M1 iMac Owners Complain About Horizontal Lines Appearing on Screen

Over the past year and a half or so, some owners of the 24-inch iMac with the M1 chip have encountered horizontal lines abruptly appearing on the computer's screen. There are complaints about this issue across the Apple Support Community, MacRumors Forums, Reddit, iFixit Answers, and several other websites, but it is unclear how many customers are affected in total, or what the underlying cause of the problem is.

M1 iMac Horizontal Lines
The lines continue to appear on the screen even after the iMac is restarted, and no other solutions have been identified, according to the complaints.

Many affected users said the lines began appearing on the screen around 18 to 24 months after they purchased the iMac. As a result, the affected iMac units are often no longer covered by Apple's standard one-year warranty at the time the issue begins, unless the customer purchased extended AppleCare+ coverage. Some customers who contacted Apple about the issue said the company offered them an exemption, resulting in their iMac being repaired for free, but other customers said they had to pay for service.

One symptom commonly mentioned is the top-right corner of the iMac becoming hot to the touch after the issue begins, but there is no confirmed cause.

Given that these complaints have been continuously popping up for nearly two years now, there may be a hardware issue with this particular iMac model, which launched in May 2021. We have not seen widespread complaints about this issue affecting the iMac with the M3 chip, although that model was released less than a year ago.

Apple offers service programs for some hardware issues, but it is unclear if it will ever launch one for this iMac issue. We have reached out to Apple for comment on this matter, and we will update this story if we receive a response.

Related Roundup: iMac
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Top Rated Comments

turbineseaplane Avatar
26 weeks ago

Had one do this. AppleCare+ coverage took care of the problem no cost.
Nobody should be forced to purchase an extra warranty to cover something like this
Score: 76 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Lounge vibes 05 Avatar
26 weeks ago

Is Tim Cook Apple cutting corners?

Color me “not shocked”
Steve’s Apple shipped several MacBooks with failing graphics cards from 2007-2011.
And not graphics cards that might eventually fail, graphics cards that more than likely *would* fail.
Steve’s Apple also had easily scratched iPod nanos, exploding batteries in iPod Nanos, discolored and overheating iPhone 3GS’s, and the list goes on.
Score: 23 Votes (Like | Disagree)
turbineseaplane Avatar
26 weeks ago
Is Tim Cook Apple cutting corners?

Color me “not shocked”
Score: 20 Votes (Like | Disagree)
djc6 Avatar
26 weeks ago
For a while I regretted getting m2 mac mini instead of an iMac because of the cabling mess, but I do feel its more repairable since its not an all-in-one, and I was able to get a larger monitor.
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)
CalMin Avatar
26 weeks ago
This can happen due to faulty parts supply or unanticipated engineering issue. Apple can't do years long product testing before they ship a product. I hope they do the right thing by customers though.

For the record, this is why I stopped buying iMacs. It always bugged me to either get rid of a display when the computer aged out, or have no way to use the computer if the display craps out.
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
kagharaht Avatar
26 weeks ago
I read this issue on Apple forums where someone actually had an engineer technician do a full analysis of the issue. Granted it was a third party company analysis, but it didn't sound good. It seems to me that they are prone to failure and its just a matter of time.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255220596?sortBy=newest_first
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)