iMac 5k Screen burn-in (High Sierra)

[Binarymix]

The problem some of us are having isn't normal IR. There are literally lines 1/16" running across the entire screen, and show up on the spots having fast, and bad image retention.

If these lines and bad IR don't come back after turning off metal, one would assume it's happening because of Metal, specifically Metal 2.

 

[NajamQ]

The problem some of us are having isn't normal IR. There are literally lines 1/16" running across the entire screen, and show up on the spots having fast, and bad image retention.

If these lines and bad IR don't come back after turning off metal, one would assume it's happening because of Metal, specifically Metal 2.

You are right but not completely. New iMac 5k units in last few months have developed IR as quickly as three months of usage. And the issue intensified since High Sierra. I am not saying this is OS only issue, but many factors do not add up to prove otherwise. We have yet to identify exact cause of IR and why it happens within few minutes instead of hours.

IR after a few hours is normal.

Do you know how many bugs are there in Sierra? Including randomly changing color profiles when playing videos and performance issues. Head over to this thread and see how bad the OS is overall. https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink?ur...hare_tid=2049327&share_fid=13661&share_type=t

 

[NajamQ]

The problem some of us are having isn't normal IR. There are literally lines 1/16" running across the entire screen, and show up on the spots having fast, and bad image retention.

If these lines and bad IR don't come back after turning off metal, one would assume it's happening because of Metal, specifically Metal 2.

I think Metal 2 will be released alongside 10.14 Mojave.

It may be causing quick IR as both Yosemite and El Capitan didn't support it.

Please do test and update us, it may be a breakthrough and worth a workaround by disabling Metal.

 

[Binarymix]

You are right but not completely. New iMac 5k units in last few months have developed IR as quickly as three months of usage. And the issue intensified since High Sierra. I am not saying this is OS only issue, but many factors do not add up to prove otherwise. We have yet to identify exact cause of IR and why it happens within few minutes instead of hours.

IR after a few hours is normal.

Do you know how many bugs are there in Sierra? Including randomly changing color profiles when playing videos and performance issues. Head over to this thread and see how bad the OS is overall. https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink?ur...hare_tid=2049327&share_fid=13661&share_type=t

The 5k Macs might have a hardware issues, I'm specifically trying to help those who are having this IR and vertical line problem, as that does seem software related.
[doublepost=1528298135][/doublepost]

The 5k Macs might have a hardware issues, I'm specifically trying to help those who are having this IR and vertical line problem, as that does seem software related.

Well, after disabling metal about 4 days ago, I haven't noticed the problem again. Where as before disabling Metal, I'd have the IR and lines within say 5 minutes of browsing facebook.

Oh, and you have to give it a little time, because after restarting the IR was still present (I thought nothing had worked), but after that faded (a few hours) I haven't had anything since.

 

[NajamQ]

The 5k Macs might have a hardware issues, I'm specifically trying to help those who are having this IR and vertical line problem, as that does seem software related.
[doublepost=1528298135][/doublepost]

Well, after disabling metal about 4 days ago, I haven't noticed the problem again. Where as before disabling Metal, I'd have the IR and lines within say 5 minutes of browsing facebook.

Oh, and you have to give it a little time, because after restarting the IR was still present (I thought nothing had worked), but after that faded (a few hours) I haven't had anything since.

I meant to quote the other person who was facepalming. Anyways I'll disable Metal on my iMac 5K to see if it helps. Worth a try.

 

[Binarymix]

I meant to quote the other person who was facepalming. Anyways I'll disable Metal on my iMac 5K to see if it helps. Worth a try.

If it is Metal causing this, It must be overtaxing the GPU.

We should get as many people to try this as possible, and if it's helping Apple needs to know about it.

