the problem. Which to me sounds like they are not checking new orders.

Not good. So now the question is do I gamble or just cancel my order?

 

[lindsayanng]

"Executive Relations"

Gullable much? Sounds like a customer service rep contacted him and told him he can get a replacement.. just like everyone else with the problem. No need to "email Jobs" because its a know problem and you could simply walk into an apple store and return it there or just box it and ship it back to apple.

And are you seriously about canceling your order? Why? Its still going to be the same computer.. you still wont know if which ever warehouse your order ends up coming from will have a bad batch in it.. Just get it. Clearly Apple is good enough that they admit there's a problem and do everything to fix it.

 

[quagmire]

"Executive Relations"

Gullable much? Sounds like a customer service rep contacted him and told him he can get a replacement.. just like everyone else with the problem. No need to "email Jobs" because its a know problem and you could simply walk into an apple store and return it there or just box it and ship it back to apple.

And are you seriously about canceling your order? Why? Its still going to be the same computer.. you still wont know if which ever warehouse your order ends up coming from will have a bad batch in it.. Just get it. Clearly Apple is good enough that they admit there's a problem and do everything to fix it.

Regardless of it being a executive relation guy or just a regular customer rep. person( he also talked to two other people wanting information about the problem), what scares me the most is that engineering wants it which means they have not found what is causing it let alone a fix.

Mine would be coming straight from Shanghai since it is a BTO.

 

[avihappy]

Well, I'm been a member of this forum for a long time, and I've been hit with teh flickers. It started 30 minutes out of the box. Here is my video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSEQ1IjSlyc

I feel like it is a fairly common problem. I had been telling myself that this was affecting a small minority of buyers, but lo and behold I got a defective one. This kind of tells me that the chance of getting a dud is high. But I'm not a statistics expert.

 

[SaSaSushi]

I'm glad to see there are some actual legitimate news sources reporting the flickering issue now.

Of the slightly-less-than-legitimate sources covering it, this particular piece at The Inquirer is my absolute favorite of all. It had me rolling. They define what is the complete, polar and total opposite of an Apple fanboy (yet equally repulsive).

Now at 2 weeks to the day of delivery of my own week 47 i7 and still flicker-free.

 

[JimAtLaw]

Now at 2 weeks to the day of delivery of my own week 47 i7 and still flicker-free.

Color me envious. It being so close to the end of the year and with Apple still delivering defective machines, I think I'm going to have to spend my gift card on a Cintiq 21UX and some other goodies, maybe a new MBP or Mini to drive it, though I had been holding off waiting for a refresh of the Cintiq with RRFC.

 

[wesleyh]

I've now had it twice. Once a half an hour after unpacking the imac, and now a week later again. Anyway, the imac is going back for unrelated issues so all is well. I just wish apple would be more communicative of this in an online knowledgebase article or something..

 

[quagmire]

I am back to leaning to the side of it being software causing this issue. Resetting the PRAM making it go away temporarily and now just read on the discussion forums that when it flickers and you put the cursor into the lower right hand corner to put the display to sleep, it gets rid of the flicker. If it was hardware, why would doing that get rid of it?

 

[Bobbie369]

Flickering Screen

Waited a long time for the arrival of my dream machine (27" Quad Core) and on day one of its arrival....major screen flickering. Called Apple, the tech had me reboot with a bunch of fingers held down on the keyboard, appeared to help at that moment. He told me he was very confident that this would fix my problem. 2 days later, started all over again but worse. Called Apple again and this tech sounded quite stumped. Restarted, good again for now I guess. Previous iMac forced to be retired due to tonnes of vertical lines appearing on the screen. What the heck Apple? Not sure if I am going to keep this machine. Not only does it "flicker" is black out completely now. Going to work on my pc now.....

 

[peskaa]

Waited a long time for the arrival of my dream machine (27" Quad Core) and on day one of its arrival....major screen flickering. Called Apple, the tech had me reboot with a bunch of fingers held down on the keyboard, appeared to help at that moment. He told me he was very confident that this would fix my problem. 2 days later, started all over again but worse. Called Apple again and this tech sounded quite stumped. Restarted, good again for now I guess. Previous iMac forced to be retired due to tonnes of vertical lines appearing on the screen. What the heck Apple? Not sure if I am going to keep this machine. Not only does it "flicker" is black out completely now. Going to work on my pc now.....

Mine was exactly the same. The PRAM reset (the thing they did over the phone) does fix it for a while, and sometimes it'll run without flickering for ages.

Get a replacement, you should be able to just ask for one within the first 14 days, no quibbles.

