iMac 5k Screen burn-in (High Sierra)

[Mockletoy]

Wow. I've seen some image retention on a variety of screens before, but it's usually much more vague than that in my experience. Like, you can tell that there was a window there, you know, but actually being able to read the text seems extreme to me. That can't be what Apple would consider normal. It's certainly not acceptable. It would drive me batty.

 

[sinphildd]

Bought a 2015 5K iMac brand new at the start of 2017. Used for a year with 10.12 Sierra absolutely no image retention, even when leaving the screen on all day long and nothing moving.

Just updated to 10.13.3 High Sierra. Holy crap. Can't leave anything on screen for more than 5 minutes without image retention. Removed all desktop icons to stop them burning in. This is absolutely ridiculous.

As someone who's had to return 3 x 2017 macbook pros within a year due to the dust under the keyboard issue, I am gobsmacked at how much of an effect Tim Cook closing down Apple's quality & testing team has had across iOS & macOS.

Sick of updates breaking my Apple products, then Apple playing dumb and wanting me to pay for their idiocracy to replace with something they're going to break again.

This latest issue is just an absolute joke considering these are image editing machines predominantly.

I made a post here on Apple Support Forums about the situation but have had to be very careful with the wording. Moderators keep removing the post, stating things like "what is image burn/retention? removed as it is speculation"!!

 

[Strider64]

Just wanted to comment on this for I have a late 2014 iMac 5K and I haven't notice any image retention at all. However, I'm kind of a weird guy for I have my computer go into sleep mode after 5 minutes of activity on normal usage, but bump it up to 15 minutes if I am doing a lot of coding. I figure if I'm not using the computer within 5 minutes (or 15 minutes) why should I have my screen on. I also calibrate my monitor and have the brightness automatically adjust depending on the current lighting in the room. I was a color matcher for nearly 20 years at an Automotive Paint Manufacturer and even seen image retention (in this case burn in) on old color panels that we used to save for batches that we did for our OEM customers. The panel would had accidently been laying on something and when we pulled it out of the file it a ghost image would be there. I was actually kind of funny at times, but usually they were old panels that needed to be discarded anyways. We were supposed to use gloves when handling the original OEM color standard, but we usually never did unless a customer or bigwig was in the lab. Sorry getting back on topic, I'm not saying people aren't having problems with image burn/retention, but there maybe ways to prevent or slow it down? Though I realize color/images are way different than paint, but color principles are the same (or at least should be).

 

[Double-Slit]

Can the auto brightness function perhaps cause or accelerate image retention? In my view, this function causes stress on the screen by adjusting the screen-brightness each time the ambient lighting changes. This adjustment process may take place unnoticed and constant when the screen is switched on.

 

[filmak]

Bought a 2015 5K iMac brand new at the start of 2017. Used for a year with 10.12 Sierra absolutely no image retention, even when leaving the screen on all day long and nothing moving.

Just updated to 10.13.3 High Sierra. Holy crap. Can't leave anything on screen for more than 5 minutes without image retention. Removed all desktop icons to stop them burning in. This is absolutely ridiculous.

As someone who's had to return 3 x 2017 macbook pros within a year due to the dust under the keyboard issue, I am gobsmacked at how much of an effect Tim Cook closing down Apple's quality & testing team has had across iOS & macOS.

Sick of updates breaking my Apple products, then Apple playing dumb and wanting me to pay for their idiocracy to replace with something they're going to break again.

This latest issue is just an absolute joke considering these are image editing machines predominantly.

I made a post here on Apple Support Forums about the situation but have had to be very careful with the wording. Moderators keep removing the post, stating things like "what is image burn/retention? removed as it is speculation"!!

Have you tried reverting back to 10.12.6 Sierra, to check what happens?

 

[imageWIS]

Can the auto brightness function perhaps cause or accelerate image retention? In my view, this function causes stress on the screen by adjusting the screen-brightness each time the ambient lighting changes. This adjustment process may take place unnoticed and constant when the screen is switched on.

I tried turning off auto-brightness, resetting PRAM and SMC, reduced transparency, and I still have issues with image retention on my rMBP. It's really a HS issue and specifically the Metal 2 API.

 

[Fishrrman]

sinphildd wrote:
"Just updated to 10.13.3 High Sierra. Holy crap. Can't leave anything on screen for more than 5 minutes without image retention. Removed all desktop icons to stop them burning in. This is absolutely ridiculous."

The "test" here is as follows:
Since you said there was no image retention with Low Sierra,
and
Since you say there now IS image retention with High Sierra,
then
Why don't you "go back down" to Low Sierra once more, and see if the image retention goes away....?

 

[H2_K]

I started seeing this issue around the same time.

The odd thing is, when it happens there are like 1/16" vertical lines throughout the whole retention image, even when the window that caused the ghost image was white.

Something has gone awry within the OS software me thinks.

I agree 100%, and this is what this discussion should be concentrating on: this isn't image retention caused by the panel itself. Those stripes shouldn't be there if this was normal image retention.