 

[NajamQ]

I have stumbled across another thread on apple discussion forums where this OS bug is discussed. One user in particular reported that downgrading to El Capitan effectively removed the fast IR bug, at least not as fast as it is on High Sierra.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8092630

We cannot ignore the fact that almost new iMacs as well as many older non-retina iMacs, which never developed the fast IR behaviour, suddenly started to get fast IR under High Sierra. Which means most iMacs from 2012 up-to 2017 suffered from fast IR when upgraded to High Sierra. This excludes the possibility that it's related to the age of display.

Following Apple's advice on setting a screensaver and letting it run for the same amount of time as it took for IR to develop makes my theory may seem plausible. Most people work on their iMacs so they spend a lot of time viewing static images (Stocks, Photoshop etc, social media apps at fixed locations etc). May be we are not giving the display enough time to recover from IR and we assume it's removed when it disappears "Visually". While in reality the pixels need a lot more time to be responsive again.

An interesting observation is the IR happens with objects which are layered, meaning the wallpaper doesn't cause IR but an icon or window will do. Something is going on at OS level we have yet to figure out, which is causing the display to behave like that.

I tested the display behaviour using various parameters.

1. Set the flurry screensaver to run for 5 minutes
Result: Instant IR after only 3 to 5 minutes.

2. Set the flurry screensaver to run for 15 minutes.
Result: IR after 7-10 minutes.

3. Set the flurry screensaver to run for an hour
Result: Considerably reduced IR development and much slower appearance of ghosting.

But once it's developed, the behaviour returns back to under 5 minutes. So pixels are getting stuck.

You can try watching a fullscreen 16:9 movie which is mostly about 2 hours and check what happens, or flurry screensaver (but you'll have to set display sleep time to more than an hour or so). Both will remove any residual IR but you need to record how the display behaves after that. May be let the flurry screensaver run for a full day if the residual stuck pixels get normal again. I personally think we are not giving the moving images enough time to cure the "slow" pixels completely.

On a side note, I have just downloaded El Capitan installer and backed up the Time Machine. I'll reinstall the old OS tonight or tomorrow to see if it has any effect on IR behaviour.

Another great solution is to buy an App called Magic Window, it has timelapse live wallpapers, and use it for few days. Meaning you can set the Dock and menubar to autohide and minimise the open windows when leaving, the pixels will always be moving so curing IR in the process, but it costs $7.99 if that's your cup of tea. Looks great though.

 

[wim.v]

I bought an iMac late 2013 when it came out. It had image ghosting straight away in the first week of using the machine. Back in the days I read a lot about the issue and knew (almost) all LG panels were exeriencing this problem.
I never send in my iMac for repair because I knew the problem would not be solved.

1,5 year back I bought a Macbook Pro and have no issues with the screen. Last year I bought an LG Ultrafine 5K display and the image ghosting is even worse on this one. Pure garbage.

I hope one day the problem will be solved by Apple and that's the day I will upgrade to a new iMac, not a day sooner.

 

[filmak]

I bought an iMac late 2013 when it came out. It had image ghosting straight away in the first week of using the machine. Back in the days I read a lot about the issue and knew (almost) all LG panels were exeriencing this problem.
I never send in my iMac for repair because I knew the problem would not be solved.

1,5 year back I bought a Macbook Pro and have no issues with the screen. Last year I bought an LG Ultrafine 5K display and the image ghosting is even worse on this one. Pure garbage.

I hope one day the problem will be solved by Apple and that's the day I will upgrade to a new iMac, not a day sooner.

Agreed. This is definitely a problem with LG's panels, no need to search for other possible causes...
Is it helpful to use low brightness, from your experience?

 

[NajamQ]

Agreed. This is definitely a problem with LG's panels, no need to search for other possible causes...
Is it helpful to use low brightness, from your experience?

Brightness has no effect on it.

 

[Binarymix]

Brightness has no effect on it.

Did you disable metal?

I haven't had the problem since I executed the commands to disable metal. I've stress tested using the computer for hours, and still no serious IR other than the normal faint IR you'd get from the menubar or static window.

