I ordered a brand new souped up iMac 2020 desktop from Apple.com. It arrived on 4/29/21 and it’s bundled with issues.
ISSUES:
SCREEN SHOTS
one screenshot i managed to take of visual artifacting that lasted a moment and then went away. (those pink lines)
The baseball picture with the orange background is the low res icon i'm seeing for my user name when I do a restart. After I've fully booted up and don't perform a restart, but rather a log out, the icon is now high res looking, which is featured above in the baseball picture with the blue background. You can see the difference in quality! this picture was taken with my phone because apple doesnt let you use command shift 3 or command shift 4 on the login window to do a high res capture. Look at the nasty artifacting around the edges of the baseball in the picture with the orange background.
INTERACTIONS WITH APPLE
I first called Apple on May 4th or May 5th about the visual artifacting that is randomly flashing on my computer for a fleeting moment
The first woman I talked to wasnt very knowledgeable. She would try to give me commands to boot in safe mode for instance. When her key commands didnt make sense, I said "how am i supposed to take both hands off of the keyboard to reach behind the computer to press the power button like you’re asking me to? she goes why would you reach behind the computer? I said where else is the power button on an iMac???? Then she was silent for a bit and goes oh sorry I was reading the instructions for a macbook pro not an iMac...." She had me run a diagnostic test on the computer which didn't find anything wrong.
Then I asked to speak with a senior advisor. His name was Jacob and he told me that if I updated from 11.3 to 11.3.1 that it would solve the issue of artifacting flashing across my screen and told me it was a software issue not a hardware issue. I did that. And it didnt solve the problem. So I called back to Apple and another senior advisor basically told me that I either misunderstood or was told incorrect information and that I'm at the mercy of whenever the next software update comes out. Who knows when that'll be. And theres nothing Apple is willing to do to make me whole as customer. I didnt pay close to 8 grand for a computer that flashes visual artifacting on the screen at random times. I'm really unhappy.
So then on Thursday I decide to call Apple again, this time about the freezing issue I keep having. I spoke with someone named Wayne. He had me zap the pram, he had me start a new user account to try and reproduce the freezing issue but I said you'll be here waiting for hours for this thing to freeze again. I did a computer restart with him at that moment. When I did, both user icons on the login screen were really low res looking. Which isnt normal. I downloaded some software that he asked me to, to sniff out for malware, even though I know this isnt the issue, and of course the software couldnt find any malware. He questioned if I purchased the computer from a 3rd party vendor. I told him I bought from Apple.com!!!! He wanted to see what was going on with activity monitor when the freezing happened. I said you can move your mouse around during the freezes but I can't pull up activity monitor until after the freeze and Since I can't reproduce the freezing issue on the spot, let me get back to you when it happens again. He gave me some special email to send him voicemails and to contact him again when the freezing happened and I have that activity monitor info. The freezing happened again at 5/6/21 at 7:53pm and then 8:08pm. I took screenshots of activity monitor at that point. Happened again 5/7/21 at 9:07am. Usually the only thing I use this computer for is video editing, but when the freeze happened on 5/6, I was using the Facetime app on the desktop and wasnt using premiere. So I dont think premiere is the contributor to this freezing. I think it's hardware issue. But again, I ran diagnostics with that woman at Apple the other day and it didnt find anything wrong. Wayne wants me to wipe the computer and reinstall the software from scratch, but this doesn't sound like a software issue to me. This sounds like a hardware issue.
Screen Shot 2021-05-06 at 7.53.12 PM
Screen Shot 2021-05-06 at 7.53.19 PM
EVERYTHING ELSE I’VE DONE / TRIED, AND OTHER DETAILS
-I ran disk utility
-It's not like I'm running tons of applications when this freezing is happening.
-3rd Party Softwares installed: Google Drive, Dropbox, Adobe Creative Cloud (adobe premiere, adobe after effects), Slack, Firefox, RedGiant Application Manager
-This is not a space issue on the computer. I souped up this morning to have 4 TB worth of space on the computer. Right now computer says I have about 3.7 TB free.
Does this sound like a video card issue to you guys? Or something hardware related? Bad ram? I would love people to weigh in and tell me what they think is going on here.
CONTINUATION OF THE ISSUE
5/7/21 9:50pm now Wayne is having me reinstall the operating system. We shut down the computer, and when we booted back up I pressed command R to go into recovery mode. Then chose to reinstall MacOS. During this process the graphics were still low-res looking. I've never seen a mouse get stuck with a black box around it even during recovery mode on any macOs operating system ever. Look at the blue outline around the mouse icon. That's not normal. Nor is it normal to have the password dots be square instead of circular.
After all was said and done and the reinstall of macOS was complete, the login icons still looked terrible. I did a computer restart and it took FOREVER to restart. It gets hung up on this screen and puts a nasty brown tint down the middle of the screen and covers the whole left side of the screen
After it took a very long time to not be hung up on this screen, it restarted. I logged in. Then I was standing a few feet away from the computer, using my laptop while on the phone, and the computer shut down itself. Out of nowhere. the only reason I noticed was because I heard my external hard drive click off.
