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27" iMac died, won't power on

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3460169

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Original poster
Feb 18, 2009
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This is epic.

Last year I had a 24" iMac that died. I brought it to the Apple store for repairs, turned out to be the video card. The repair operation snowballed into total failure and they ultimately replaced the machine with a 27" core i5 quad. The 24" was less than a year old at that point; the 27" was built in late 2009.

Seems the lifespan of these things is less than a year, at least when they're at my house.

Last night I was reading some RSS feeds, banging out some emails and then *poof* the machine instantly powers down. Power glitch? Nope, and besides, it's plugged into a UPS. Either the ATI4850 baked itself like it did in the 24" or the the power supply went or god knows what now.

Whatever it is, I'm at my wits end. Needless to say I have a "genius" appointment, which is in less than an hour from now -- the same clowns that failed to repair my 24" properly. Hopefully they'll fail again, and just replace the machine. At this rate I'm due for a new iMac every year. ;)
 
Benz63amg

Benz63amg

macrumors 601
Oct 17, 2010
4,110
805
they wont replace ur imac this time buddy, they are not stupid, they have on record that they already replaced it for you last year , people have their 27 imac for over a year ,it must be something wrong at your house , maybe a bad power circuit perhaps?
 
iSayuSay

iSayuSay

macrumors 68040
Feb 6, 2011
3,791
906
Wow ... did you buy another ACPP for 27" iMac?

Too bad your iMac "poof" a bit too early. Wait 1 or 2 months and you're on for new shiny Sandy Bridge iMac replacement. Along with Thunderbolt port

But please check electrical at your home. Do another electric equipments break as easy as your iMac?
 
R

ruvil

macrumors regular
Dec 26, 2010
137
0
lamonsas said:
they wont replace ur imac this time buddy, they are not stupid, they have on record that they already replaced it for you last year , people have their 27 imac for over a year ,it must be something wrong at your house , maybe a bad power circuit perhaps?
Click to expand...

uhmm? of course they will repair or replace it for him if it's needed and he is covered by the apple care and/or guaranty.
 
3

3460169

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Original poster
Feb 18, 2009
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I'm not expecting a replacement. (I believe the OP had a wink smilie, did it not?) However I'm also not expecting them to fubar the repair 5 times in a row like they did last year. After all, the manager assured me that "[his] technicians are professionals". :apple:

The machine is checked in waiting for parts. Everyone suspects it to be the power supply. It just amazes me, given my limited 2-year experience with iMacs, how often these machines fail. I've had two fail outright (video failure on the first, suspected power supply on the second), and another (at work, owned by my employer) fail due to bad RAM. I probably just have horrible luck with these things. :p

Regarding the electric at my house, it's fine IMO. And I use an APC UPS. Unless the UPS is shot but I doubt it since I have other devices on that and they haven't exploded yet. :)

Hmm Sandy Bridge. Yeah that's tempting. Depending on how this repair goes I'll likely sell the 27" and go from there. But given all the noise in the MBP forums about them choking under load, gotta wait and see how the new iMacs work out.
 
R

Reticent

macrumors member
Mar 18, 2011
75
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Denver
Hmm Sandy Bridge. Yeah that's tempting. Depending on how this repair goes I'll likely sell the 27" and go from there. But given all the noise in the MBP forums about them choking under load, gotta wait and see how the new iMacs work out.[/QUOTE]

I was having problems with the Sandy Bridge choking, but 10.6.7 fixed it. I know there's alot of noise about that, but I wouldn't be too scared as it seems that alot of the issues have been solved by a software update. Further software updates may fix it further. And those who still have issues may be having legitimate hardware issues not software issues. At any rate, I wouldn't be too concerned about it because my Sand Bridge MBP is working like a dream now :)

Hope all works out with the iMac, and I'd be optimistic about the Sandy Bridge iMacs! :)
 
R

Reticent

macrumors member
Mar 18, 2011
75
0
Denver
Sirmausalot are you talking to me?

I use my MBP on my coffee table mostly (so well ventilated), but I play Civ V with it on a blanket, curled up on my couch with the blanket (and yeah I know that's bad, and yeah it gets real real hot). When it gets real hot, I put it back on the coffee table and although it's still real hot it cools down after a bit.

I haven't been monitoring its temperature with any software, and no I don't use SMC fan control, though it has been suggested to me when I was having issues with Civ V.

Just to give you some insight into what was happening: before 10.6.7 I would use gfxCardStatus to force the computer to use the discrete GPU to run Civ V. It would get super hot, and after about 20 minutes I would try to quit the game and it would just hang on a black screen.

Two days ago I installed 10.6.7. That night, I played Civ V for about three hours (the fans were going and it was hot), making sure to try to replicate the issues I was having whenever possible before I applied the 10.6.7 update. No issues, even when it was hot, and not using SMC fan control.

I hope that's helpful? :eek: I'll check back in to answer any more questions or put my machine through some tests if you want.
 
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3

3460169

Cancelled
Original poster
Feb 18, 2009
1,293
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Sirmausalot said:
How hot is your workspace and how well ventilated? Are you using SMC fan control?
Click to expand...

Workspace is ~ 60F any given time of the day and it is well ventilated. I'm in NY, it's still pretty chilly here this time of year and my thermostat is never higher than 60 (let's not speak of heating oil costs!)

I've never used SMC fan control; I've put very little processing load on these machines and honestly never thought it necessary to tweak fan speeds. I use iStat Pro to check thermal and fan speed stats from time to time and I've never seen those fans higher than 1.8k RPM.
 
