2014 iMac 5k - Screen Ghosting within Minutes.

[kieru]

As the subject line says - I have a late-2014 iMac (27" Retina 5k) that is experiencing some highly noticeable screen ghosting within just a few minutes of use. I know that Apple has created a support article discussing how IPS displays can experience image retention... but this seems to be a little excessive in how quickly it appears.

If anything the problem seems to have gotten worse with the upgrade to Mojave and later to Catalina. Attached is an example from today while I'm working in Adobe InDesign. You can see the ghosted image of a stock imagery website in the bottom.

That sort of ghosting will appear heavily at the bottom of my screen and to a lesser degree on the right side of the screen. The screensaver will (eventually) remove the ghosting. But within a few minutes of even casual use the screen will just begin ghosting whatever it is I'm doing... whether that's working in Photoshop or just surfing the web.

Is there anything I can do to help mitigate the issue? Because this whole "Just run the screensaver..." thing doesn't seem to actually do much.

 

[TheSufle]

I have the same problem, ghosts remain from the dock panel


it is incorrigible

 

[jerwin]

I have the same problem, ghosts remain from the dock panel


it is incorrigible

I've started to set the dock to hide. Less useful that way, but at least it doesn't mar the screen.

 

[roadkill401]

Welcome to the badly designed first-generation 5K iMac. This is what we who bought early are now stuck with. it is not a case of if it happens, but when it will happen. I had the screen start doing it about 2 1/2 years into ownership. I was lucky in i managed to convince someone at the Apple store to replace the display. But about 2 1/2 years after that and outside of the warranty period, it came back.
We all know that Apple does the form or functionality, and likely there are heat issues with the 5K that over enough time (in my case 2.5year) the display will break enough that it will ghost images. If you turn off the iMac and leave it powered off for several days, the problem I found will go away for a bit, but will eventually come back.
There are other mysterious parts to the image retention that don't make a whole lot of sense that this is caused by the actual screen though. Like, if you turn off the screen (shift-control-eject) an leave it off for any lenght of time, the shadow on the screen will still remain even though the screen itself had no image on it at all. Likewise, if you start up an app like Safari and have a web page displayed, it will leave a image retention shadow. If you minimize the window, the shadow image will stay on the screen for a very long time. However, if you exit Safari so it is no longer running, the shadow image will clear in a short period of time. Apps will leave an image retention, where as a background image on the screen will not. If it was a physical property of the screen then image retention would be constant and not have any of the neuances listed above. I have a suspision it has to do with the custom graphics card chips that Apple co-made with ATI to get the 5K retina that was not possible with any graphic cards at the time. I think this is a graphic chip defect and Apple will not admit it as then they would be on the hook for a whole load of replacements that they won't want to make. I have NEVER EVER EVER has an IPS screen give image retention like this 5K screen does. I have had IPS monitors for 10-15 years now and even my oldest NEC one doesn't have any ZERO nada image retention even connected to a Mac.

 

[TohMac]

Just had my late 2014 iMac cleaned and Mojave installed by Apple techs and I am seeing the same slight ghost images on my desktop screen, of folders or images I have just deleted. Just started this as soon as it went to Mojave 2 weeks ago. Never had it happen before that.

 

[Wolf1701]

Same here, just started happening 2 weeks ago. Time to look for a new iMac... maybe one with a new design if Apple wake up from this Jony era (screen size, cooling, T2, and something really really wild... like some ports on the front)

 

[oppastopa]

This also occurs on the LG UltraFine 5k's (not sure about the 4K's). at least the first gen ones. I love the ultra fine's but if I knew I would've had to of deal with this image smearing I would've got something else.

 

[jancz]

Same problem here!!! Late 2015 27" iMac. Ghosting starts in about 2-5minutes of persistent image on screen.
It gets extremely annoying, specially when you work in Photoshop, LR etc.

Apple should recall these screens.

Every single iMac I had in past aprox. 10 years had some sort of a problem with screen.

24" 2007 - extreme amount of dust on reflection layer
27" 2009 - dust on reflection layer, horizontal lines of pixels flickering (5-15 lines)
27" 2011 - graphics card problems, dust on reflection layer
27" 2015 5K - extreme ghosting, also small amount of dust on reflection layer (left bottom corner)

Not mentioning HDD problems with 2009 and 2011 models.

 

[Archemistx]

I'd a late 2015 iMac Retina 4K 21l5-inch. Started to have screen ghosting issues recently after watching a youtube channel for 50 minuts and its logo remains on the screen. I turn the power off and left it overnight, the persistent image still there.
have to take it back to Genius Bar?

 

[Spectrum]

I'd a late 2015 iMac Retina 4K 21l5-inch. Started to have screen ghosting issues recently after watching a youtube channel for 50 minuts and its logo remains on the screen. I turn the power off and left it overnight, the persistent image still there.
have to take it back to Genius Bar?

Did you find a fix for this? I also have a 4K iMac 2015, and in the past few months the screen has started ghosting and doing all sorts of weird colour corruptions - but only triggered by YouTube videos. Never by regualr use. It appears to be a software issue. However what is really weird is that the ghosts are persistent even after a reboot! It is like there is a persistent image layer stuck in the GPU. If if were a hardware issue, surely persistent things like the menu bar or desktop icons would cause ghosting. But they don't.