MAY 8TH
Only one instance of freezing so far today. Hours later I was editing video in premiere and I saw this big pink line in my footage. So I pulled out my iphone to film it, instead of screenshotting it. I put a marker on the exact frame where the pink line was showing up. I asked my freelance coworker in a different state to download the same clip and go to the exact same timecode to tell me if he saw the pink line. While I waited to hear back from him, I continued to edit some video. When this person got back to me, he said he didnt see the same pink anomaly when he downloaded the footage to his computer. So I went back to the clip, and went back to the same clip marker / same timecode and the issue was gone.
I walked into the apple store on the evening of 5/8. Gave them my computer. They told me: for how new it is, it would just be better to return it then us spending the time trying to find the problem. So I said ok wipe it.... As I was sitting there waiting for them to wipe it, they had me on the phone with Apple trying to get my Apple Care refunded. I was on the phone with them for 40 minutes and they said they had a glitch in the system and couldn't refund me. But as I was on hold on the phone, the Apple guys in the store were wiping my computer and the computer literally died on them. They could NOT find a way to turn it back on. The end. Now I get to start all over again from scratch.
Justin with Apple Support told me over the phone on 5/8/21 that there was a system glitch so they couldn't refund me but he would keep up with the case and reach out to me tomorrow. So I walked away with no computer (fully refunded) and a case number to refund my Apple Care. Justin called back on 5/9 and said their system still had a glitch. I didn't hear from him all of Monday 5/10 so I left a message via email. Never heard back. Maybe its his off day? Then I didnt hear from him most of Tuesday 5/11 so I called Apple support and they said they've been giving refunds all day, so the refund system works, but when they enter my serial number into the system, it doesn't come up with anything. So he has to to reach out to his senior engineers to see why. And gave me a case number and a way to reach him and said he should have an answer for me within 5 days. This whole process has been exhausting.
I ordered a new computer online on 5/10/21 I think. I want to mention there is a computer chip shortage right now and a gas shortage of the east coast so that should make this whole process of getting a new computer even slower.
ISSUES:
- Intermittent freezing at least 4 times a day (when it keeps freezing, I'm able to move the mouse but nothing else. If I'm in the middle of playing a timeline in Adobe Premiere, the audio of the timeline keeps playing but everything else is frozen besides the mouse)
- Visual artifacting flashing across the screen for a fleeting moment at random times
- When I restart the computer, and get to the login screen, the apple-provided user icon that I chose to represent myself is really low-res looking. (If I log in, and then log out again, without a restart, the icon is now full resolution looking)
- MacOS Big Sur 11.3.1
- iMac Retina 5k 27-inch 2020
- Processor 3.6 GHz 10-core intel core i9
- Memory 128 GB 2667 MHz DDR4
- Graphics AMD Radeon Pro 5700 XT 16 GB
SCREEN SHOTS
one screenshot i managed to take of visual artifacting that lasted a moment and then went away. (those pink lines)
The baseball picture with the orange background is the low res icon i'm seeing for my user name when I do a restart. After I've fully booted up and don't perform a restart, but rather a log out, the icon is now high res looking, which is featured above in the baseball picture with the blue background. You can see the difference in quality! this picture was taken with my phone because apple doesnt let you use command shift 3 or command shift 4 on the login window to do a high res capture. Look at the nasty artifacting around the edges of the baseball in the picture with the orange background.
INTERACTIONS WITH APPLE
I first called Apple on May 4th or May 5th about the visual artifacting that is randomly flashing on my computer for a fleeting moment
The first woman I talked to wasnt very knowledgeable. She would try to give me commands to boot in safe mode for instance. When her key commands didnt make sense, I said "how am i supposed to take both hands off of the keyboard to reach behind the computer to press the power button like you’re asking me to? she goes why would you reach behind the computer? I said where else is the power button on an iMac???? Then she was silent for a bit and goes oh sorry I was reading the instructions for a macbook pro not an iMac...." She had me run a diagnostic test on the computer which didn't find anything wrong.
Then I asked to speak with a senior advisor. His name was Jacob and he told me that if I updated from 11.3 to 11.3.1 that it would solve the issue of artifacting flashing across my screen and told me it was a software issue not a hardware issue. I did that. And it didnt solve the problem. So I called back to Apple and another senior advisor basically told me that I either misunderstood or was told incorrect information and that I'm at the mercy of whenever the next software update comes out. Who knows when that'll be. And theres nothing Apple is willing to do to make me whole as customer. I didnt pay close to 8 grand for a computer that flashes visual artifacting on the screen at random times. I'm really unhappy.
