IMac Vertical Lines W860 U2N

My iMac Vertical Lines W860 U2N has vertical lines running across it and a good portion of the screen has been rendered blank / unusable also when I turned it on recently. I have no idea whats going on? Can someone please advise?

Mac OS 8.6
Cannot run on an Intel Mac. If the above is on your iMac you need to re-post in the iMac (PPC) forum and/or cross post in the Classic Mac OS (OS9, OS8 & System 7) forums. This area is for Intel iMac technical problems.
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http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1758 How to identify iMac models

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Any hope for the dreaded iMac "vertical lines"??

Curious if there's an update to Apple's response regarding the almost universal issue with their iMac's developing vertical lines in the display withing days or weeks of the warranty expiring.

"Almost" universal - search this forum & you'll see MANY people reporting this issue. In nearly every case (including mine) the problem happened shortly after the default warranty expired (in many cases it occurred the same week the warranty expired!)
Issue is related to the iMac display - it develops vertical lines. Typically starts with one or two & then increases from there. Mine started with one - 2nd one just popped up. The iMac is a 2nd computer that doesn't see nearly as much use as my Powerbook or PC laptops & only the iMac developed this issue.
There were people in contact with Apple & even class-action type remedies being discussed if I remember right! Curious what the latest word (if any) on that was.
Message was edited by: inte

IMac Vertical Lines

Help: 17" iMac March 2006 - Colored vertical lines have been appearing for some time and now a 3" band of white vertical lines has populated the right side. Any solutions out there? (Apple does not have the parts to fix this as the hardware is more than 5 years old.)

In case you are still using your 17 inch iMac with vertical lines--
I had the same problem. The local Mac repair place, Dino computers in Pasadena, said that what it needs is a replacement display, but that alone costs $500, plus installation, so it isn't really worth it to fix.
But I found a website call realmacmods.com, which offers a kit just for this purpose. Not for the layperson however. You can get a kit for about $50 and supply your own 17inch display, or you can buy a display plus adapter board for $150. I talked to Dino and they said they could install it for me for about $120. I decided to get some Mac tools and try it myself. The vendor recommends you have some laptop repair experience, which I don't have, but I have opened up desktop computers before, and that helped. Anyway, it worked. And, you get a higher resolution display: 1900 x 1200, formerly 1440 x 900. It looks great. But again, not for the layperson.

New 21.5" imac vertical line on screen

I just returned from my local Apple store after checking out the new imac computers. I noticed on many of the 21.5" imacs that there was a vertical line down the left side of the screen that looked like burn-in. It's about one and a quarter inches from the left side of the screen. It is clearly visible using any background color except white. Apple store employees and two Apple Geniuses had no idea what was causing it and hadn't noticed it themselves until I pointed it out to them. They said they would investigate. Has anyone else noticed this? It was on about half of the computers that I looked at in the store.

The link posted by Carolyn above is an old issue with G5 iMacs, which has nothing to do with this new issue. This new issue is apparently a fairly widespread manufacturing defect in the new 21.5" Silverback iMacs. I just bought one for my parents this week, and it unfortunately suffers from this same defect. A single pixel vertical line running from top to bottom, about 1.5" from the left side of the screen. On a light background the line is bluish, on a dark background, the line is red. Serious issue, I hope Apple gets on this one quickly.

IMac 10.4.11 Because permanent vertical lines have appeared on my screen, I need to get a new monitor. The adapter apple sells goes from female VGA to mini-DVI. What kind of cable should I get as well:female to male?

If I use an adapter (female VGA to mini-DVI) for my iMac 10.4.11 OSX, I also need a cable. Should that cable be female VGA to male VGA?
Permanent vertical lines have appeared on my display, and connecting to another display (monitor) requires a cable and adapter. I want to be sure I am purchasing the correct cable for the Apple adapter.

