iMac 5k Screen burn-in (High Sierra)

[talino]

Hi,

I am also interested in knowing what can be done, collectively or not, to force Apple into replacing those screens (I'm in France and I don't know much about applicable laws in cases like these). I have an iMac i7 5K Late 2015, bought in the beginning of 2016 and currently running Mojave, and the issue started appearing around 6 months after Apple Care expired. Screensaver is now set to 5 minutes, which doesn't even help — you leave a white page open in Word by mistake, and two minutes later you get ghosting. This is, imho, outrageous for a near 4000-euros machine. Surely something can be done? If we're still alive when the Corona crisis ends, I mean?

Thanks.

 

[ToddJ]

Has there been any updates to this? the image retention seems to have gotten worse (or it is just more noticeable since I am on my iMac more often now because I'm home more often because of the pandemic

 

[Jadacrook]

I will add to this my retention has gotten much worse recently. Late 2015 5k 4.0ghz.

 

[4r7rzl]

I have 2 iMac , 2013 27" and 2015 27" ,
both iMac had image retention, but changed screen of 2015 27" iMac free under the AppleCareplus recently.

but 2013 iMac still have image retention , I do not think worth it to be changed screen with paying.
funny Thing is it does not have any image retention under Sierra OS.
image retention problem start right after upgrade to high Sierra or above.

 

[megabyte139]

Anyone knows if the 2017 5k model or the newest 2019 5k model both are facing the same Image Retention issue?

 

[762999]

Anyone knows if the 2017 5k model or the newest 2019 5k model both are facing the same Image Retention issue?

not sure but it looks like every generation has it. My 2008 model has it. It was 100% fine when I bought it. It started by light retention and yellowing. It eventually got worse and worse and had visible dark spots after few years. I would assume it's related to excessive heat. I have a new Lenovo 4k monitor and I also have light retention on it. My other older LG 4k doesn't have the issue. I love the iMac but I won't be buying it anymore just for that issue alone. I sold my rMBP 2013 because it was getting old and I wanted to have a decent resale value before Apple mark it as obsolete.

I miss macOS but I don't feel like there is a product that I want right now. The i7 mini is the closest thing but I could get an Amd3900x + xt5700 for the same price.. so still waiting and waiting...

 

[Jadacrook]

Hi mine is getting that bad now (out of warranty) im looking to replace mine. Anyone know of a good replacement in the UK? Which wouldn't suffer the same fate as the original? Late 2015 5k 4ghz i7.

 

[itrends]

Just came here via Google.

2015 iMac 5k - just started noticing screen retention today. Hasn't happened before.

As I type this the right hand side of the screen flashed white for a nanosecond.

It only takes a short while to burn in (minutes).

It is far worse when the screen is brighter or if it's white content on the screen that was then removed.

I run the OS on dark mode and have a dark background.

This is quite disappointing that this has started happening. I'm really sensitive to imperfections like this due to my OCD so it may be time to get a new external monitor literally so I can keep using the machine.

I'm commenting here in case anything happens in terms of a resolution / fix / replacement scheme etc.

 

[peterbaumann]

Just wanted to throw my hat into the ring here too. This has been really annoying me for the past few weeks - as far as I know it hasn't been an issue before. I'm on an 27" iMac 5k (Late 2014) on 10.14.6, 4GHz i7, 32GB RAM, AMD Radeon R9 M290X 2GB.

Started noticing the dock ghosting at the bottom of the screen when I moved it to my other screen, and some websites/programmes are creating ghost elements when the screen is minimised.

 

[talino]

I am cross-posting this from the "iMac late 2015 Screen ghosting" thread, I hope it's OK. This is not the first time Apple ignores defects in their products but this issue has gotten much less publicity that the butterfly keyboard debacle.

I have the exact same problem on the same type of machine. It started appearing around 6 months after my AppleCare expired. Symptoms and cure (screensavers) are identical to what is described above. I'm on 10.14.6.

I have just had an online "chat" with an Apple assistance representative in France. He asked for pictures of the screen, which I provided. He said he had never heard of such a phenomenon, and suggested I reset the NVRAM and PRAM.

Convinced (as I am now) that this had nothing to do with the problem, I pasted a few links to discussions such as this one, or other posts on Reddit, and he replied that "these are only online forums, which are filled with all the world's problems" and that he couldn't access the URLs anyway.

I asked if Apple's technical assistance was unable to read web pages and he said "it depends". I suggested he try to view the links on an iPad or iPhone because it was pretty easy and worked rather well. He said it was impossible. I asked what the procedure was for contacting Apple regarding a widely-publicized hardware problem, and he said that no such service was available. He suggested I try the Apple forums. I replied that these are run by Apple users, not by Apple, and that they are only online forums anyway. He agreed, and apologized that he didn't have a solution that would allow me to share my problem with Apple.

I said: "Yes, unfortunately I am aware that not everyone has access to technology which allows online sharing of information." We didn't go any further.

In the customer satisfaction survey that immediately followed I opined that Apple ceasing to make fun of their customers would be a step in the right direction. This company reminds me of Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove, recounting how the Japanese had tortured him during the war and adding, "Strange thing is they make such bloody good cameras."

 

[dac610]

I did some researching on this topic since my 2012 has been very bad lately. Many signs point to this being Metal(2?) related, Metal 2 being released with High Sierra.

I turned off metal, restarted, and my IR hasn't been nearly as bad, and the 'lines' haven't reappeared thus far.

Here are the terminal commands to disable Metal and see if it helps any:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.CoreDisplay useMetal -boolean no

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.CoreDisplay useIOP -boolean no

Perhaps Metal 2 was stressing the GPU too much in our Macs and causing this problem.

