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WoW ruined my screen, do iMacs have 2 video or graphics cards or something?

macjonny1 said:
I don't think girls should play WoW.
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What the hell does that have to do with anything? This thread is going fine without your sexist comments, take it elsewhere!

As for the screen issue, I highly doubt WoW is to blame. If the iMac is old though, maybe newer WoW patches might be too much for the computer to handle. If we had the specs to the computer and the version of WoW you are playing it might help.

But do what everyone else says, and take that puppy to the Apple Store =D
 
Iamthinking said:
Nice! But I would hasten to add the the guy at the nearest Applestore is only a notch or two up from BB idiot. What would the terminology be, I wonder? Dolt? UnGenius?
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You've obviously never been to a Genius Bar. Best Buy employees are there to sell you as much garbage as possible, with as many extended warranties as possible. Genius Bar "geniuses" are there to solve computer problems (and they do generally know what they're talking about).
 
Blondie769 said:
This guy told me iMacs come with two of something, I can't remember what it might have been video card or graphics card... something to do with the display of my screen. I believe he said they are built right onto the hard drive. He said somewhere in my settings I can switch to the other default one which might resolve the problem. Anyone know what I'm talking about? And if so anyone know where I can switch?
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I think the op and store clerk may have been referring to the mini display port and the fact you can hook-up a second monitor to iMacs.

Just a guess...
 
op might be talking about image persistence, which is what my system experiences after about 10 of booting up. stuff like text and lines from windows start "burning" into the screen, and remain there for a very long time. i'll eventually be taking it in for repair, or at least to have it looked at by apple techs.
 
I seriously doubt a computer game ruined your screen. Mind snapping a pic of it to show us? (external pic from camera, not screen cap)
 
there are circumstances when a app/game can ruin a display /GPU /CPU , but indirectly , iMac's are all in one computers and cleaning them inside is something that is neglected all to often , so cleaning the inside from time to time from dust , reapplying thermal compound/paste should be a priority, instead of the usual misuse of fan controllers to solve the heat build up caused by dust and dried out thermal compound/paste
 
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awesomebase said:
I think what the guy at the store was referring to was that MacBook Pros have two video cards... a separate video card on a chip and one that is built-in by Intel. He is basically saying to reboot using the other video card.
But this will not work with your situation because iMacs only have the separate video card. The two-video card system is on the portables only because it provides the user with the option to conserve battery life or enable better performance. Either way though, it has nothing to do with your system.
In other words, you'll need to get the system fixed; probably at an Apple Store. If you make an appointment and bring it in, they can at least look at it and confirm what components are damaged and in need of replacement. Not sure if WoW is to blame or not, but any application that uses a disproportionate amount of graphics horsepower to run is going to strain the system. Not excusing it at all (it still shouldn't happen), but that may be what caused the issue.
Hope that you can get it resolved. Take care!
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Thank you for your helpful post. very very helpful. Now i have my answers

and seriously guys... YES wow itself might not have damaged the computer but the over-usage of it over worked the graphics card.. YES wow may have caused overheating which led to damage, YES there may have been other factors yes yes yes.. but this is what I meant by wow ruining my screen. I'm sorry I didn't make a little chart for you and graph all the possible effects wow had to cause this issue but wow is still the root. jesus...
 
Blondie769 said:
Thank you for your helpful post. very very helpful. Now i have my answers

and seriously guys... YES wow itself might not have damaged the computer but the over-usage of it over worked the graphics card.. YES wow may have caused overheating which led to damage, YES there may have been other factors yes yes yes.. but this is what I meant by wow ruining my screen. I'm sorry I didn't make a little chart for you and graph all the possible effects wow had to cause this issue but wow is still the root. jesus...
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Unless you found a way to overclock the video card on a mac you can't over work it. It works at exactly the way it was designed to do. It produces as much heat under load as it was designed to and it dissipates as much as it was designed to.

If it wasn't wow it would have been any game to expose the inherent hardware problem of your computer. Either it's poor design on the part of apple and they didn't factor in the heat under long term gaming(which I doubt) or more likely a hardware failure. Faulty GPU. Faulty fan, faulty, well, just about anything, etc. It happens.
 
archer75 said:
Unless you found a way to overclock the video card on a mac you can't over work it. It works at exactly the way it was designed to do. It produces as much heat under load as it was designed to and it dissipates as much as it was designed to.

If it wasn't wow it would have been any game to expose the inherent hardware problem of your computer. Either it's poor design on the part of apple and they didn't factor in the heat under long term gaming(which I doubt) or more likely a hardware failure. Faulty GPU. Faulty fan, faulty, well, just about anything, etc. It happens.
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It's poor design by Apple. Several iMac models have been prone to these heat related failures, simply because Apple went too thin too fast. I've seen multiple iMacs with these problems.
 
Just to clarify the above. WOW could easily have been the TRIGGER of your crazy screen issues (which sound exactly like a busted GPU to me) if it caused the GPU to overheat.

Now, the GPU shouldn't overheat playing WOW but it was probably defective in some way.

You should not try and get round the problem like the shop person said. Instead send it back to Apple is you still have warranty. Otherwise, you'll probably have to pay for a repair.

Also: check to see if the lines appear if you hook up another monitor - this will show whether it is a display issue or something else like GPU.
 
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