What made me think I need to format if I upgrade the OS?
I just presumed so really.
What made me think I need to constantly format computer with my problem?
Well, after many attempts to repair the drive, which fails, cannot even reach the log in screen, I am left with no other choice?
And also, I have to note now, System Preferences keeps crashing without reason, it either takes ages to load, just by clicking it to open, or clicking something within it, or it just crashes.
And temporarily, it freezes the computer totally, with no response.
Seriously, am I missing a system file or something? Anyone experienced this problem before?
My computer is literally a blank computer right now, installed VLC and Shades, updated Adobe Flash Player, installed Skype and Adium. I would say Growl from Adium caused it, but it has happened prior to Skype and Adium. Any ideas anyone?
Thanks,
From Lelouch

Why has my monitor suddenly begun to have a moiré pattern all over – it is even showing up on my icons on the dock? It appears to be very thin bright green vertical lines. I have a 2008 iMac which is running 10.6.8. What does this mean?

Why has my monitor suddenly begun to have a moiré pattern all over – it is even showing up on my icons on the dock? It appears to be very thin bright green vertical lines. I have a 2007 iMac which is running 10.6.8. What does this mean? I've attached some screen shots below.
Also experiencing some funky issues with my wireless keyboard. With new batteries, it will just stop functioning. Certain keys intermittently won't work. Also the fans go on as soon as I turn the computer on - some times they stay on and sometimes they don't. Ever since upgrading the operating system - I've been having many issues with this iMac. Not happy. Any answers out there?

Thanks for your reply LexSchellings, There is no disc in the drive and I went through the suggestions you put forward on the phone with Apple support without any luck. I can put a disc in but it pops straight back out again without registering on finder.
The idea of using an external drive was to enable me to avoid the cost and loss of productivity whilst machine in repair... if I have to take it in to get the old drive removed than I might as well have a new internal drive put in, although I do worry about the reliability of these apple drives given my experience with this one coupled with my limited online research ... on line forums seem to be full of people with the same problem (although perhaps searching such forums is bound to make it seem a common problem as users with perfectly working machines are less likely to post (?)) Your reply suggests that no external drive will work whilst the existing drive is in place.
As a postscript: I do realise that this is a user forum ...my secondary question was asking if anyone knows how to put forward a case/complaint to Apple... I can't find a link on the support page that would enable me to do so and I was wondering if anyone on this user forum had any ideas/experience..

My Imac has black and white vertical lines

Riddle me this Apple...
A few months ago, my 2008 Aluminium 24inch Imac locked up and exhibited space invader style pixels all over the screen.
After rebooting, it was fine for a while and then it would freeze again and I'd get the same Atari style pixels appearing, and everything would be frozen.
Then, most reboots after that, I would get vertical lines in groups of three, alternating black and white squares as in the photo.
I called Apple here in South Australia, and they said "it's your graphics card, and it will cost $400 to fix and we need it for a week".
Not wanting to do that, I bought a $15 firewire cable, booted the Imac in T mode and used my PC laptop running macdrivepro to save all my files onto a 500gig backup drive, and then proceeded to fix the corrupted kext files and most importantly delete the recent flash player update which I believe was causing the problem.
Booted her back up, and she ran perfectly. For a few weeks, until it started again.
So I re-installed the Leopard operating system from the original disks, and that fixed it. $15 is better than $400.
Now, a few months have passed, and the problem had come back again, now that I have added more stuff on my computer.
This time however, I chose to wipe the drive completely and do a fresh install of Leopard, and then upgrade to Snow Leopard.
The problem is that it won't boot from the CD drive anymore, won't boot from a thumb drive, won't boot in any mode except T mode, but then it has these lines on the screen again and eventually I get the kernel panic happenning and it wants to be shut down.
Every time I start the computer, these lines IMMEDIATELY appear. I've tried resetting the Pram, tried changing memory and have now resorted to surgery.
I've taken apart the Imac, yes I hear you Apple...you guys thought that we mortals wouldn't delve into the depths of your finely machined systems, however, some of us do own micro torx head tools to remove those pesky screws, and yes, a razor blade does lift up the magnetically attached screen glass without having to use suction pads.
So once inside the temple of doom, I removed the hard drive, and dropped it into a hard drive dock.
After days of messing around with it via four other MAC computers, running Tiger, Leopard and Lion, we have still not been able to install an operating system back onto this drive.
Does anyone have any insight into what these lines actually are? Every one I speak to says a different thing...
"It's the graphics card", "It's the hard drive", "It's the cable that connects the LCD screen", "It's the motherboard", It's the screen itself", "It's a corrupted bios" etc etc..
But if it's any of those things...then why did it run perfectly after I fixed it the first time?
Any and all help is greatly appreciated.

