iMac has an iMessedup screen!

dlloyd

dlloyd

Official Pianist
Yes, it is the same iLemon again!
Okay, the story:
I shut down our iMac last night, and it was fine. Then this morning one of my sisters comes in while iAm doing my piano practice and says that when she started up the iMac the screen was acting funny. iGo and have a look, and sure enough, the picture was blury, strangly shapped, and all red tinted.
Now this had happened before, and all iHad to do was restart the computer, and it fixed itself. iAlways though it had something to do with some temporarily magnetically charged something or other in the area that was affecting something in the CRT.
iThink to myself: no problem, I'll just restart. So iDo this.

No luck.

So iDo it again, and again, and then again. Still the same. So iTry one more time. And this time iAm treated to a properly shaped green tinted picture. iGo on the Apple site and look to see if there are any Knowledge Base articles on this. No, there aren't, so iMove the iMac to a different place to see if it was something to do with the magnetism thing, and start it up again. This time is it Purple. iContinue to try, but in the end iDecide the let it set for a while. Coming back and starting it up later, iFind that the picture now all blue-y.
iKeep trying on and off all day, but still it is not cooperating, and iAm further treated to a pink tinted screen. A few times it is nearly normal again, but then it relapses again.
So far it appears to be pretty much random, but each color manifests it's self at least three times before letting the next tint in. It seems to change between being blurry and clear also. Also if iLeave it on for a while, the picture seems to degrade and become more blurry.

iDon't know if this is related, but iCan also send the computer to sleep while it is starting up, something that iHave not been able to do before.
iAm fairly certain that this is hardware related, because iTried to start the computer up from the system-restore CD, and it is still the same.

What is the matter with it? My sisters are beginning their noise about 'no Sims' already!
 
After a while I thought of the old 'Reset PRAM' standby, and I tried this.
After doing this, the screen wasn't fixed, instead it wasn't even coming on anymore! I would press the power button, and then I would heard some clicking like sounds, but the monitor never actually turned on. I did this several times, and then, instead of shutting the computer down, I accidently sent it to sleep. When I woke it up, I was greeted with my iMac's picture, all fixed!
Now, I would like to say that everyone lived happily ever after, but that is not the case (yet). I wanted to see if this was just a misstake, so I restarted the computer. Still black screened, so I sent it to sleep and woke it up again (that could get to be really annoying!), but this time, the picture had thick (think three inches or so) black borders all around the sides, and the left edge was sort of messed up. So I restart it agian.
That time, and all times after so far, it will turn on, still with black screen, but after about ten seconds, it shuts down again. I zapped the PRAM again, to no avail. It was still doing this when I left to go to bed.

Any ideas? Anyone? :confused:
 
do you have anything else plugged into this mac? any firewire or usb peripherals besides the keyboard and mouse? if so, unplug them. when this happened to me it came right back when i unplugged one of my drives. you might have to restart though. at least rule this out first.
 
I forgot to say something last night: it stays the right color until I open the Monitors Control Panel (yes this is still OS 9 for s few more days), and then it seems to go really dark. I am going to try pluging in an external monitor, and see what happens.
Also, now the picture is the proper color, but on the top and bottom there in about a two inch border, on the right, a one and a half, and on the left there is a half inch one. The left side of the picture is cut off about a quarter inch from the edge, and it ends in a bright line.

PS, this Mac doesn't stay on, because it is not running X, so it gets restarted every time someone wants to use it.

EDIT, I just did something royaly stupid: I set the contrast all the way down in the Monitors Control Panel and since the screen messes up again when I open it, I can't set it back up. All I see is a black screen when I try. Darn.
 
Okay, I hooked it up to an external monitor, and that worked fine. Just like it was supposed to. I managed to set the Contrast back up where it belongs, but it was still all black until I sent it to sleep and woke it up again. Then after a few tried, it started up with the green tint again, so I reset the PRAM a second time. Now it is worse than before, sending it to sleep and waking it up doesn't do anything, and the external monitor is telling me that it 'doesn't support that resolution'.
Now what? :mad:
 
Well, it appears that I am not the only one, looking on the Apple Support site, there are literally dozens of people with the same problem!
I am trying to update the Firmware using an external monitor (which is now working agian, by the way. I don't know why). Hopefully this will help, if not completely fix the problem.
 
there are also video card updates as well. look at versiontracker for those. i think ATI or Rage will find them with a search.
 
Okay, thanks! I'll look for these.
I have two possible leads so far:
1) I have a video card problem (I doubt this, but I don't want to rule anything out until I get the problem fixed)
2) I need to update the firmware, but I can't get the latest version until I install OS 9.1 or later.

One guy's theory is that if you accidently have anything to do with 10.2 on an iMac DV before you put firmware version 4.1.9 on, then for some reason the graphics chip starts sending too high a refresh rate to the screen, and so the screen turns itself off to prevent damage.
I suspect this is what happend here, because the symptoms that he had are the same ones I have.
I will post when I learn anything!
 
This is a known issue with CRT based iMacs. It's actually the connector that the internal CRT hooks up to. Unfortunately it appears that the wires get fatigued and eventually create a small break in the wire.
 
Does this mean that it isn't even worth trying the other stuff? Or should I go ahead and attempt it?
Also, if this is the problem, how much would it cost to fix? The iMac DV SEs are only worth about $400 now anyway...
 
Rhino, could this possibly be the problem? Or are you fairly sure that it is a hardware problem?
Here, here, here, and here are some other posts that I have noticed about this.
If you go here almost half the posts are on the same issue!
I guess I'm not the only one...
 
Actualy, after I read your post again what does baffle me is that it works fine until you open up the display control panel. I'm doing a little searching to see what I can't find.
 
Man, some of you guys on this board are angels!
As I write this on my iBook, I am sitting in front of the iMac, to which I have a 17" LCD from my Dad's PC connected.
I have been restarting the iMac for the last half hour or so, and every few times I am greated with a new color.
The first time I restarted it, and it didn't stay black until I sent it to sleep, it was pure green. It was just like it used to be, except that the only color showing was green. That happened twice more, and then it was the same, but only blue. I let it sit for about half an hour, and when I came back it was pink and blue, skewed to the left, and no longer clear. Now it looks almost like the colors are out of alinement, really strange. I have just now restarted it, and it is really really dim, I can bearly make out the white areas, though it appears to still be skewed to the side.
I have a digital camera, and I could post pictures if you wanted...

Thank you again!
 
Strange, after being really dim, it is now the correct color!
However, it is still skewed, meaning that the top and bottom edges appear sucked to the left side of the screen while the center remains in place.

EDIT: Just restarted it again, and it has returned to black. Not even a dim 'ghost' of an image anymore! That last one must've been a lucky shot.
 
One more thing, if anyone else has this problem DO NOT RESET THE PRAM. Apparently this is the 'death blow', as it causes your internal CRT to go black for some reason. Therefore, if you don't have an external monitor, this can be a major pain in the a**.
 
Okay, it is fixed! The solution was to download the iMac 4.1.9 Firmware update. This fixed the problem!
 
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