So then on Thursday I decide to call Apple again, this time about the freezing issue I keep having. I spoke with someone named Wayne. He had me zap the pram, he had me start a new user account to try and reproduce the freezing issue but I said you'll be here waiting for hours for this thing to freeze again. I did a computer restart with him at that moment. When I did, both user icons on the login screen were really low res looking. Which isnt normal. I downloaded some software that he asked me to, to sniff out for malware, even though I know this isnt the issue, and of course the software couldnt find any malware. He questioned if I purchased the computer from a 3rd party vendor. I told him I bought from Apple.com!!!! He wanted to see what was going on with activity monitor when the freezing happened. I said you can move your mouse around during the freezes but I can't pull up activity monitor until after the freeze and Since I can't reproduce the freezing issue on the spot, let me get back to you when it happens again. He gave me some special email to send him voicemails and to contact him again when the freezing happened and I have that activity monitor info. The freezing happened again at 5/6/21 at 7:53pm and then 8:08pm. I took screenshots of activity monitor at that point. Happened again 5/7/21 at 9:07am. Usually the only thing I use this computer for is video editing, but when the freeze happened on 5/6, I was using the Facetime app on the desktop and wasnt using premiere. So I dont think premiere is the contributor to this freezing. I think it's hardware issue. But again, I ran diagnostics with that woman at Apple the other day and it didnt find anything wrong. Wayne wants me to wipe the computer and reinstall the software from scratch, but this doesn't sound like a software issue to me. This sounds like a hardware issue.
Screen Shot 2021-05-06 at 7.53.12 PM
Screen Shot 2021-05-06 at 7.53.19 PM
EVERYTHING ELSE I’VE DONE / TRIED, AND OTHER DETAILS
-I ran disk utility
-It's not like I'm running tons of applications when this freezing is happening.
-3rd Party Softwares installed: Google Drive, Dropbox, Adobe Creative Cloud (adobe premiere, adobe after effects), Slack, Firefox, RedGiant Application Manager
-This is not a space issue on the computer. I souped up this morning to have 4 TB worth of space on the computer. Right now computer says I have about 3.7 TB free.
Does this sound like a video card issue to you guys? Or something hardware related? Bad ram? I would love people to weigh in and tell me what they think is going on here.
CONTINUATION OF THE ISSUE
5/7/21 9:50pm now Wayne is having me reinstall the operating system. We shut down the computer, and when we booted back up I pressed command R to go into recovery mode. Then chose to reinstall MacOS. During this process the graphics were still low-res looking. I've never seen a mouse get stuck with a black box around it even during recovery mode on any macOs operating system ever. Look at the blue outline around the mouse icon. That's not normal. Nor is it normal to have the password dots be square instead of circular.
After all was said and done and the reinstall of macOS was complete, the login icons still looked terrible. I did a computer restart and it took FOREVER to restart. It gets hung up on this screen and puts a nasty brown tint down the middle of the screen and covers the whole left side of the screen
After it took a very long time to not be hung up on this screen, it restarted. I logged in. Then I was standing a few feet away from the computer, using my laptop while on the phone, and the computer shut down itself. Out of nowhere. the only reason I noticed was because I heard my external hard drive click off.
MAY 8TH
Only one instance of freezing so far today. Hours later I was editing video in premiere and I saw this big pink line in my footage. So I pulled out my iphone to film it, instead of screenshotting it. I put a marker on the exact frame where the pink line was showing up. I asked my freelance coworker in a different state to download the same clip and go to the exact same timecode to tell me if he saw the pink line. While I waited to hear back from him, I continued to edit some video. When this person got back to me, he said he didnt see the same pink anomaly when he downloaded the footage to his computer. So I went back to the clip, and went back to the same clip marker / same timecode and the issue was gone.
I walked into the apple store on the evening of 5/8. Gave them my computer. They told me: for how new it is, it would just be better to return it then us spending the time trying to find the problem. So I said ok wipe it.... As I was sitting there waiting for them to wipe it, they had me on the phone with Apple trying to get my Apple Care refunded. I was on the phone with them for 40 minutes and they said they had a glitch in the system and couldn't refund me. But as I was on hold on the phone, the Apple guys in the store were wiping my computer and the computer literally died on them. They could NOT find a way to turn it back on. The end. Now I get to start all over again from scratch.
Justin with Apple Support told me over the phone on 5/8/21 that there was a system glitch so they couldn't refund me but he would keep up with the case and reach out to me tomorrow. So I walked away with no computer (fully refunded) and a case number to refund my Apple Care. Justin called back on 5/9 and said their system still had a glitch. I didn't hear from him all of Monday 5/10 so I left a message via email. Never heard back. Maybe its his off day? Then I didnt hear from him most of Tuesday 5/11 so I called Apple support and they said they've been giving refunds all day, so the refund system works, but when they enter my serial number into the system, it doesn't come up with anything. So he has to to reach out to his senior engineers to see why. And gave me a case number and a way to reach him and said he should have an answer for me within 5 days. This whole process has been exhausting.
I ordered a new computer online on 5/10/21 I think. I want to mention there is a computer chip shortage right now and a gas shortage of the east coast so that should make this whole process of getting a new computer even slower.
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