iMac screen problem
This is my late 2006 model 17″ iMac with at the time of writing is two and a half years old.
As you can see a vertical pink line has appeared top to bottom on my screen and I can’t get rid of it. After realising that it wasn’t going away my first thought that it was going to be really expensive to fix . My second thought was to google the problem, see if anybody else had the same issue and how much a new screen was going to cost.
It didn’t take long to find that this is quite a big problem and that apple support / genius bars were pretty useless if like me, you didn’t have Applecare, Apples expensive extended warranty program. I found that some owners of iMacs with serial numbers starting with W860… and ending with …U2N were getting some luck and receiving free repairs. Unfortunately my iMac wasn’t in that range of serial numbers.
I called Apple and explained the problem expecting to be told that my repair would cost several hundred pounds. I was ready to politely fight my corner and explain that I though it was a common fault and that I shouldn’t have to pay etc…
However… The guy at Apple was really good to me. He took a few details, made me reboot the mac etc… then put me on hold for about 2 mins. He came back with a reference number and told me that it would be fixed for free at an Apple retail store or approved Apple service centre. There’s an Apple store roughly 3 miles away so I’m taking it there for my free repair this weekend.
I’ll update if I have any problems.
Chris, I found this blog entry when I googled the exact same problem with my 2006 Intel iMac. I spent an hour on tech support while they researched the problem and claimed there was nothing they could do to help me. I even pointed them to your post here, but they said it wasn’t specific enough for them to look into your case to help me. Could you email me with more details and maybe I could better persuade them?
I was looking for more information on the pink line problem.
I have not yet called Apple about this as it just started about 20 min. ago, but I do not expect much from them with big bucks.
Having same problem with my iMac 17″ purchased in 2006. Just out of 3 year Apple Care warranty. New vertical lines appearing every few days. I’m up to five lines. Will call Apple Canada. The machine does have the W860… serial number prefix. Will advise as to Apple’s response.