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AlbertEinstein

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 3, 2013
132
0
Yup, My faithfull iMac 24", 2.8GHz, late 2008 has exploded.

I was sitting with it today and all of the sudden i heard a loud POP and then it all went black and there was smoke and the smell of burning plastic.

I only need all My files today. Jolly good.

And om top of that: My PowerMac G5s screen broke and i lost the ADC to DVI connector i had for My old Studio Display, so now i'm stuck With A G4 Cube alá 450Mhz and 512MB memory running OSX 10.4. Jolly good.

Rest In Pieces iMac, it only aged 5.:apple:
 

monokakata

macrumors 68020
May 8, 2008
2,036
583
Ithaca, NY
Well, it sounds as though it's worthless now.

If you agree, then the upside is that you don't need to be careful in pulling the disk drive out. Get the right tools (suction cups, torx drivers) and have at it. You'll be putting everything but the drive in the rubbish (or taking it to a recycler) anyway.

Just rip it apart and pull out the drive. Pop the drive in a temporary USB housing, and pull your files off and onto the G4 for today or until you replace the iMac.

Obviously if you intend to get it repaired then this is useless advice.
 

gmccj

macrumors newbie
Apr 16, 2010
19
2
Power supply

Happened to me on my 2010 iMac. Loud bang and it went dead. Apple store popped in a new power supply and all was well.
 

jmpage2

macrumors 68040
Sep 14, 2007
3,224
549
Definitely sounds like a power supply failure. Unfortunately when the PSU goes out it can take other things, expensive things (logic board, cpu, RAM, hard disk, etc) with it.
 

Brian Y

macrumors 68040
Oct 21, 2012
3,776
1,064
Definitely sounds like a power supply failure. Unfortunately when the PSU goes out it can take other things, expensive things (logic board, cpu, RAM, hard disk, etc) with it.

Very unlikely these days. It was common in pre-2007 machines, but post 2007 ones have extra protection to stop that.

You'll need a new PSU - which is about £80 + labour. So your baby isn't quite dead yet. Sometimes PSUs die quietly, sometimes they go out with a bang - guess yours was the latter :D
 

senseless

macrumors 68000
Apr 23, 2008
1,885
257
Pennsylvania, USA
Very unlikely these days. It was common in pre-2007 machines, but post 2007 ones have extra protection to stop that.

You'll need a new PSU - which is about £80 + labour. So your baby isn't quite dead yet. Sometimes PSUs die quietly, sometimes they go out with a bang - guess yours was the latter :D

Yes, sounds like an electrolytic capacitor exploded and probably in the power supply.
 

AlbertEinstein

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 3, 2013
132
0
To you demanding pictures: i really hope you mean the inside of said mac, as it didn't literally explode.

However, it wont turn back on. Opening it up reveals a destroyed motherboard, harddrive, superdrive, RAM... you name it. It looks like A nuclear bomb went off.

The sad thing is that this was a studio machine. I cant count the enourmus amount of audio, graphics and video editing that has been done on this machine. And guess what? It dies when my son tries to start The Sims. Not a worthy death of the iMac.

Thank Buddah for Time Machine!:apple:
 

rkaufmann87

macrumors 68000
Dec 17, 2009
1,760
39
Folsom, CA
Yup, My faithfull iMac 24", 2.8GHz, late 2008 has exploded.

I was sitting with it today and all of the sudden i heard a loud POP and then it all went black and there was smoke and the smell of burning plastic.

I only need all My files today. Jolly good.

And om top of that: My PowerMac G5s screen broke and i lost the ADC to DVI connector i had for My old Studio Display, so now i'm stuck With A G4 Cube alá 450Mhz and 512MB memory running OSX 10.4. Jolly good.

Rest In Pieces iMac, it only aged 5.:apple:

Most likely only a power supply, if you don't mind doing the work for less than $200 you can fix it.

EDIT: Whoops should have read your last post, well RIP.
 

drambuie

macrumors 6502a
Feb 16, 2010
751
1
To you demanding pictures: i really hope you mean the inside of said mac, as it didn't literally explode.

However, it wont turn back on. Opening it up reveals a destroyed motherboard, harddrive, superdrive, RAM... you name it. It looks like A nuclear bomb went off.

The sad thing is that this was a studio machine. I cant count the enourmus amount of audio, graphics and video editing that has been done on this machine. And guess what? It dies when my son tries to start The Sims. Not a worthy death of the iMac.

Thank Buddah for Time Machine!:apple:

With that kind of damage, it looks like a catastrophic power supply failure that put +12 volts on the +5v and/or +3.3v lines, causing major component destruction and charring. I once had +12v connect to the +5v pin of a hard drive power connector, and the result wasn't pretty. It only takes a fraction of a second to do the damage.

Being a serious work machine, and faced with running the Sims, it chose the honorable way out.
 

AlbertEinstein

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 3, 2013
132
0
The iMac seems completely dead and my attempts to bring it back have been unsuccessful. I tried replacing the PSU, but to no avail. I put in some new RAM but it's completely dead.

And in other news i have ordered a brand new Mac Mini. It wont feel the same, but it will do it's job.:apple:
 

mdhwoods

macrumors regular
Jul 13, 2008
178
26
I guess I got lucky. My late 07 24" 2.8 imac power supply went quietly in its sleep last week. Kids work up and it just wouldn't turn on. After popping it open i found that the standby led no lit. Took out the power supply and found the line in fuse blown. Ordered a replacement supply and put it in yesterday. All is good. Sorry yours was so catastrophic.
 

Fishrrman

macrumors Penryn
Feb 20, 2009
28,343
12,460
"The sad thing is that this was a studio machine. I cant count the enourmus amount of audio, graphics and video editing that has been done on this machine."

Of course, you were backed up….

Right…. ?
 

Macman45

macrumors G5
Jul 29, 2011
13,197
135
Somewhere Back In The Long Ago
The troube when a PSU goes that dramatically is that it probably took the Logic board with it....At least you have the HDD. Removing it and sticking it in a caddy might help you recover those lost files if you don't have backups.
 
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