iMac Screen Lines

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I have a 6 yr old iMac. Lately the screen has be developing vertical lines of various colors. It currently has eight of these lines in yellow, aqua, & pink at random spots across the screen. Is there a way to get rid of these lines?
 
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Hi and welcome to the forums.

Thats a classic case of the graphics card going in the iMac, and you cant replace the graphics card as its soldered to the motherboard, and if you decided to get it done professionally then you would be paying in parts and labour the cost of a new machine.
Backup asap and save for a new machine :)

Cheers

EDIT : I would certainly give Apple a call though as there was a bit of a problem back then with failing Graphics cards. They might fix it for you, then again they might not, but its worth a try
 
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Still Back Up your data.. Even if Apple wants to fix it, chances are it will come back with a reformatted hard drive and OS reinstalled.
 

chscag

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Still Back Up your data.. Even if Apple wants to fix it, chances are it will come back with a reformatted hard drive and OS reinstalled.

What are you talking about? You honestly think Apple is going to repair a 6 year old iMac that has a defective GPU for free? And what's this about a reformatted hard drive and reinstalled OS? Quit spreading FUD.
 
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The iMac that suffered most from coloured vertical lines, often developing into into much wider bands was the Late 2006 17". This was due to LCD failure, for which there was a repair extension program. This program ended some time ago, so is no longer current. I've had customers, knowing this, who have called apple to see if they can get a cs code to cover the repair, none have, as the program finished too far back.

The hard facts are that Apple no longer holds spares for iMac's of this age, so will not entertain looking at it. The iMac has, sadly, come to the end of it's life. You can add an external display to verify this, and set it to mirror the LCD to continue using the iMac if the external displays normally.

If your iMac isn't the one I've referenced, adding an external display will confirm whether the logic board or LCD is at fault. iMac's from this era had the GPU integrated into the logic board.
 
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The iMac that suffered most from coloured vertical lines, often developing into into much wider bands was the Late 2006 17". This was due to LCD failure, for which there was a repair extension program. This program ended some time ago, so is no longer current. I've had customers, knowing this, who have called apple to see if they can get a cs code to cover the repair, none have, as the program finished too far back.

Thanks for that explanation Steve. I knew somewhere back then they had a program running and wasnt sure if it was still going hence saying give Apple a call. Im more informed now and will have the hard facts for nest time.

Cheers
 
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I have a 6 yr old iMac. Lately the screen has be developing vertical lines of various colors. It currently has eight of these lines in yellow, aqua, & pink at random spots across the screen. Is there a way to get rid of these lines?

Thanks for the info. I'm on my way to the Apple Store. The new one will be a nice Christmas present for us.
 
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What are you talking about? You honestly think Apple is going to repair a 6 year old iMac that has a defective GPU for free? And what's this about a reformatted hard drive and reinstalled OS? Quit spreading FUD.

First off, chill your beans. No one said anything about FREE. Second its common for most manufactures to restore a systems hard drive back to factory settings when you send them in for any repair, free or paid.. THUS I was only reiterating its ALWAYS a good idea to back up ones data.. Jumping my *** as you have is very rude and unwarranted. Esp for STAFF :Angry-Tongue:
 

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Second its common for most manufactures to restore a systems hard drive back to factory settings when you send them in for any repair, free or paid..

This is not true when dealing with Apple. It may be true for manufacturers other than Apple…but Apple does not do this. What they do is warn you when you drop your computer off for repair is to make sure everything on the HD was backed up…just in case something should happen.

But it is DEFINITELY not Apple's policy to automatically restore an HD back to factory settings on computers sent in for repair.

- Nick
 
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This is not true when dealing with Apple. It may be true for manufacturers other than Apple…but Apple does not do this. What they do is warn you when you drop your computer off for repair is to make sure everything on the HD was backed up…just in case something should happen.

But it is DEFINITELY not Apple's policy to automatically restore an HD back to factory settings on computers sent in for repair.

- Nick

Thats good info to know. Glad to see Apple has better customer service then say Dell, HP, etc.. etc.. that always seem to do this. Then again OSX is not Windows.. :)
BTW thank you on being informative on your post.

-Joe
 

chscag

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First off, chill your beans. No one said anything about FREE. Second its common for most manufactures to restore a systems hard drive back to factory settings when you send them in for any repair, free or paid.. THUS I was only reiterating its ALWAYS a good idea to back up ones data.. Jumping my *** as you have is very rude and unwarranted. Esp for STAFF :Angry-Tongue:

How about cooling your heels? You spread FUD and were called out for it. If you can't respond responsibly, then don't respond. You very definitely made a remark about what Apple was going to do that wasn't true. You made assumptions that are not based on facts. And as Nick pointed out to you, that is not Apple's policy.

Anyway, this is ended. (And read our guidelines about language or masked language. You can read through them in my sig line.)
 
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