Tuesday, February 05, 2008

My iMac screen - dark band at the top of the display

Bad news! My July 2005 20" iMac now has a dark irregular band across the top of the display - thickest on the right side. It's most conspicuous against the login screen, or the blue background used on startup:



Superficially it looks like dirt on the display, but it's inside. I suspect some sort of LCD delamination or glue defect, perhaps related to the all the heat problems the G5 iMacs were known for. At 2.5 years this machine is out of warranty -- including my credit card extended warranty.

I can't find much about this on the net, so it's probably bad luck. We have a good Apple repair facility in Minneapolis (first Tech), I could try hauling the machine out there if I get the energy.

Update: Sounds like this.

Update 6/17/11: Three years later the band is about twice as wide. This is a kid and movie machine now, and we don't notice it much.
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2 comments:

  1. Anonymous7/2/08 9:43 PM

    I have an almost identical issue along the bottom left of my screen. iMac G5 ALS from May 2005. I've been living with it but now the superdrive and hard drive have failed I'm heading to the store tomorrow and maybe get them all fixed. 89 days left on AppleCare...

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  2. JGF8/2/08 8:54 AM

    Wow! That's quite a mess.

    I'm guessing it's a marker of heat problems, or of a past history of heat problems. The heat causes failure of multiple components.

    The iMac was the wrong form factor for a G5 chip -- just too darned hot.

    Apple pushes the envelope, and part of being an Apple vict... er... customer is getting burned (so to speak).

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