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im not sure why u are so anti refurb lol

the aluminum MB that i bought before my MBP was flawless, and perfect... hope not to burst any bubbles :p

my 21.5" should be here Tuesday. I'll let you know whats wrong with it since you've been so nice in telling everyone that there will be something wrong with theirs... so much for being nice and wishing them good luck negative nancy!:rolleyes:
 
I have had 6 21.5" imacs (different weeks) and all of them had the yellow tinge problem.

I have seen 3 more and also were affected.


This problem affect to the majority of the units (I will not say to the totality), and not only 27".


I am waiting for the replacing of the screen when a solution is found.
 
iMac 21.5 NVidia
Week 45 Yellow Tinge & Flicker
Week 51 Yellow Tinge, Loud Grumbly Hard Drive when Surfing Net, No Flicker
 
Stop it all you haters! Just stop...
I am enjoying my brand new 21.5 iMac (with a perfectly UN-yellow screen)
so please let me be...:eek:
 
iMac 21.5 NVidia
Week 45 Yellow Tinge & Flicker
Week 51 Yellow Tinge, Loud Grumbly Hard Drive when Surfing Net, No Flicker

This is my third iMac 21.5

The first was basic with NVidia.... yellow tinged screen and an extremely noisy super drive

My second was a 21.5 with the ATI radeon and 1TB hard drive... it too had the yellow tinged screen and a noisy hard drive and the whistling sound

After dealing over the phone with a senior product specialist, I decided to purchase at the Apple Store (thinking that I might get better results)...... Guess what, the screen on this third iMac (week 53) has the yellow tinge. I was reluctant in purchasing at the Apple STORE and almost changed my mind at the very last minute. Now, I regret my decision.

I will be calling my (Senior Product Specialist) and hopefully, the "Genius" at the Apple Store will be able to see the yellow in my yellow tinged screen.

I have installed windows 7 on our Toshiba window infested laptop this weekend and must admit that it is starting to look pretty good to me....
 
dont worry about it

if u go buy a new 21.5" iMac u may have problems....but i DID NOT. i bought a week 4 from the apple store in Kansas City and i have NO problems at all. runs like a champ. no yellow screen. no hard drive noise....
 
Screen replacements

I'm on the list of 21.5 owners who have an open customer service case with Apple regarding the yellowing tinge.

Has anyone who is in the same boat gotten that call that the 27" owners are writing about. They just started telling them to bring the computer to the store for a screen replacement fix.

Since I haven't heard anything from Apple yet, I'll be calling them tomorrow, but I'm curious as I haven't seen 21.5 owners posting about the fix.
 
I'm on the list of 21.5 owners who have an open customer service case with Apple regarding the yellowing tinge.

I am also on the same list. Don't waite for them to call.... pick up the phone and give them a call. Post the results.

I will be calling them on wednesday.
 
Given screen-yellowing concerns, and with the overall picture in mind (no pun intended), please help me decide whether I should buy a refurbished 21.5" iMac (w/3.06ghz 1tb ATI 4670 graphics card) instead of a 2009 24" iMac (w/3.06ghz 1tb and GT 130 graphics card)? Use will be primarily document research and writing, movie/video entertainment, with some photo editing and perhaps movie/video editing down the road. I should make the purchase sometime this week.

Thank you for your shared experience, insights, and suggestions.
 
They let me walk out of the Tyson's Corner store with a week 50 21.5" iMac, of course it had the yellow corner.

I thought the yellow screen applied only to the 27".

Now I have to decided whether I return it for a refund (and wait a few months for Apple to figure this one out) or roll the dice and get a replacement iMac.
 
They let me walk out of the Tyson's Corner store with a week 50 21.5" iMac, of course it had the yellow corner.

I thought the yellow screen applied only to the 27".

Now I have to decided whether I return it for a refund (and wait a few months for Apple to figure this one out) or roll the dice and get a replacement iMac.

Actually, it's never ONLY applied to the 27". It's been well documented as one of the most common problems with the 21.5. There are websites for documenting this issue, and it goes back to the early units. Even the first press reports noted the 21.5 yellowing problem. However, probably because the 27" had other issues with flickering as well, there were a few recent articles that neglected to mention the 21.5.
 
so my week 3 doesnt have the yellowing but i do have the low brightness flickering. i was wondering would you guys take it in for a replacement if it only has the flickering. also this only occurs when the brightness is almost at the bottom or 2-3 bars. i usually have the brightness set pretty high so i dont notice it. oh yeah this is also a refurb and i would be able to get a new one from my local store since its a base 21.5in.
 