 

[Btom]

Waited a long time for the arrival of my dream machine (27" Quad Core) and on day one of its arrival....major screen flickering. Called Apple, the tech had me reboot with a bunch of fingers held down on the keyboard, appeared to help at that moment. He told me he was very confident that this would fix my problem. 2 days later, started all over again but worse. Called Apple again and this tech sounded quite stumped. Restarted, good again for now I guess. Previous iMac forced to be retired due to tonnes of vertical lines appearing on the screen. What the heck Apple? Not sure if I am going to keep this machine. Not only does it "flicker" is black out completely now. Going to work on my pc now.....

Bobbie369,

I'd call myself lucky, if it has happen to me in the first 14 days of "ownership". Just think for a moment of all those poor souls, who will notice flickering on day 15... OK, maybe I'd call Apple service once, but this is where I'd draw the line. By now it is obvious they have to fix the design (and by design I mean hardware and/or firmware and/or software, I don't care), or they don't have a product.

Also, just think of those countless hours all the people spent testing and trying to debug, calling service, driving back and forth, installing, and then reinstalling, and then reinstalling again...

When I put away a substantial chunk of money for Apple, I was hoping to upgrade to a better brand and a company which actually cares. What they did well was a lot of fast and smooth talking (when I was inquiring about the purchase, or waved my checkbook). Now I am waiting to see what they'll do, when there is this gigantic elephant in the room.

Tom B.

 

[chilt01]

Screen flickering, black outs and video tearing on 27" iMac

I'm experiencing screen flickering and black out problems on my new 27” iMac, as apparently are 100s of others. These problems are intermittent, but very significant. I'm also having problems with horizontal video tearing on the iMac under certain all-Apple system configurations--problems that are not intermittent but highly repeatable. Such problems are unacceptable on any computer, much less a premium-priced computer offered by a company that touts their graphic display and flawless systems integration capabilities. To make matters worse, Apple customer reps have been largely unresponsive, and, as they are quick to tell you, they're "not technical." (I interpret this as "code" for excusing themselves from providing the quality service necessary for the technical products their company in fact sells. They also offer a lot of apologies, which, when repeated time after time, month after month, feel more than a little disingenuous.) They have bumbled numerous attempts to diagnose and solve the horizontal video tearing problem for many months now. To make matters worse, they've forced me to manage the process for them and to point out various technical missteps they’ve made along the way. The Apple reps will not answer their phones and they, more often than not, fail to return calls, even after telling you explicitly they'll call you on X date. In other words, they don't do what they say they'll do. Going completely AWOL with no communication whatsoever is another favorite tactic. Moreover, the left hand often doesn't know what the right hand is doing. They’re happy to fritter away my time with impunity, effectively using me as unpaid beta-tester. This is, by far, the worst product purchase and customer service I’ve ever experienced. In a word: horrible.

Apple needs to do the right thing: provide a solid product that works and support it in an excellent fashion. Fix these problems and make things right with customers who were unfortunate enough to have purchased (or been provided Advance Replacements of) the new iMacs with the problems I described above, among others (see, for example: http://imac.squeaked.com/results.php). I sit, largely in silence, waiting for Apple do the right thing on the screen flickering and black out problems. I'm hopeful they’ll step up to the plate (and was assured via terse email on 12/16/09 by one Apple rep that they will), but I’m quickly running out of patience with their problem-plagued product and even more so with their unprofessional business conduct. I want to love my new iMac (just as I have my PowerBook G4 with Apple Cinema Display for the past 5 years)... but it needs to work correctly, and I need to get reasonably responsive, professional, competent customer/technical support before I can do so. For the price I paid and the time I’ve been forced to invest to fix Apple's flawed machine and to interface with their dysfunctional and bureaucratic organizational system, I don’t believe that’s too much to ask.

 

[dwarnecke11]

I've decided to wait not just for a confirmed fix, but for a whole new revision (May/June is likely). This is especially painful since I'm using a G4 Mac mini with 10.3 (fan revs up just surfing the internet!). I'll wipe the HD and install 10.5, perhaps that will make it more livable until the next iMac surfaces.

My i5 lasted a week before I saw the first flicker, followed by three more during the next few days. I got a full refund, every cent. Some folks have gone over a month before seeing their first flicker. I just couldn't have peace of mind owning any current iMac at this point. I'll get the next-rev, flicker-free i5 for less money (maybe a $200-300 drop) with hopefully a quieter HD and better graphics card.

 

[scroto]

Dude, you seriously need to chill, my post was not directed at you (I don't even remember reading any of your posts and have no idea who you are), but, given your response, perhaps it should have been. I didn't "accuse those simply reporting they're not having problems of 'personal attacks'" - you literally just made that up out of whole cloth, which seems pretty rabid to me. (Or perhaps you're confusing me with someone else you're already very angry at?)

