20" iMac, can anyone help me figure this out? (video)

[Andrew Henry]

So here's the deal, this guy has this iMac on CL for a reasonable price, here's the problem that it's having:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BBqDexlZCM

I was wondering if anyone could tell me what the possibilities could be? He says that if he unplugs it for a couple of hours it will boot up, and then a couple of days later do it again.

Specs:

The iMac "Core 2 Duo" 2.4 20-Inch Aluminum (Early 2008/Penryn) features a 2.4 GHz Intel "Core 2 Duo" processor (E8135), with two independent processor "cores" on a single silicon chip, a 6 MB shared level 2 cache, a 1066 MHz system bus, 1 GB of RAM (800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, PC2-6400), a 250 GB (7200 RPM) Serial ATA hard drive, a vertically-mounted slot-loading DVD±R DL "SuperDrive", ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT graphics acceleration with 128 MB of GDDR3 memory, a built-in iSight video camera, and built-in stereo speakers underneath the 20" glossy TFT Active Matrix LCD (1680x1050 native) display.


Any help would be appreciated, before I buy this machine. BTW no AppleCare left on it unfortunately.

Thanks!

Andrew

[MTI]

The "cure" of unplugging the system for a period suggests that there's a capacitor/capacitance circuit that is at fault, since unplugging it allows the capacitor to discharge energy over time. It could also be a temperature related fault, but the capacitance issue makes more sense.

[Andrew Henry]

The "cure" of unplugging the system for a period suggests that there's a capacitor/capacitance circuit that is at fault, since unplugging it allows the capacitor to discharge energy over time. It could also be a temperature related fault, but the capacitance issue makes more sense.

AKA stay away from buying it huh??

[MTI]

Well, it depends on what your expectations are and what the price is.

[Andrew Henry]

Well, it depends on what your expectations are and what the price is.

Just as a second machine, and it's sub-500 dollars, probably even lower if I talked to him about it.

[aaquib]

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=217413

Hey Andrew. I'm not sure if this is the same problem you're having, but the user said it would cost him over $900 from Apple.

The iMac I was talking about in another thread actually already sold by the time I emailed the dude again. It sold for just $600cdn (about $550USD)!

Anyways man, good luck finding an iMac. I don't think it'd be worth it in this situation, unless you got someone local to do it for cheap.

[MTI]

That's sort of an interesting price point, since the resale value of the major parts (less the logic board or power supply) comes close to that "sub-500." As for using the computer in its current state, the things to consider include how confident you'd be in using it or storing data on it and what else could you do with $499 . . . possibly an upgraded, but used Mac Mini C2D?