Hi BDAqua,
I appreciate you taking the time to reply, and for the suggestions.
My spider sense was tingling, as were my eager fingers to login and read your reply, in fact I was almost salivating at the thought of crushing those Apple reps with a swift blow from one of my megalithic old 4gig internal drives, or better still, perhaps shooting my old DX266 sporting a massive 256k HD and 4mb of ram, fully loaded with Encarta and Windows 3.11 out of a cannon and straight into Steve Jobs bedroom window, with a note saying..."How'd ya like them apples..".
But alas, my Aquatic friend, I am in need of a functioning operating system to be able to do any of those magical tricks you suggested (insert frown face here)..and yes, when I finally opened up the Imac and peered inside, a moment not unlike Indiana Jones peering down into the depths of the Well of Souls, I suddenly realised that an Imac might look impervious to heat vision and thermonuclear devices on the outside, but inside they can still gather as much dust as my infinately useless ZIP drive that I bought back in the late 90's, thinking it was the best thing since the invention of microsoft paint...awesome program by the way guys..
Getting back to the problem at hand, the issue really is that I have, perhaps stupedly, reformatted the 500gig WD drive via a hard drive dock, which is really a lot like one of those early 1950's cassette drives you find in vintage cars..
And upon returning the drive to the Imac and re-assembling it WITH REAL SCREWS, not titanium-alloy fingerprint encoded ones like you would expect to find in Iron Man's suit, I could only boot the poor thing into T mode. No other modes were available, and believe me, I tried all of the alphabet...even the "C" button, which if you ever watched an episode of Knight Rider called Knight of the Juggernaught, did not turn my computer into a convertable..
By now you're probably sensing that the irony of all of this is that I am typing this message on my Windows 7 upgraded HP laptop, which sounds not unlike a jumbo jet taking off at times, the fans are so loud, and among other things, it keeps telling me it is not genuine, even though I paid good money for a proper copy to free me from the painful experience which was Vista, and so in a sense, microsoft is playing a small part in the desperate rescue of it's far superior, yet broken down and busted arch enemy...I bet somewhere in it's RAM, it is smiling in little ones and zeroes, while it hides behind a free copy of AVAST, hoping one of a billion nasty viruses don't come knocking on the kernel door..
The next round of drinks goes to the man, woman, child or droid that has any other suggestions that could allow me to participate in some of the ideas put forward by our very knowledgable watery friend..as alas, I do not have any of those options available to me.
Today's assignment is.. how do we install an operating system on a formatted external drive. Sounds easy doesn't it...I've read many articles, but in practice it's proved as elusive as Bigfoot.
I just cannot make this hard drive understand that there is no spoon...
EdStraker

IMac (late 2006) vertical line, flicker, funky

After almost exactly three years of multiple-hours-a-day of good service, my late 2006 iMac 17" (2 Ghz/4 GB, 10.5.8) has started exhibiting a crazy, crazy display issue.
There is a straight line, about one-inch thick, extending vertically down the left side. It flickers, but never goes away and is discolored/washed-out but still allows visibility. Photos attached.
It's there right on boot-up, on multiple accounts and booting from install disk. It's obviously a hardware failure, correct?
Any ideas?
Thanks,
Noah

That happened to me and eventually the whole screen 'collapsed'. I used an external monitor for a while, which cluttered up my desk; eventually the iMac died completely and I've had to scrap it. I believe the term used is 'Shanghaied' because that is where these screens originated. My 'puter was younger than yours and unfortunately I didn't have insurance - also I live in a remote area so there was no recourse to repairs. Oh well, I've stuck with Mac although I was really disappointed.
If you search google 'vertical lines on screen iMac' you'll be surprised how many people have been affected.