 

[wilberforce]

I had a 2014 5k iMac that suffered from image persistence (retention) at the edges.
Yes, the image persistence can persist after a reboot, and after being shut off overnight.
It is a hardware issue, not a software issue.

There are three workarounds in the following posts, which reduce the image persistence by reducing how much the sub-pixels are driven (these are suboptimal software workaround "solutions" for a hardware issue):

iMac 5k Screen burn-in (High Sierra)

The same user posted an update: basically saying that he is reducing brightness to 60% - 70%. Since I am already at 56% brightness (one notch over middle) I am not sure how this trick might help me. BTW, 56% brightness (without Automatically adjust brightness) looks perfectly to me, since...

forums.macrumors.com

iMac 5k Screen burn-in (High Sierra)

There might be something here: iMac brightness control seems to adjust the backlight LEDs brightness, while that app may adjust the degree LCD cells open. The dimming of the image by reducing the amount the cells open, might be compensated by increasing backlight brightness. Here's another app...

forums.macrumors.com

Hope this helps a bit

 

[Spectrum]

I had a 2014 5k iMac that suffered from image persistence (retention) at the edges.
Yes, the image persistence can persist after a reboot, and after being shut off overnight.
It is a hardware issue, not a software issue.

There are three workarounds in the following posts, which reduce the image persistence by reducing how much the sub-pixels are driven (these are suboptimal software workaround "solutions" for a hardware issue):

iMac 5k Screen burn-in (High Sierra)

The same user posted an update: basically saying that he is reducing brightness to 60% - 70%. Since I am already at 56% brightness (one notch over middle) I am not sure how this trick might help me. BTW, 56% brightness (without Automatically adjust brightness) looks perfectly to me, since...

forums.macrumors.com

iMac 5k Screen burn-in (High Sierra)

There might be something here: iMac brightness control seems to adjust the backlight LEDs brightness, while that app may adjust the degree LCD cells open. The dimming of the image by reducing the amount the cells open, might be compensated by increasing backlight brightness. Here's another app...

forums.macrumors.com

Hope this helps a bit

Thanks! But why am I getting such severe ghosting issues *only* after watching some YouTube videos? And only occasionally?
I never see any ghosting issue with regular computer work, or with other video streaming sources such as 4OD and iPlayer. It is only YouTube that (sometimes) triggers it.
I just did a 5 minute test with some checkerboard graphic and that had almost no effect compared to the YouTube video - in which I can see ghost layers building up on top of itself from one scene to the next. And these then also ghost ontop of the regular macOS Desktop afterwards.

 

[wilberforce]

Thanks! But why am I getting such severe ghosting issues *only* after watching some YouTube videos? And only occasionally?
I never see any ghosting issue with regular computer work, or with other video streaming sources such as 4OD and iPlayer. It is only YouTube that (sometimes) triggers it.
I just did a 5 minute test with some checkerboard graphic and that had almost no effect compared to the YouTube video - in which I can see ghost layers building up on top of itself from one scene to the next. And these then also ghost ontop of the regular macOS Desktop afterwards.

Ok, well maybe yours is a different problem than most. For most, the image persistence is at the edges of the screen.

For me, the image persistence of the menu bar was very obvious when you go to launchpad (which has no menu bar).

 

[wilberforce]

btw, one possible way to tell if it is software or hardware, is to take a screenshot of the ghosting.
If the screenshot does not show the ghosting, it is likely a hardware issue.

 

[fpb]

just noticed this issue with the dock after reading this thread, same late 2014 iMac. sometimes ignorance is bliss
I noticed the ghosting image disappears after 5 mins.

 

[Spectrum]

Great idea! I'll try to remember to do this next time it happens. It was incredibly extreme yesterday - to the point that the video was like an extreme >quadruple layering of itself with window panes and trees layered over people in later scenes. Really really strange. And still (weakly) visible after a reboot!

btw, one possible way to tell if it is software or hardware, is to take a screenshot of the ghosting.
If the screenshot does not show the ghosting, it is likely a hardware issue.

 

[DrGeemike]

Late 14 27“ iMac SSD Upgrade, was always grounded, first thought was I shot the GPU, but after reading this thread I would like to solicit some opinions here…

thank you for your thoughts….

 

[Spectrum]

Late 14 27“ iMac SSD Upgrade, was always grounded, first thought was I shot the GPU, but after reading this thread I would like to solicit some opinions here…

thank you for your thoughts….

Is this mid upgrade/disassembly?

 

[DrGeemike]

Nope. At the end of my “upgrade”.… With half the screen I was able to install OSX, in the hopes that the defect might resolve…. Subsequently changed the display cable …

thanks

 

[deluxe498]

So I just purchased a 2013 iMac 27" with a 3.2. I decided to install Patched Sur and only after was when was seeing ghosting on my screen. It started in the dock area and after a few days I was seeing it all over the screen including faint vertical lines. I switched out the HDD for a SSD and the item remained....I thought it might've beeb a GPU issue and that this computer was shot.

I thought maybe it might be patched Sur and figured I would remove it...but before I did I ended up downloading "Macs Fan Control" and saw that the fans speed was at 1200rpms, so I bumped the fan up to 1500 and ever since then I have not seen any ghosting......its been about a day since I tried this and still nothing. Ive opened several YouTube videos at once, various programs and what not and the temp went from a low 104 to a 118 but no ghosting.

Crossing my fingers that this small little hack solves it for me, otherwise im going to revert back to Catalina and see if it continues.