3

3460169

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Original poster
Feb 18, 2009
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Good to read that 10.6.7 is helping out people with the MBP Sandy Bridge machines.

I my case, the iMac died the day after I updated it to 10.6.7. I think it's just coincidence though!
 
R

Reticent

macrumors member
Mar 18, 2011
75
0
Denver
foof--

I doubt that the temp has much (if anything) to do with your issue... I'd be very surprised if you needed to tweak the fan speeds, and even if you did I doubt tweaking the fan speeds would've made any difference.

I'm sorry for the iMac issue, I really am. I wish I had a great "silver bullet" answer to offer you. Is apple at least going to take a look at it? If they are good luck!!! :)
 
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3460169

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Feb 18, 2009
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Reticent said:
I'm sorry for the iMac issue, I really am. I wish I had a great "silver bullet" answer to offer you. Is apple at least going to take a look at it? If they are good luck!!! :)
Click to expand...

Thanks. Yes. They are looking at it. It's within the standard 1 year warranty period and I dropped it off yesterday. (Although it is a 2009 iMac I didn't get it till last summer; it was a replacement for the 24" they failed to repair properly.) I just hope they can repair it without the fiasco of my last experience with them. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt, for now. :)
 
W

Wang Foolio

macrumors regular
Jan 11, 2010
164
0
Been running my 27" since Dec 2009. It sleeps most of the day but it's usually rebooted only when required by OSX upgrades (or the occasional BootCamp adventure).

Haven't had any real problems. Didn't have to exchange when the "yellow tinge" frenzy was at its peak, haven't had HD issues, never once had a full system crash/kernel panic. Once or twice the thing did have some issues with the power button, where it took a number of attempts to get the thing to turn on. Push button - nothing. Push button - nothing. Push button and hey, it worked this time and had no issues again for 6 months.

Compare that to my previous computer, a custom PC. I went through power supplies every 2 weeks on warranty until I switched to a top of the line Antec. After that, the computer ran smoothly for a good 4-5 years of university time. Reformatted once at around 4 year mark, just to clean the guts out a bit. Did get my first ever virus (a nasty one) about 6 months after that, which eventually led to my iMac purchase. Overall a good run for a PC, especially given the fact that it was OC'ed the entire time.

Sorry to hear about your bad luck. It happens, but unless there's something with your UPS then the odds of it happening again are very slim. Just remember, for every breakdown thread on the forums there are tons of users who never have a problem.
 
R

Reticent

macrumors member
Mar 18, 2011
75
0
Denver
Foof--

They'll do what they need to do to make it right. If you're under Applecare or standard warranty, they'll fix or replace it. I just hope you backed it up :eek:

That being said, losing a computer, or even the ability to use it for a day or more is vexing. Sorry about the whole situation, but Apple will make sure you're taken care of. They want your repeat business, so I believe they'll do the right thing.
 
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3460169

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Original poster
Feb 18, 2009
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Just an update on this for your amusement:

I brought the 27" iMac to the Geniuses. They had it for a few days and ultimately wound up replacing the logic board. The invoice for the work quoted the parts at ~ $1400. Good thing for warranties!

When I went to the store to pick up the machine, I had them power the thing on to make sure everything checked out & didn't have a repeat of last year's experience with my 24" machine. Sure enough all seemed well -- the grafx was good, fans were connected, bluetooth was functional (all of these were problems in my 24"). So I brought it home.

Turns out I should have inspected the hardware physically.

I use the ethernet (my house house is wired! OMG!), MDP and FW ports. I couldn't plug wires into any of these! The logic board is slightly offset in the iMac housing so these ports are slightly offset from their corresponding cut-outs in the housing. Here's a pic. Click for a closeup:



Naturally I made another Genius appointment which I had this morning. Upon showing up in the store I requested to speak to the manager. Turned out it was the same manager I dealt with last year when they gave me the 27" as a replacement for my 24" they couldn't fix properly. Told him the whole story, reminding him of last year's turmoil. He didn't ask one question or otherwise say one word other than "Do you have an appointment?" to which, of course, I replied yes.

When I got called up to the bar the tech already knew the story. He just confirmed that the ports were indeed inaccessible. At that point he said "We don't want to inconvenience you any more. We're just going to replace this machine with this machine." (In the stock configuration.)

I won't lie -- this definitely wow'ed me, for the second year in a row now. This particular store's ability to repair hardware leaves MUCH to be desired, but Apple's ultimate commitment to their customers is impressive.

Not entirely a bowl of cherries; I have to go back there and get a working keyboard. The bluetooth keyboard that came with this machine has a massive dent on the end with the power button and as such the button doesn't function whatsoever. Another loss is that I had invested in 16GB of RAM for the old 27"; that RAM runs at 1066MHz. The new machine wants 1333MHz mem. No matter; 200 bucks for memory is a small price to pay for a new machine and warranty to match.

One of the techs there said flat out that I have horrible luck. This is true, with Apple hardware anyway. Hopefully third time's a charm...
 
R

Reticent

macrumors member
Mar 18, 2011
75
0
Denver
My god. What a story. That's real crappy of the manager to treat you like that, given your history with him/her. Anyways, that is definitely not cool of them to send your machine back to you like that... but a brand new machine is pretty cool too.

I am flabbergasted at the whole experience. Thanks for updating! :)
 
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