This looks more like a bug in the latest operating system update. Maybe there is something wrong with some firmware regarding some chip, causing the image to burn to the chip responsible for sending the signal to the panel. Maybe some buffer isn't being cleared properly, or something like that?

I had NEVER had a problem this bad before I installed High Sierra. Some IR sure, but this is ridiculous. When I logged out, the web page I was reading was burned to the screen so that anyone would have been able to see what I was reading before I logged out, even though the text was tiny.

I IMMEDIATELY got this issue after installing High Sierra, but most importantly: those stripes shouldn't be there if this was normal IR. IR doesn't work like that.

But if I'm right, the positive side is that I wouldn't be surprised if this was fixed in a later update.

 

[Binarymix]

I agree 100%, and this is what this discussion should be concentrating on: this isn't image retention caused by the panel itself. Those stripes shouldn't be there if this was normal image retention.

This looks more like a bug in the latest operating system update. Maybe there is something wrong with some firmware regarding some chip, causing the image to burn to the chip responsible for sending the signal to the panel. Maybe some buffer isn't being cleared properly, or something like that?

I had NEVER had a problem this bad before I installed High Sierra. Some IR sure, but this is ridiculous. When I logged out, the web page I was reading was burned to the screen so that anyone would have been able to see what I was reading before I logged out, even though the text was tiny.

I IMMEDIATELY got this issue after installing High Sierra, but most importantly: those stripes shouldn't be there if this was normal IR. IR doesn't work like that.

But if I'm right, the positive side is that I wouldn't be surprised if this was fixed in a later update.

The newest betas haven't fixed a thing.

Have you contacted Apple about the issue? I was considering it but the computer is so far out of warranty they'd probably tell me to go pound salt.

I've also noticed my cpu temps are always very high since upgrading to High Sierra, ambient is always around 52 degrees celsius.

 

[tk1337]

Just recently (within the last 3 months), I've noticed this happening on my iMac Retina Late 2014. I've never noticed it before, when I first noticed it, I also noticed it faded pretty fast, finally (just now) I decided to do a quick search to find out if there's known burn-in issues, which leads me to this post.

While I certainly understand the Apple Support bulletin about this, I would have to agree with others, this isn't something I've seen before High Sierra, so I to am curious if this has something to do with the OS, maybe driver changes.

@Binarymix -- to note on your comment about the high CPU temps, I haven't personally noticed idle higher temperatures, but I have noticed higher temperatures under load, this could just be due to the fan getting older or who knows, I have a habit of dusting out the vents on my iMac every month to make sure it's free flowing.

 

[Seramir]

I have the 27" 2013 iMac and have never experienced image retention, even after upgrading to High Sierra. I have ran checkerboard tests for over 30+ minutes. HOWEVER, I get image retention almost instantly (10+ minutes) when I boot into Windows via Boot Camp. It's such a strange phenomenon that I'm assuming Apple must be doing some under cover magic under macOS to hide the issue (refreshing the screen every now and then, maybe?). What's more strange is that there are so people claiming they are getting IR the first time after upgrading to High Sierra, yet I can't get it on mine at all, at least under macOS. Are you guys upgraded to the latest 10.13.4?

For all those who claim they never experienced IR, I suggest you may want to test it under Windows in Boot Camp instead, it may surprise you. It annoyed me so much I stopped using Windows and just deleted the Boot Camp partition.

 

[imageWIS]

Has anyone installed 10.13.4 yet? And if you have, has it fixed your GPU / burn-in issues?

 

[alkar]

I thought too that 10.13 increased image retention on my 2013 iMac, and maybe it did, but to be honest I did notice too on 10.12 before.... Maybe it was not as fast as with high sierra but it was still here.

I doubt that 10.13 has anything to do with image retention, to me it seems a hardware issue. Just downgrade back to 10.12, use it and see after a few days if you are happier.

I actually remember I had hoped that 10.13 would fix IR for me, but it didn't because I think it really is an hardware issue. Even if you reboot instantly to Windows you can still see some IR....

 

[TheBruno]

I had this on my 2012 iMac, and it definitely got worse over time. The best suggestion I can give to you is to activate screen saver or sleep display frequently. I frequently switch between Spaces where my Mail program in full screen 'burns in' when I switch over to Photoshop or Illustrator. I hate it; the effect drives me nuts. Luckily, I just bought a new 2017 iMac, so I'm hoping to enjoy a year or two with limited retention before replacing it.

 

[alkar]

Yes it gets worse and worse over time but I think at a point it cant be any worse than it already is, at least here it got worse, but stopped getting worse : I mean it takes around 5Min to burn in a whole screen, and been like that for a few months now.

I don't think having a screensaver helps at all, after 5min the burn in comes back anyway....

 

[Cool Pup]

I can also add to the people who have had image retention issues on an iMac after updating to High Sierra. It seems like it shouldn't be related, but I had zero problems with it until a month or so after "upgrading" to High Sierra.

It's certainly suspicious, to say the least, and based on a lot of other comments it does make me wonder if there's anything Apple altered under the hood that could prohibit image retention problems.