Can someone help me with my 27" iMac's Gray screen with 5 Pink Vertical Line Problem?

Hi there,
I'm new to the forums, but I have a serious problem with my nearly 4 year old iMac 27" model.
I was using my iMac one evening and then suddenly everything displayed on the screen gets immediately pushed to the left of the computer screen. Then after a minute, my screen turns a solid gray, displaying no dock, no header bar, no options, and the keyboard and mouse suddenly disconnect.
When I turned back on my computer, it seemed to boot up perfectly normal. The normal gray start-up screen displays:
Then it displays the Apple logo and begins to spin the loading circle icon below it. But this time it adds 5 vertical pink lines down the screen from left to right. They stay in place the entire time:
And then when the login screen finishes loading, instead of bringing up my Account and my Password text box, it displays just a solid gray screen with the same 5 pink vertical lines on it, as shown below:
I've let it set for a half hour and nothing changes. During this time the keyboard and mouse seem to be disconnected, nothing seems to work with the screen or the computer itself. I hold the on/off button on the rear, turning it off and then on again. The same process happens with the boot up, the Apple logo appears, then the spinning loading icon below it, and then the vertical bars appear and the Apple logo and spinning icon disappear.
Is this a problem with the screen that an external monitor hooked up to it might fix, or is it a graphics card problem? I didn't buy the extended warranty package for the computer and it's roughly 3 1/2 years old.
Any idea what might cause this and how it could be fixed in the cheapest way possible?

I have the same problem since yesterday evening.
My google research found this:
iMac (27-inch): AMD Radeon 6970M Video Card Replacement Program - Apple Support
Maybe this is our problem. My iMac fits into this category.

How to use the second display for installation OS in my vertical lines iMac

My 17" iMac display is full of vertical lines, it is unuseable. Does anyone know how to use the second display for Mac OS X or disable the first display for installation Mac OS x ?

Go to: *System Preferences > Displays* and select the Arrangement tab, then relocate your Menu bar by dragging it to the other display.
Unfortunately there is no Hardware or Software switch to turn off the iMac's Internal Display.

I have blue and green vertical lines on my iMac which is no longer covered by Applecare. Is it fixable?

I have blue and green vertical lines on my iMac which is no longer covered by Applecare. Is it fixable?

What model iMac? Could be a failing video card but maybe not. Is it that way on every screen, startup to shutdown, any time the screen is lit?
Do you have an AASP nearby? Time to have an estimate made. Fixing it will likely be very expensive.

TS1587 Hello, I downloaded an ntfs systemfile from tuxera and used it to convert a usb stick, my imac froze a while after so I turned it off the on and now I have blue vertical lines on boot up and the a white screen with lots of tine blue symbols, need h

Hello, I downloaded an ntfs systemfile from tuxera and used it to convert a usb stick so I could put more than the fat32 4gb on, my Imac froze a while after so I turned it off the on and now I have blue vertical lines on boot up and the a white screen with lots of tine blue symbols after, mouse pointer moves but thats about it.
Have used R and cmd to get a menu up but once I choose one of the four options my mouse is rendered useless and I cant get any further, have downloaded, to another usb stick recovery disk assisstant and am trying to use that in conjunction with the lion option on the previously mentioned screen, computer was responding really slowly and has now frozen on the terms of software license agreement (maybe the last hurdle!) can anyone pleeeeeease help!!!!!??????

It's likely that the boot drive is failing, or that there's some other hardware fault. Run the Apple Hardware Test.
Intel-based Macs: Using Apple Hardware Test
Even if the test is negative, you should make a "Genius" appointment at an Apple Store to have the machine tested more thoroughly.

IMac won't go past apple logo screen and vertical lines on display

I have an old white iMac that won't boot. When booting up the screen has vertical purple lines and I can see the Apple logo. The little "dial" just spins and spins. Does anyone know how to fix this? thank you for any and all help.