I am pretty sure that image retention is caused by overdriving LCDs. Overdriving is applying overvoltages to LCD cells for extremely short amount of times (that would otherwise destroy the screen if applied for longer periods). Thus, cells turn on / off way quicker than normal, allowing for faster screen refresh.

I am thinking that maybe Metal is overdriving the LCD harder than OpenGL does; also, screen age may play a role here in how much overdrive cells may accept before developing image retention.

Anyways, disabling Metal as @Binarymix did above, completely removes the "fast, striped, IR", with only the "normal, faint IR" now developing after hours of continuous use.

 

[Binarymix]

I am pretty sure that image retention is caused by overdriving LCDs. Overdriving is applying overvoltages to LCD cells for extremely short amount of times (that would otherwise destroy the screen if applied for longer periods). Thus, cells turn on / off way quicker than normal, allowing for faster screen refresh.

I am thinking that maybe Metal is overdriving the LCD harder than OpenGL does; also, screen age may play a role here in how much overdrive cells may accept before developing image retention.

Anyways, disabling Metal as @Binarymix did above, completely removes the "fast, striped, IR", with only the "normal, faint IR" now developing after hours of continuous use.

Yeah. Apple has known about this for a few years now and have not even attempted to fix the issue on older Macs.

I did just upgrade to an external USB SSD drive, and I haven't really noticed it yet with metal enabled though, so perhaps the old HDDs are overheating and causing the problem, along with Metal.

 

[dac610]

Did you had any side effects disabling Metal?

I experience some black boxes appearing for a few seconds randomly over the items in the menu bar. Not too disturbing though, as it happens only a couple of times an hour.

 

[moosed]

Here are the terminal commands to disable Metal and see if it helps any:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.CoreDisplay useMetal -boolean no

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.CoreDisplay useIOP -boolean no

Perhaps Metal 2 was stressing the GPU too much in our Macs and causing this problem.

This has killed my mac and it no longer loads up, luckily i can get into terminal still via the emergency recovery... but i don't know how to undo the 2 codes above.

Can anyone help, its pretty urgent !!

 

[dac610]

Try these two commands:
sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.CoreDisplay useMetal
sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.CoreDisplay useIOP

 

[moosed]

Try these two commands:
sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.CoreDisplay useMetal
sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.CoreDisplay useIOP

Thanks. I had assumed i could log into recovery mode and access terminal that way but it seems my computer won't even display recovery mode... so i can't access terminal to enter these commands

Not sure how to proceed from here with no viable way to input the commands into terminal

 

[moosed]

Actually scrap that i got into Terminal but neither of those commands seem to work

I get the message -bash: sudo: command not found

and if i leave out the sudo bit at the start it says 'Domain (/Library/Preferences/com.apple.CoreDisplay) not found

 

[dac610]

You are trying to apply those commands to the recovery partition.
First change the volume in terminal with:
cd "Macintosh HD"
if that is your boot volume.

Then apply those commands.

 

[moosed]

You are trying to apply those commands to the recovery partition.
First change the volume in terminal with:
cd "Macintosh HD"
if that is your boot volume.

Then apply those commands.

Ah ok, that does make sense. Luckily i managed to log in via safe mode and apply the commands that way.

 

[dac610]

I hope everything works ok now; what mac and macos you tried those commands to?
You really should backup your mac first, before attempting any such commands.
How bad is image retention on your mac?

 

[moosed]

I hope everything works ok now; what mac and macos you tried those commands to?
You really should backup your mac first, before attempting any such commands.
How bad is image retention on your mac?

Retina 5k Late 2014, Catalina 10.15.6

Image retention is very bad and has been getting worse and worse over the past year so much so that just having the terminal window open for 30 seconds and then moving it leaves a very clear image where it last was positioned.

Oddly enough i never got image retention on the original screen that came with it, but i cracked the screen about 2 years ago and had to replace it and this one has developed severe image retention issues.

 

[dac610]

Do you really need Catalina? As far as I know Catalina and Mojave they both require Metal, so probably there is not much to be done beside running screensaver as often and as long as practical.
Try install High Sierra on an external drive, disable Metal and see if this eliminates IR.

I really enjoy my 2012 iMac now, after curing this dreadful issue!

 

[moosed]

Do you really need Catalina? As far as I know Catalina and Mojave they both require Metal, so probably there is not much to be done beside running screensaver as often and as long as practical.
Try install High Sierra on an external drive, disable Metal and see if this eliminates IR.

I really enjoy my 2012 iMac now, after curing this dreadful issue!

Just to confirm, you switched back to High Sierra, disabled Metal and this fixed the IR ? Im not sure i can go back to an OS that old as a lot of my audio software requires newer operating system but at the same time this IR is getting so bad i may actually consider trying it out.

 

[moosed]

One thing i find weird is that if i use a solid black desktop i don't get any visible IR. This is first time i've tried using a black desktop and after 30 minutes of leaving windows in set positions i can't see any IR after moving them. If i do the same test with a scenic photo as my wallpaper then the IR is back to its worse, leaving very obvious IR after just 30 seconds of a finder window being in a set position.

at first i thought the IR is still there i just can't see it because of the black desktop but if i instantly switch to a photo as my wallpaper you'd then expect to see the IR but it's still not visible.

Confused

 

[dac610]

I do not know how Metal works internally; maybe it overdrive cells only under certain conditions.

I personally am happy with High Sierra, as I do not need the newest apps versions; perhaps you can deal with older apps versions as well.

Alternatively, you can buy the latest iMac, which probably do not exhibit this issue.