A “fuzzy line thing” has been happening to my iMac G5’s display for the last few days, which has resulted in my having trouble booting, crashing screens and more often than not some really funky stuff going on with my display. The sort of thing I remember happening on my ZX Spectrum when I faffed around and randomly poked areas of memory with values I made up.
Essentially the display goes immediately blurry, or just “corrupts” small areas of screens with clusters of dots, or larger areas of pattern. I’ve almost doubled the number of fatal crashes I’ve experienced with Macs in the last few days, and the spinning-beach-ball-of-death is appearing a little too frequently. The whole thing is really quite strange, and it seems as if the machine grinds to a halt. I’ve found that putting the machine to sleep and waking it again can help kick start things, and that it often goes away after a little while of normal working.
Suffice to say, I’ve backed up my computer very recently, and am treating the thing with some suspicion right now. There’s a bit of discussion on Apple Forums which implies this isn’t actually a solitary case, so I’m a little worried my early order might have landed me with a slightly-too-early revision. However, the fact of the matter is I’m running Tiger, which has only just come out, and it could well be something to do with that; and with a new update due out any day now, I’m going to keep my fingers crossed that sorts things out.
Update
There is some discussion about whether Apple should consider recalling the iMac G5 over at tuaw.com
July ‘05: For the record I received my iMac back from Apple a week or so after reporting the problem, and it’s been fine ever since. I still think these are superb pieces of kit, and I highly recommend them as an excellent home computer. In my experience, Apple (well, Scotsys) did a great job in repairing the machine quickly and without hassle. I don’t blame them as such, as Capacitor plague (for that’s the underlying problem) would be hard to detect up front.
June 11th, 2005 at 2:02 pm
Wo! wo! and thrice wo!
After a morning of attempting to boot off of diagnostic disks, running hardware test programs and swapping in and out memory, I’ve not been able to shift the problem. Happens no matter what the boot process, no matter what I try and adjust.
So I’ve just opened a case with Applecare, and after I described my problem it seems that it was a simple case of “it’s a hardware problem”, and they’ve arranged for my computer to be collected early next week.
Now the problem is my backup disk has recently started experiencing problems too. I’m trying a few last ditch solutions, but I might have to reformat the thing to ensure that I make a complete back up of all of my data before it gets taken away by the apple support boys.
All in all, it’s all pretty shit in the computer department up here.
June 13th, 2005 at 1:01 pm
Boo hoo!
My iMac G5 has been taken away by the nice people at Scotsys, who are the Apple support folk on the ground here.
Seems to be almost certainly a motherboard thing, even though the hardware diagnostics showed no problems at all. The diags use - it seems - a stripped down OS9 environment, and don’t use the bits that OS X uses all the time, so the problems don’t manifest themselves in that environment.
So its back to my trusty old powerbook for now, but I’ve made countless backups of my data; Whilst I’ve been told I should get my hard disk back intact, it’s better to be safe rather than sorry.
So here’s hoping it’ll only be a few days whilst the parts are found, delivered, installed and tested.
June 16th, 2005 at 5:39 pm
may ask what date did you purchase your Imac G5?
I have been researching on various websites about the Imac G5 to help me decide whether or not to make a purchase now or later.
There seem to be a lot of post about Imac G5 having problems especially with heat and power supply issues.
But if you ask sales people at Apple they seem not to know of this problem.
thx in advance.
joel
June 17th, 2005 at 3:32 pm
Hi Joel,
Ordered the day after they were announced; received it at the end of September 2004.
I can’t speak for a wider problem, but I’d imagine that the problem I’m seeing is well known to Apple engineers and has been addressed in newer models. There has certainly been an updated revision (model B) since my machine.
I’d suggest that if you’re even slightly worried about this sort of thing, that you take out Apple Care. It’s really not that expensive as a percentage of the cost for the machine, and gives you a huge amount of confidence,.