The vertical lines are indicative of a hardware problem. It is possible (likely) that this is also related to the inability to start up as well. It's almost impossible to diagnose and explain repairing hardware in these forums, so I think it best if you take the computer to a repair shop that is familiar with Macintoshes.

IMac 24' green & magenta vertical Lines will not boot.

Firstly let me say Hello all ^_^ Secondly, I hope this is posted in the right forum. :Oops:
The problem started a few days ago when my iMac went into screen saver mode and the whole screen had frozen and become pixlated with squares and a general scrambling of the screen, noise, grain, etc.. It wouldn't awaken from it's slumber so I did a hard restart.
The familiar friendly chime greeted me but the screen was covered in Vertical Green lines that are full of pixels, moving almost like static. The apple logo appeared and the spinning gear but that stopped spinning after about 20 - 30 seconds.
When I tried to boot into Safe mode this happened to the Apple logo (after about 3 or 4 mins)
The apple genius' are booked solid till next Thursday (27th) so I decided research and trial an error were my best options.
The following are the steps I have tried and where I am currently. Sorry for the lack of punctuation, etc...
On startup, Chime sounds, green vertical lines with what appears to be static, sometimes with Magenta in.
Apple logo appears
spinning lines lock up after about 10 seconds. Freeze.
Will not boot into Safe mode (by holding Shift after chime)
Will not boot from Mac OSX disk (by holding C after Chime)
Tried zapping the Pram (Shift, option, p & r on chime, Wait for 3 chimes)
Removed RAM 1 at a time tested in other slots, no change.
WILL enter into single user mode (holding Shift & S after Chime) so ran fsck twice to receive the Hard drive OK message. PHew Hard drive is OK then.
Reboot from here, same Vertical Magenta and green (sometimes just Green) Lines with static, Apple Logo, Spinning gear and freeze.
So connected with firewire into target disk mode. (connect mac book pro to imac using firewire cable and hold down the T key on your target computer, in my case my iMac) This essentially makes the imacs hard drive into an external firewire drive. Hard drive OK. Backed up. YAY. (most relieved to get back photos & current work)
Thanks for bearing with me on this epic post. ;);) and thanks in advance for sharing the knowledge.

Maybe this is a little late since this was last year but I thought I would post what the actual problem & solution was.
I took the iMac into see the Genius' and as it turns out it is indeed the graphics card. Luckily enough for me my iMac was just before they started soldering on them onto the logic boards AND it's one of the known faulty Nvidia Cards, which means a free repair, (luckily)
It took about 2 weeks to repair. when I recieved my iMac back unfortunatly there was lots of fingerprints inside the screen. Let it be said that the Mac store in Oxford street are the fairest of all, as instead of taking the machine and re-repairing, they replaced the whole iMac for a new one.
I hope anyone with this problem, or any other, has the same level of care from Mac as I have had.

One pixel vertical line on new iMac 24" display - defective?

I have a one pixel vertical line that is fairly constant on my new (one week old) 24" iMac -- it sits there between the Edit and View mens mocking me, and runs the length (well, height) of the screen.
I've tried changing resolutions and resetting the SMC and neither seemed to do anything. My guess is it's defective, so I'm probably looking at a trip to our nearby Apple Store... the only thing is, I don't want to be without my computer for an extended period of time, since I use it for work and everything.
Is this the sort of thing that the Apple Store could order the new part and do the swap in house? If they replace the whole unit, could I put the existing HD in it? (of course the defect shows up right after I migrate and do all my upgrades, installs and patches)

I recently just had the LCD on my 24" imac replaced due to a stuck pixel. Without even bringing my imac into the apple store i told one of the genius bar associates about my problem and they ordered the LCD without even seeing my computer. They then called me when it came in and i took it down there for it to be replaced. I took it on a monday morning and i went and picked it up on tuesday. It is an in house repair so as long as they are not super busy you should not have to be without it for to long. I would try what i did, go in their without your imac first and tell them your issue and see if they will order the part. That way your not leaving your imac there while they order the part in.

IMac Vertical Lines W860 U2N

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