I plan to upgrade my computer this year anyway, but I am waiting until WWDC before I commit to a new iMac as my Mac is out of warranty with this image persistence issue, but still, something about all of this is odd.

 

[imageWIS]

I can also add to the people who have had image retention issues on an iMac after updating to High Sierra. It seems like it shouldn't be related, but I had zero problems with it until a month or so after "upgrading" to High Sierra.

It's certainly suspicious, to say the least, and based on a lot of other comments it does make me wonder if there's anything Apple altered under the hood that could prohibit image retention problems.

I plan to upgrade my computer this year anyway, but I am waiting until WWDC before I commit to a new iMac as my Mac is out of warranty with this image persistence issue, but still, something about all of this is odd.

I really think it's the Metal 2 graphics software: it's not ready for primetime. It's primarily the only major change from Sierra to High Sierra.

 

[GeneralChang]

Wow, I guess it's nice not to feel alone in this. Late 2013 27-inch iMac over here, having the same issue as everyone else. My two bits to add is that the issue is present only on the built-in display; I've got two other monitors connected that are on all the time displaying similar content, and I never see IR on them.

Like a lot of folks I didn't notice anything until after the update to High Sierra, and I've been seeing it consistently since then. The fact that I'm not seeing any similar symptoms on my two connected displays makes me wonder; if the issue was introduced with the OS update, it almost seems like it would have had to be introduced in an accompanying firmware update to the display controller itself.

On the other hand, I've seen IR on lots of other displays in the past (plasma, CRT, OLED, etc). The fact that the burnt in image doesn't exactly reflect the displayed content, but instead is hashed by lines on the image that are seemingly immune, seems to suggest that this isn't just a panel issue.

 

[videosoul]

UPDATE:

I had my screen replaced under warranty: no more image retention / ghosting!

 

[alkar]

Oh really ! I thought the problem was High Sierra... Some people are really funny.

 

[Evergreen]

I've got another case with a late 2014 5k iMac, display model 0000AE03, 10.12.6, in use since 12/2015 (refurb). I'm comfortable replacing the screen myself, but I don't want to do it if the problem is going to reoccur. Is Amazon a reliable source for a replacement? I can't find them elsewhere.

 

[imageWIS]

Oh really ! I thought the problem was High Sierra... Some people are really funny.

High Sierra DOES have a problem. If people started to have an issue the moment they upgraded, then logically the chances it's the OS are high. Does that exclude the possibility that there are screens with issues that are hardware and not software based? No.

 

[NajamQ]

I have an iMac 5K Late 2014. Bought it in April 2015 and has been using it non-stop on daily basis. That is around 5 to 8 hours.

I do not keep icons on desktop by habit. But keep menubar and dock visible (Black theme for most of the time). Display set to turn off after 15 Min.

So this is April of 2018 and it's been exactly 3 years since this iMac is being used with display brightness fixed at 75% percent as I hate auto-brightness which alters gamma values but that's a separate discussion. So chronologically speaking this Mac came with Yosemite, then subsequently I kept upgrading to newer OS versions. I absolutely love this machine and there has not been a single problem with it ever since I bought it. Beside the recent IP annoyance.

I didn't experience any kind of image persistence; Until last year around Sept (about the same time High Sierra was released); I started to notice it with Menubar which was set as dark and icons as white, so I inverted it i.e. normal white theme and the effect was gone. Later I forgot about it since it wasn't bothering (Or wasn't so apparent) me as I watch some Netflix every now and then so it essentially removes any IP.

However since late March this year, as the ambient temperature increases. Here in Summer it gets around 39C to 40C outside. The issue has returned to the point of annoyance again. It's resolution independent and not affected by scaling modes.

On my iMac 5K the issue is only present around the edges of display. But not at the centre, I got curious and strapped some thermometer stickers at the back of iMac. Surprisingly IR was present at the warmest areas but not around the cooler ones, also the iMac is much thinner at the edges so if aluminium body heats up it would effect the display around edges.

I had free weekend and made a time machine backup and erased the disk. Then I installed MacOS Sierra again. The issue was present in Sierra too; I restored the disk from Time Machine as it didn't gave me the positive on High Sierra + IP hypothesis. However, if I get the next weekend free, I will install Yosemite or El Capitan again for you guys to see if the issue is OS related. Luckily Time Machine is an amazing piece of software, so there is nothing to lose.

So far the age of display has nothing to do with IP as newer machines are getting it too. Using IPS screens for many years and experienced some kind of IP only and only if an image is left for ages on display and that too once in a blue moon occurrence. This issue is documented but not so easily replicable until now on High Sierra. Well not at least in under 5 minutes, which is ridiculous.

 

[NajamQ]

I tested with AC and reducing room temperature, the Image persistence has reduced quite a bit and disappears equally as fast, like in less than 30 seconds. Funny but this issue is heat related somehow.

 

[NajamQ]

It's kind of funny but in my observation the Image Persistence happens a lot quicker when you have one of default wallpapers set. Try it.