The iMac G5 is a great system, that fits well on any desk, and performs exceptionally well for most purposes I’ve needed, and I’m not a light user by any stretch. Any alternatives need to be weighed up of course, but I’d suggest that it’s unlikely you’ll find it’s possible to get a completely risk free system: PSU’s always risk failure, and systems can go wrong. That’s why applecare is such a good price option, and hard to find for a comparable price elsewhere, at least in the UK.
hth,
June 17th, 2005 at 4:36 pm
Hello, I read about your G5 trouble, and it sounds like the same problem my computer now has. It was asleep all night, and i moved the mouse to wake it up and discovered that it had these short, fuzz-like horizontal lines in varying colors. It wouldn’t take me to any recognizable screen, so i held down the ‘power’ button. After I restarted it, i saw only a fraction of the original strange horizontal lines. Then a box I’ve never seen came up, telling me I had to restart, by either hitting restart or holding down the power button for a few minutes. Now my computer seems to be working almost without a hitch; the restart resulted in only a very few of those fuzz lines.
What do you think I should do? I will call Apple Care when I wake up again; last night we had a party to celebrate my graduation from college, and I feel some more sleep is in order to fully tackle this problem. Thanks!
June 17th, 2005 at 4:49 pm
It sounds very similar, for sure. If you’ve got Apple Care, I’d certainly give them a call. I found that my system started off with the sort of “ok except for a few lines” behaviour for a few days but rapidly got much worse, culminating in a lot of kernel crashes.
I’d first suggest you dig out the hardware diagnostic CD’s that came with the iMac and give them a run through, just in case. But they’ll probably show no problems if it’s anything like my problem (lot of good, huh!?).
So give them a ring, and describe what’s happening. In my case, a local company handles the issue and the engineer came on-site to have a look and run the diagnostics (again), before taking it back to base. I understand the Logic Board has the problem, and a replacement is currently en route. This fits in with the descriptions you’ll see folk mentioning on the apple support forums (see the link in the original article I wrote).
I certainly think that recovering from a hang-over should be your top priority. I always find a trip to a greasy-spoon cafe for a big fry-up helps work wonders. Oh, and lots of fluids
HTH,
June 24th, 2005 at 2:54 pm
Well, I’ve just heard from Scotsys that my iMac has survived the overnight soak testing, having had a replacement logic board fitted yesterday. Best of all, the engineer who picked the computer up in the first place is currently en route to collect it from me. A service I wasn’t expecting in the slightest!
Fingers crossed for an end to these problems!
June 24th, 2005 at 4:32 pm
All returned, fresh and functioning. Only oddity was they’d blasted my fresh and updated install of Tiger, replacing it with a vanilla 10.4.0 release, and didn’t think to mention this. No matter, a few updates and I’m back where I was.
Fingers crossed that the problem is behind me!
June 27th, 2005 at 8:10 pm
Same exact thing happend to my iMac g5 (purchased Dec 2004) after three months of use. Had the logic board replaced (3 week wait - backordered…hmmm). After several re-boots the problem started to re-occur! Now, its back to the shop for another few weeks, and apple refuses to refund or replace the computer. The iMac g5 is a $1500+ POS in my opinion - two of my friends have experienced hardware failure on this box. It is not ready for prime time.
August 19th, 2005 at 6:24 pm
[...] News today that Apple have extended the iMac G5 warranty following on from the problems many first generation owners (such as myself) have experienced. [...]
January 8th, 2006 at 7:16 pm
hi i seem to be having a similer problem to you guys but mine isnt with a mac its with an atia system but for the past few days my screen seems to get multi coulord lines all over it then some times freez i dont no if any of you can help but ur problems sound similer hope some one can
January 9th, 2006 at 12:44 am
i was surprised to see so many simmilar occurence of that deffect in a mac
baught a 20″ imac g5 lasted 2weeks and the mother f” bord was toast the “nice ” dealer
in victoria bc took 3 weeks to fix with god knows what, got it back yesterday and used it all day and left it on sleep mode during the night .today a new world came to be.i get a picture of the world but it took 1]2 hr to boot and get a screen shot .so what next. by the way this {nice dealer kept all the software that the comuter came with as the remote and the mouse
i’m some pissed customer
this is westworld computers the /mac/ specialist in victoria bc canada
March 29th, 2006 at 11:52 pm
Last few days have had this same thing happening…seems to be getting worse. WIth screen fragmenting worsening and dropping out all together. Very strange usually stablizes after about 30 minutes…but it’s very irratating.
