Hey Guys

My Environment:
Brand new 1 week old iMac Aug 07 Model
iLife 08

My Issue:
Right out of the box Magic Garage Band Graphics have been playing up. Each time i click the app it sometimes looks perfect and sometimes looks like the following two images. image1
image2

Also Text in iDVD sometimes looks funny. See image image3

What Apple Said:
After talking to apple for over 1 hours I was transfered to the head senior tech who guided me through test to see if my graphics card was stuffed.. All the test passed okay.. I can run 3D Games and everything. The head senior looked at the images and took my problem to the Tech Team in europe. They where unable to recreate the problem. They have now passed the problem onto Apple USA.

So yeah.. I love my mac and I am hoping that there is nothing wrong with the graphics card.. But I dont understand after two formats the problem is still there... WHY ME!

Please share your thoughts and what you have seen on other forums.. I need all the information I can get

EDIT: Added a video of the problem.. Really poor quality sorry
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5n1fQ43Ppc

have you tried doing a complete re-install?...as in wipe the disk and start from scratch.

Looking at that it could be a problem with some low level graphics routine.....also, patch up to the hilt if you haven't done so already.

Yes I have done a complete reinstall and updated all the software

It definately looks like graphics card corruption; try pointing a huge ass fan as roughly where the GPU is located on the iMac, and see what happens - if you get a few more minutes without any issues, it's either overheating or dodgy video RAM. See what also happens when you try to lower colour depth (eg. thousands over millions, if possible), and/or a lower resolution.

JB

Running the colours to thousands seems to fix the problem however it is impossible to use the computer when running on thousands of colours the colour of garage band looked bad but the fuzz was fixed...

Ive put the colour back up and the problem is back again

Sounds too obvious, but have you deleted this file:
com.apple.preference.displays.001b6391f4fb.plist (numbers will be different)
from ~/library/preferences/byhost/
then restarted?

Edit:
This may not help, but certainly worth a try.
Deleting that file fixed an issue I had with poor rendering.

Hey I would like to try but im way to scared of deletein anything after the apple tech said i should delete this certain folder. After I did my dock apps stoped working untill i formated the thing..

The file that macaholic is referring to is a preference file; if you delete it it will be recreated after a restart. Certainly you can also drag the file to your desktop, restart, see what happens, and if not drag it back. Preference files often corrupt themselves.

Having said all that though, I still believe your iMac's graphics card has faulty video RAM. Make sure you can recreate the fault in your iMac, and take it back to the Apple store. Show this to them, they should replace the graphics card, or the entire machine.

JB

This is interesting... Dragging it to the desktop and restarting the system . Actually gave me more goes.. eg

I clicked the application 7 times working perfect.. The most I have had was 2.... 8th Time the problem was back.. But takes more goes to get it to happen now.

The file is still on the desktop. it hasnt recreated it self in the byhost folder yet

Why not simply return the imac as DOA? I mean you can clearly demonstrate a problem....

(this is what I would be doing!)

i bought it from the apple store online

DOA still exists for online purchases.

Definitely looks like a graphics card error from the sounds of it.

I had an iBook that I traded up to a Macbook and I was getting graphics corruption too for some applications. It was a logic board failure .

DOA is 10 business days after receipt of the article/purchase so if you got 24 hour delivery and you are still in your 10 days I do believe you just need your receipt, your credit card and to visit your local Apple Center to do the swap.

I could be wrong but, any Apple Reseller can take it back as a DOA.

My contact at Apple keeps saying that the hardware is fine because i can run DVD's and the apple hardware test passed fine?"????

Forget about the phone calls, go to the nearest Apple reseller and show them the problem.
They will DOA when they see the fault.