I wen't through 3 21.5's. Well, the "second" was an unsuccessful attempt by the Apple Store at "fixing" my first bad screen (was actually worse). A couple of points to understand:

-My first 21.5 was a refurb. This is a salient point; Apple refused to exchange it for a new machine unless I paid the difference. I understand their point, but hopefully people realize that if they walk into the Apple Store with their refurb and expect an even exchange for a brand new iMac, it isn't likely to happen.

-I paid the difference and got a new iMac; it is better than the first two but it still has a noticeable issue on the bottom third of the display. I called Apple and opened a case so that there would be a history, and I need to call them back and see where things stand. I hope to do that today.

It is an interesting, if not aggravating, experience for me. How Apple chooses to deal with these problems will largely determine if I'll buy another Mac. I've decided to trust them this time; we shall see if my faith pays off. They appear to be doing the right thing for 27" owners.

Keeping my fingers crossed...
 
I wen't through 3 21.5's. Well, the "second" was an unsuccessful attempt by the Apple Store at "fixing" my first bad screen (was actually worse). A couple of points to understand:

-My first 21.5 was a refurb. This is a salient point; Apple refused to exchange it for a new machine unless I paid the difference. I understand their point, but hopefully people realize that if they walk into the Apple Store with their refurb and expect an even exchange for a brand new iMac, it isn't likely to happen.

-I paid the difference and got a new iMac; it is better than the first two but it still has a noticeable issue on the bottom third of the display. I called Apple and opened a case so that there would be a history, and I need to call them back and see where things stand. I hope to do that today.

It is an interesting, if not aggravating, experience for me. How Apple chooses to deal with these problems will largely determine if I'll buy another Mac. I've decided to trust them this time; we shall see if my faith pays off. They appear to be doing the right thing for 27" owners.

Keeping my fingers crossed...

My replacement for my original 21.5 refurb was a brand new machine.
 
I returned my week 50 21.5" iMac to the Apple Store because of the yellow corner. They were good about and gave me full refund 'because I was not happy with the computer'.

When I asked them if they had had more returns because of the yellow screens, they looked at me if I was from Mars...

I'll try again in a few weeks if the screens get better.
 
if u go buy a new 21.5" iMac u may have problems....but i DID NOT. i bought a week 4 from the apple store in Kansas City and i have NO problems at all. runs like a champ. no yellow screen. no hard drive noise....

Stop it all you haters! Just stop...
I am enjoying my brand new 21.5 iMac (with a perfectly UN-yellow screen)
so please let me be...:eek:

Ours is great as well. Of course I haven't made any effort to look for yellowing or turned off all the other equipment to see if the HD was loud. It's my wife's Mac and if she hasn't complained about anything, it must be perfect!

Cheers,
 
Black spots problem

I too had a yellow tinted screen on my week 47 iMac(21.5). But the major problem that plagued my display were the black spots. I have made a post in the 27" black spots thread that you can check here.

Posting here to document it as a 21.5" problem and let others know it does exist, no matter how uncommon it is.
 
I returned my week 50 21.5" iMac to the Apple Store because of the yellow corner. They were good about and gave me full refund 'because I was not happy with the computer'.

When I asked them if they had had more returns because of the yellow screens, they looked at me if I was from Mars...

I'll try again in a few weeks if the screens get better.

I am on my third yellow tinged iMac. I was on the phone with an Apple senior product specialist who offered to have the screen replaced... he went on to say that I could also get a full refund.

I am returning the iMac to the Apple store for a full refund.

I have waited 12 years to finally purchase my first Mac.... I can wait another three to six months.
 
Well, I was at the Apple Store yesterday to get a full refund for my number three yellow tinged iMac. Instead of taking the full refund I opted to give it another shot. I exchanged it for a week 5 21.5 iMac. (I know I know.... I said I could wait another three to six months but I really need my MacApple)

Sooooooooooooooooo when I got home and fired up my brand new week 5 iMac I see that the screen is still yellow tinged in the bottom and the hard drive is noisy.