That being said, to be clear, my comment was directed at people who say things like "This is an isolated problem, it only happens to 1 in 100,000 iMacs (I've seen that posted here, literally), these machines are fine, it's not a problem and you shouldn't act like it is, you can't post that!" when they have absolutely zero knowledge of the relevant facts (e.g., how many machines actually have the problem - if you're not in management at Apple support or another dept. with access to inside information, you have no idea other than that there are hundreds of reports on the Apple forums alone, and that doesn't account for the huge majority of people who don't post there).

This place is filled with fanboys who attempt to censor posts and threads (e.g., the poll about which someone was asking) about problems with Apple products and will defend every Apple product and every decision they make as if it were their own mother's - I don't know if you're one of those people, but if you are, I feel sorry for you and I hope you can soon make some connections in life that allow you to affiliate your identity with something more real than a huge corporation that doesn't know or care you exist - otherwise (and in any case), please do chill out and have a mellow rest of the day.

beautiful ****ing post, so true

 

[ibwb]

Bobbie369,

I'd call myself lucky, if it has happen to me in the first 14 days of "ownership". Just think for a moment of all those poor souls, who will notice flickering on day 15...

I assume they'd call Apple support?

Was there some option I missed for a 14-day warranty?

 

[Btom]

I assume they'd call Apple support?

Was there some option I missed for a 14-day warranty?

ibwb,


Product support and warranty is supposed to help when unexpected happens, not as a way to fix a known problem, but later, after we buy it.

I just canceled my order for an i5. I will try to get one some time later (likely).

Call me softy, but somehow I couldn't stand the picture of myself sitting in front of the Christmas tree, waiting to see my first screen blink. I don't love Apple that much...


Tom B.

 

[OldCorpse]

I've decided to wait not just for a confirmed fix, but for a whole new revision (May/June is likely). This is especially painful since I'm using a G4 Mac mini with 10.3 (fan revs up just surfing the internet!). I'll wipe the HD and install 10.5, perhaps that will make it more livable until the next iMac surfaces.

My i5 lasted a week before I saw the first flicker, followed by three more during the next few days. I got a full refund, every cent. Some folks have gone over a month before seeing their first flicker. I just couldn't have peace of mind owning any current iMac at this point. I'll get the next-rev, flicker-free i5 for less money (maybe a $200-300 drop) with hopefully a quieter HD and better graphics card.

I'm in a similar situation, and I intend to split the difference. I have a G4 iBook (1.33Ghz, 1.5GB RAM) and G4 mini (1.5Ghz, 1GB RAM). Just a word of caution - I run Tiger 10.4.11 on both, because Leopard is actually slower on G4 lower end macs... that's a confirmed fact. If you think your mini crawls now, just wait until you install 10.5 on it! It will be atrocious. My recommendation is to upgrade to Tiger, which was faster than 10.3 on PPC machines, and which has almost the same feature set as Leopard, but is more stable.

I wish I could wait until the next revision, but I can't, so I must buy my i7 with the current revision A. My compromise is to wait until mid-January before ordering. I hope they find fix for the flickering and yellowing until then. Frankly, I'm not sure that they'll necessarily solve the yellowing issue even on the next revision, but the flicker I'm confident they'll solve - and must acknowledge, which is why I feel OK buying in January, cause they'll just have to repair it, if it goes bad (I'll send it back if it happens in the first few days though). The flickering is not happening to 100% of the units, so I feel OK taking a risk here. I'm more bummed out by the yellowing thing - if it's very slight (there appears to be huge variation between units), I'll keep it, and I am not sure a cure is on the horizon, though who knows. Regardless, waiting until June is not an option for me - I need a good editing rig, and I don't want to buy a MP.

Anyhow, all I can do right now is monitor boards to see if there's any progress with these issues on newer builds of the 27". It seems like week 49 & 50 are slightly less problem prone (though by no means with ZERO problems), so I'll keep waiting.

Good luck to you, and I'm taking the plunge mid-January!

 

[danistyping]

The yellowing issue exists on ALL new iMac models, guys. Go test the ones in the store.

 

[SaSaSushi]

The yellowing issue exists on ALL new iMac models, guys. Go test the ones in the store.

Why would I drive 2 hours to the nearest Apple Store when I have my own i7 with it's "yellow tinge-less" screen sitting right in front of me?

 

[tombb]

The yellowing issue exists on ALL new iMac models, guys. Go test the ones in the store.

I don't know about that. The ones at our local Best Buy looked fine to me. It sounds like some displays are distinctly discolored while others are okay.

 

[mtnDewFTW]

One thing I know for sure, it isn't as widespread as the yellow tint issue.

For some reason I think Apple are actually fixing that since the shipping time on their website went to 2 weeks, which means that they might be fixing them, or just making them in a different way since so many people had problems.

It's actually really not that common in i7, I think. But then again, you're aware of this whole situation, so if you sense that something is wrong, you have 14 days to exchange.