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How many iMac owners haven't had problems past a year?

onthecouchagain

onthecouchagain

macrumors 604
Original poster
Mar 29, 2011
7,382
2
As a forum, we frequently hear about problems with iMacs, and macs in general, and understandably so given how helpful forum members can be.

Rarely do we hear positive stories where owners own their computers past their Apple Care dates (one year or three years) without any problems. Let's hear some of those stories. I think this'll help give people a better idea of how long an iMac can last.

I've only had mine for a little under a year, so my story isn't very moving. No problems here so far, though.

Shoot.
 
.

Got a mid-2010 iMac (bought in Aug 2010). To date, NO problems at all.

Perfect screen (1st try), very quiet internal HDD and its mouse/track Pad work great as well. As expected, she's "purring like a soft kitten".

.
 
April 2011 21" thunderbolt base model iMac: came with SL preinstalled. The thing is fast, quiet and cool. I am a recent Mac convert. I have never used anything that works this good.
 
onthecouchagain said:
As a forum, we frequently hear about problems with iMacs, and macs in general, and understandably so given how helpful forum members can be.

Rarely do we hear positive stories where owners own their computers past their Apple Care dates (one year or three years) without any problems. Let's hear some of those stories. I think this'll help give people a better idea of how long an iMac can last.

I've only had mine for a little under a year, so my story isn't very moving. No problems here so far, though.

Shoot.
Click to expand...
Walking into a hospital and asking who is healthy will never give meaningful results.
 
I bought a late 2006, in March '07. The only problems were the junk mouse, and the install disk going bad just sitting on a shelf. After a few replacements, I just bought a Logitec mouse, that works better than the original ever did. After three years, I needed to do a fresh install of Tiger, but the disk wouldn't work. I borrowed a copy of Snow Leopard about a year ago, and it has been going strong since. I also have Lion on an external drive, and it runs great on it. The only other computer that has lasted this long, was a HP with Win 98, and it never died on me.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

First year of my 2009 iMac was fine. But then it began:
- replacement of Magic Mouse (januari 2011)
- replacement of main board because of defective ethernet port (november 2011)
- and now my HDD is being replaced
Luckily I have AppleCare
 
Powerbook G4 17" : up and running
Macbook pro (2007) : up and running

mac mini 2011 : Yep, up and running

Those things are built to last
 
Eighteen month old iMac and two year old MacbookPro (with SSD). Both are running Lion and no problems, no crashes, everything works, all is well. Here's to another twelve months of trouble-free computing.
 
I had the first 24" iMac (white one). Sold after a couple of years and replaced with the 3rd gen aluminium version. Now have the 3rd gen 27" and not a singe one of them ever given me any issues.

Would recommend the SSD option if it's in your budget though, it makes a HUGE difference in speed and noise.

Also, I had to change the mouse as I couldn't stand the Magic Mouse or Trackpad. Replaced for a Logitech and it works great.
 
I have a 2008 24" imac, it has been totally reliable the entire time. I also have a 2009 unibody macbook 13" which has also been perfect.

I did have an older 17" white iMac, not sure how long I got it but after two years the screen developed hundreds of vertical lines that rendered it unusable. That was the only problem I have ever had. No Apple care on that one...
I even had a used 15" iMac, the one that looked like a half ball, I eventually gave it away after it was about 5 years old with no problems at all.
 
I've had 6 iMacs in 5 years.

I've only purchased one. The original White G5 iMac.

I've have every unit since then replaced and upgraded thanks to AppleCare.

We have a Late 2009 that just lost it's HDD. It didn't have AppleCare, so I replaced the drive myself with a 2TB WD.

On the other side of the spectrum, I have a iBook G4, C2D MBP and i7 MBP that have worked perfectly since day one.
 
Got my parents an ATI based iMac back in September 2008, the last of the pre nvidia 9400m based ones. 20" version, never had a problem with it and still going strong.

Upgrade to Snow Leopard was fine ( I had disabled the Guest Account habitually from my days working on Windows)

Going to get them a RAM upgrade before going Lion.

They even still have the original 500Gb Time Capsule going strong that was bought at the same time.

My 2008 unibody MBPro is also still going strong with an 8Gb upgrade, planning on an SSD / optibay replacement upgrade next. This has had Leopard, Snow Leopard and now Lion installed without any issue.

All of these are now out of applecare with my mac mini 2009 model going out in April, however never had a problem with it yet, or the Time Capsule I bought at the same time. I have had the DroboPro that I store my iTunes/Elgato Library on replaced twice in this time. (bought roughly the same time) Thankfully not lost any data as I didn't at the time have backups of the DroboPro storage.
 
I was one of (if not the) first to get my fully maxed out 3.4ghz i7 iMac with SSD. Not a single problem.
 
Just got my first iMac

But my 2008 MBP just passes 3 year mark with only a better replacement under recall. I bought an iBook in 2005 (right before transition to Intel) and that went more than 3 years with only a battery recall. It did start having power management issues well after 3 years. But by that time, technology had passed it by and it went off to Gazelle...

So far, 3 polycarbonate MacBooks are doing well after 18 months.

That said, I will place AppleCare on the 27" iMac once 90 days has passed...
 
MatthewAMEL said:
I've had 6 iMacs in 5 years.

I've only purchased one. The original White G5 iMac.

I've have every unit since then replaced and upgraded thanks to AppleCare.
Click to expand...

Do you know if there is a AppleCare policy considering replacements? I've heard that after 3 repairs, AppleCare will often replace your iMac. I'm asking this because I had a few repairs lately (and I have AppleCare).
 
My 09' iMac and my 07' mini have been 100% trouble free
My 06' black Macbook motherboard crapped out a few months ago. Not worth fixing.
I had 2 iBooks that had to be repaired under the 1 year warranty. Both had display problems
My eMac died right after the 1 year warranty. Sold it cheap for parts
My 17" gooseneck iMac's display arm spring broke. Fixed under the warranty..
 
No problems here, ever. Of the half dozen or so folks who I know well enough to know their history with their iMacs, except for a lightning strike their iMacs have been problem free as well.
 
We have an early '09 24" iMac that is our main home computer. So far we've had no real issues with it, and I'm not even sure if I've ever seen it crash. For the last serious Mac issue I've had I need to go all the way back to my G5 PowerMac which developed some problems with the memory sockets not seating the DIMM's... sold it on eBay for parts.
 
My 2000 iMac Sage was going strong until I replaced it in 2006. I did have to replace the internal (clock) battery about 4 years in and while I was at it, I upgraded the hard drive. :D

My current Mini will be 3 years old this year. No issues at all....well a bit slower than I'd like. ;)
 
I bought my 17" iMac brand new in November 2006. It's still going strong today. The only thing I did was up it to 2GB of ram from 1 and change the mouse. I've ordered a 21" iMac and it should be delivered today. I felt it was time but by no means was it necessary. I'm hoping for the same longevity from this new one.
 
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