So I put everything back in the Box and the Apple Store opens at noon today.
This time I am going back with my Apple Anonymous Sponsor and he will make sure I take the money.
 
Update: I picked up Imac number 3 this weekend (4th screen in total) and this one appears to be clean. I don't have the build date info in front of me but I will post that as well. I'm going to let it settle in a for at least a few more days before I pass final judgement, but it appears to be a good machine from every perspective. Note that the screen is not perfect, but the yellowing on this one seems extrememly limited to the point where there are no real discernable "areas" that draw my attention to them. The last one that went back was disticntly yellowed on the bottom 20% of the display (my first two screens were absolutely miserable). The new one currently shows very little, if any, yellow tinge unless you run the test pattern and even then it seems negligible.

I will commend Apple tech support on this. I had opened a case a little while back just so that there was a history on it, and told them I would wait until a resolution was found. When I called to check status, I was immediately passed to a higher level engineer who asked a lot of questions and said that they wanted the machine back in their possession for testing (but it was ultimately my choice...). I had puchased it the week before Christmas, and he still really wanted me to exchange it for a new machine, which he facillitated through my local Apple Store. The engineer was extrememly helpful, very focused on my user experience, and at times, applogetic (after he ran through all of my cases from every iMac.screen I went through over the last couple months...).

Note that at no point did he admit outright that there was a known problem; only that my experience was unacceptable in Apple's eyes and that their only concern was making me a happy customer. This is important, because I haven't seen any evidence that Apple has officialy acknowledged a specific issue. That's a little disappointing, because you could tell by the questions he asked and the tone of his voice that this is not new to them - they have seen it before. Still, it was top notch support (as it has always been whenever I call) and I was generally impressed with how things were handled.

As mentioned, I don't feel like I'm out of the woods yet; I still want to give this new iMac a few more days of typical use before I pass judgement, but as long as nothing crops up, life should be good. The machine has been a bit of a disappointment, but Apple Support has been excellent.

As an asside, Time Machine actually works really well. I had my old machine config back in about an hour, and there was a LOT of stuff on there. Had to reinstall iTunes by hand for some odd reason, but that was trivial.
 
Hey everyone.

Same problem with me. 2nd iMac (21.5 Geforce) with yellow tints, now the second one is even worse than the first one. Around 40% of screen is "infected" with yellow tints, clearly visible without doing any kind of test.

The worst thing is that both of them were manufactured in february.

How come Apple not willing to admit that there are MANY problems with their 21.5, 27 iMac series. There should be an investigation to find out what causes the problem.

Maybe i choose the wrong time switching to MAC... :mad:
 
Here's my story which I posted on the apple support forums:

I've been a long time user of Macs - I've pretty much never owned a PC since my father started toying around with an Apple IIe in the mid 1980s. Since then, we've probably gone through nearly 20 different models, starting with the Mac SE all the way to a newer Macbook Pro

I'm not a fan boy - I've only ever used Macs because it's the only system I've ever known.

However, the state of the refurb 21.5 iMac I got from Apple the other day is simply unacceptable. Take a look at these shots:

http://img693.imageshack.us/img693/6420/p1040995c.jpg
http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/4750/p1040995s.jpg
http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/8010/p1050004.jpg


I decided it was finally time to upgrade to an Intel Mac desktop and replace the G5 I've been working on for the last 8 years - however, my crappy 17-inch ADC monitor makes the new iMac look shameful. 8 years and the colours are as bright as ever, while this state-of-the-art display looks like someone's been smoking inside it.

Anyways, for those who think Apple is "testing" its refurb units to the fullest extent, think again. They're probably offloading the affected units via their refurb store.
 
Also, just to update what happened - I ended up calling Apple support who were, as usual, very friendly and helpful. My case went up to a 'senior advisor' who seemed very concerned about identifying which batch the refurbed iMac was originally a part of.

However, my whole complaint was shouldn't a yellow tinge THIS bad have been identified during the rigorous testing process they claim is a part of every refurb prep?

They set me up for a replacement and I lugged the iMac to my UPS store this morning. However, I'm now seriously considering calling them and asking for a refund instead given the horror stories I've read here and elsewhere. I'm 99% sure the next one will have a yellow tinged screen and I'm not sure I want to go through the [unpack, test screen, wait, test some more, call, call again, rebox, wait for shipping labels, lug over to UPS] process again.
 
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