May 9th, 2006 at 12:19 pm
HELP!!!!
I’m having a knightmare with my imac. Having exactly the same problem. Had it since December 2005. It was left on for the first time for a couple of hours and came back and it didn’t work - restarted - got fussy bits on the screen - continued to use - gradually got worse over the course of a day. Now my imac doesn’t work at all!!!
Anyone have any suggestions of what to do? I bought the computer off e-bay with a 2 year Apple Care. Haven’t yet changed details of previous owner! I need to backup, but can’t. Are there any buttons I can press to at least help me backup up. Please help me.
Thanks
July 20th, 2006 at 11:37 am
Yep me too, crappy fuzzy screen on occasion and random screen corruption on Boot to desktop, read all these reports and checked my serial number on Apple.com but my G5 isout of warrentee. After reading http://www.apple.com/support/imac/repairextensionprogram/
its still not covered but I spoke to the Apple support centre and they gave me an apple ref and told me to take it an Apple dealership….finger crossed
July 26th, 2006 at 6:11 am
Ok, bought a new 20 inch g5 iMac last wednesday, last thursday I got a thick band of vertical lines through the screen after leaving the computer on for a few hours, these lines faded after a few more hours of useage. Friday I got a whole heap of vertical lines though the screen as well as a fuzzy after-image of the windows that were open. On Monday morning I took it to an apple-care centre who bench-tested it for 2 days straight and ‘couldn’t seem to replicate the problem’. Am currently trying to get a replacement as its still within 14 days of purchase -will let u know how that goes. Any words of advice with the issue date/revision model of the replacement iMac?? (model B?)
Cheerz
Kt
April 8th, 2007 at 11:50 am
Have just had this fuzzy lines on start-up begin happening. This Imac 20″ G5 was bought on release and has not had any problems until now. Firstly I’m at least partly relieved that it is a known problem and by all accounts can be fixed, but, what is it going to cost me and do I have to back everything up including programs etc? Has anyone had this problem fixed in the UK and know the best people to contact. i assume as i bought direct from Apple but do I take out aftercare first and then report the problem to lessen the cost?
If anyone can advise me I’d be most grateful.
Also How much time do I have to back things up and get this sorted? Will I make things worse the longer I leave it and risk loosing everything?
All the best,
Robb
April 8th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Hi Robb,
I’d certainly suggest you make a backup of your computer in case the problem gets any worse, or if they replace your computer (Although that didn’t happen in my case, and I’ve always got my original computer back).
There are some reasonably priced external hard-disk solutions you can get, and it’s easy to copy your important data over. Some of the hard disks come with software for mac’s too. I’ve got a LaCie disk, which came with SilverKeeper. It’s not the best program out there, but it does the job adequately. If your computer is already a pain to use, and you have another mac, you can back it up by making it a firewire target (hold down option-t on boot up), and you can copy stuff off the hard-disk easily enough.
You might also want to ensure that there’s nothing ’sensitive’ on your computer before you send it off - business or personal. Whilst I’ve not heard of Apple technicians poking about, never say never.
As far as the problem itself is concerned, I think you may be in luck. I read a while back that Apple had extended the warranty for this specific problem. This Register article gives more detail.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/19/apple_imac_warranty
But as time is passing since the release of this model, and I’ve no idea when you bought yours, you’d be as well to get in touch with Apple ASAP.
http://www.apple.com/uk/support/
Even if it’s not covered by the extended warranty, you may find that the repair itself can be done for a reasonable price. No harm in asking, and Apple have always been helpful with me when I’ve spoken to them.
Good luck. And feel free to post a comment letting folk know how you got on.
April 16th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
[...] occasional problems, it’s served me well. But since Apple’s switch over to Intel, and the success of the [...]