Before as I said, within 5 minutes of looking at a webpage I'd have the vertical banding and IR, plus the text on the menubar and icons on the desktop also were subject to IR. All of this is gone now.

 

[Cool Pup]

My 2017 iMac is showing image retention, the usual browser window bar. I got a few months ago.

This is definitely a problem with OS, that or I got really unlucky with the screen again. I feel really devastated by this and I'm unsure what angle to approach with how to advance with any solutions.

I do have AppleCare, but I'll run the screensaver over the day and see what happens. I'm not wanting to live my computing life by way of image retention, though. Has anybody gone through AppleCare for this problem and can they share experiences?

Regardless, Mojave can't come fast enough.

 

[NajamQ]

Did you disable metal?

I haven't had the problem since I executed the commands to disable metal. I've stress tested using the computer for hours, and still no serious IR other than the normal faint IR you'd get from the menubar or static window.

Before as I said, within 5 minutes of looking at a webpage I'd have the vertical banding and IR, plus the text on the menubar and icons on the desktop also were subject to IR. All of this is gone now.

Yes I tried it. Still got faint ghosting which goes away after a few minutes. It's like a faint after image. But funny thing is, wallpaper doesn't cause it, anything drawn by finder e.g. windows, icons, menubar, dock are causing ghosting.

Yesterday I tried to install El Capitan but wasn't able to, somehow El Capitan installer can't erase a drive formatted by High Sierra Installer. I have restored the Time Machine backup for now. Will try it again after doing some homework on it.

 

[filmak]

Yes I tried it. Still got faint ghosting which goes away after a few minutes. It's like a faint after image. But funny thing is, wallpaper doesn't cause it, anything drawn by finder e.g. windows, icons, menubar, dock are causing ghosting.

Yesterday I tried to install El Capitan but wasn't able to, somehow El Capitan installer can't erase a drive formatted by High Sierra Installer. I have restored the Time Machine backup for now. Will try it again after doing some homework on it.

Install it on an external one formatted as HPFS+.

 

[NajamQ]

Install it on an external one formatted as HPFS+.

Good idea. I'll update with results.

 

[filmak]

Good idea. I'll update with results.

Let's see what happens...

 

[NajamQ]

Let's see what happens...

Still not able to install El Capitan. Tried to install it on external drive but it doesn't install, just progress says 0 seconds remaining and when restart, there is nothing written on external drive.

 

[rworne]

I ran into the exact same problem with my iMac. No problems for several years and immediately after High Sierra I got image retention problems. It may very well be a coincidence. I tried Apple's suggest fix which is to set a white background as a screen saver and let it run for a while, which did fix the issue. However, within 15 minutes it happened again. And the image retention is not a problem of leaving a static desktop up for a while, as it happened in a couple of minutes. I had the screen saver set to 2 minutes still, so it happened as I was actively using the machine. I really hope this is not something that's going to be an ongoing problem. My iMac is only 3 years old, but out of warranty.

Funny I run across this thread. I thought I found a bug in OS X when I found this when I woke up the computer.

Can plainly see Safari with Youtube and iTunes. This is on a late 2013 27" iMac. I wake it from sleep all the time, and this is the first time I saw it. Since it survived a power cycle, it has to be image retention.

Backlight is at approx. 20-25% with a 15 minute timeout to black out the screen.

 

[NajamQ]

Funny I run across this thread. I thought I found a bug in OS X when I found this when I woke up the computer.

Can plainly see Safari with Youtube and iTunes. This is on a late 2013 27" iMac. I wake it from sleep all the time, and this is the first time I saw it. Since it survived a power cycle, it has to be image retention.

Backlight is at approx. 20-25% with a 15 minute timeout to black out the screen.

Even if the panels are made by LG. They are being driven by Apple's custom timing controller, which is being handled by Apple's custom drivers. High Sierra definitely changed something to trigger the fast IR.

 

[NajamQ]

I noticed it appears more and more fast as I use the iMac on daily basis. So you can imagine daily work being done on screen for most of the day for weeks or months. Let's assume 8 hours of a typical usage day. This is why almost newer iMacs are getting IR in first few months, because iMacs are basically work stations, displaying static images for most of the time. Menu bar and Dock are the real devils here, maximising a window doesn't maximise it past Dock, so that bottom edge is mostly static, menubar is always there,so the top edge is also static. If you do not move your windows much and almost always have fixed windows at certain locations, that is also static. Imagine doing that for days. Most of us assume if they leave the display on while not using it, it will develop IR, but it's developing IR while you are using it.

The flurry screen saver effectively removes the IR, visually in first few minutes, but it requires much longer to actually removes the hidden IR. Yes, we are experiencing fast IR because it's happening on top of old one.

Here are few tips to reduce of IR happening as much as possible.

1. Set a hotspot at a corner of display so whenever you leave the desk just throw the pointer at that corner to let the screen saver run instantly, instead of leaving a static window for 5 minutes before screensaver kicks in, as in that time another IR has already happened, and in next 5 to 10 minutes the newer IR is removed but older one remains, causing the display to enter into a vicious circle of IRs.

2. If you are leaving the iMac for longer periods of time, shut it down and disconnect the power.

3. The worst areas on my iMac are top edge and bottom centre where dock sits. Right edge, where mostly icons for external drives or DMGs are present. Autohide the menu bar and dock and use as much of screen as possible while moving windows every now and then. If you can't autohide dock or don't want to, turn on magnification so it moves the pixels as much as possible.

4. If your whole display is experiencing iMac, run Flurry screensaver overnight and see if you have an improvement in performance.

Using these simple daily habits, I am now seeing a gradual increase in time it take for IR to happen. Still It's not clear why it started to happen really fast since High Sierra. Although there is a hope, in El Capitan there was a bug, if you opened or previewed any 7K or 8K or above resolution image, it resulted in instant kernel panic. Apple never acknowledged the issue, until one of updates fixed it. So let's hope it's fixed in one of future updates.

 

[Binarymix]

Just an update: Mojave did not fix the problem, and disabling IOP works, but now leaves some undesired UI glitches in Mojave.

I filed a developers bug report, and Apple says their engineers are looking into this occurrence (I sent diagnostics, and pictures)

Let's hope they figure out what is causing the Quick IR, and other odd glitches.

Here are the issues my 2012 iMac is having:

 

[294307]

I do have AppleCare, but I'll run the screensaver over the day and see what happens. I'm not wanting to live my computing life by way of image retention, though. Has anybody gone through AppleCare for this problem and can they share experiences?

Yes and I got the display replaced but the issue returned after about four months. After the second display started developing the same problem, I made a consumer law claim (I live in the EU) for a replacement iMac and I now have a 2017 model. I've had the iMac for over a year and I've not experienced any image retention yet and I'm hoping I never do!

I would caution people from believing it's purely a software issue: IPS technology is prone to developing image retention and iMac systems are not the only consumer hardware affected by this. Software can only help to reduce the impact of it using screensavers, etc.

It might be more noticeable under Mojave if you have the dark UI enabled.

 

[_Kiki_]

the problem occurred on iMac 5k after about 18 months of usage, same problem occurred in my desktop LG monitor after about 6 months of usage, so maybe it's a problem with LG LCD were they used also in iMacs

 

[tatty27]

My 2014 5K started doing this about 12 months ago and is progressively getting worse. I can live with it for the time seeing as I am considering replacing the iMac next year anyway. Do we know the manufacturer of the current iMac models?

 

[videosoul]

I had the screen of my iMac replaced under AppleCare warranty (just before it expired), and this solved the problem!

Apple told me it was a hardware issue, not software, and my understanding of this issue from what I've read confirms this is correct.