Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

G5 iMac - horror stories. A risky purchase?

My wife has a 20" Rev A iMac G5 at work. No problems on her end either. She loves her computer, says it is the best computer she has ever had (her previous work computer ran windows).
 
I'm completely happy with my rev b 20 incher. The fan cranks up when I am doing stuff like ripping or comressing music, but even then it is not that loud. And by no means will the machine be obsolete after the conversion to Intel. Apple will support G5 chips long into the future. So, by the time you want to upgrade, you can comfortably move into an Intel Mac after they have been in service a while.
 
At my lawyers office they have two Rev. A G5 iMac's. They switched because of all the virus and spyware problems. No problems incurred so far.
 
The rev. B I had for a couple of days became very hot inside after normal work load and then the fans then started to run fast and become noisy. And I had a couple of stuck pixels.
But it was really fast and pleasant to use.
 
That Sinking Feeling

Josh said:
lol...I had both, and take a look at what good that did:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/95328/

Apple support gave me more greif than the actuall iMac did.
Click to expand...


Whatever happened, Josh? What was the end to your imac story? Did Ruth help you out? Did you sell it on Ebay? I read that whole thread in disbelief, and then it simply ended.

I am awaiting tomorrow's delivery of a rev b 20" imac, with a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach. It's my first new computer in 8 years. I ordered it with the Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, then got nervous and tried to change it from the CTO to the stock. They gave me $80 to keep it like it was-- more than the cost of the upgrade. Except now I don't get to return it within 14 days if its a whiner.

Please don't let it be a whiner!
 
My iMac has been great since I first hit the power button. The G5 iMacs are good right now, the intel Imacs will also be good when they are released. Waiting just means you will go without in the meantime. There are always going to be a few duds, but considering how many have been sold, the percentage is not large.
 
I don't own an iMac G5, so I can't speak for that model, but Apple ranks 1st in computer reliability and service support on Consumer Reports every year. So I can only imagine the problems PC owners must have... 🙄

For the best reliability and support:
Apple $1,675
As our survey reports continue to indicate, Apple’s reliability and support are top-notch.
Click to expand...
 
I got one of the first RevB's shipped to my Apple store, and have no complaints that increasing Ram (I have the base 512) likely wouldn't fix. I certainly wasn't aware of horror stories! IMO it has the best overall value of the current Apple lineup - Power Macs are great but I don't see them being worth the extra $$$, and the laptops are too aged. Definition of "sweet spot" if you ask me. 🙂
 
From first-hand experiences:

1 rev B iMac G5
1 rev A iBook G4
1 4G iPod

No problems thus far. One very happy consumer. 🙂
 
Xenious said:
My wife's 3 month old 20" G5 1.8GHz iMac (rev A) just lost a drive. I learned the powerful backup lesson that one nasty event teaches us. SMART status said the drive was fine when we powered it off to go on holiday, but when we came back it wouldn't recognize the drive on boot.
Click to expand...

My GFs iMac was exactly the same from day one it had a chirping noise, when I arranged to get it repaired the guy knew straight away what the problem was - DOA HD - must be pretty common, there were 3 other people in the line getting their iMacs repaired when I took hers in, been fine ever since the repair though...

/me knocks on wood!
 
I have a Rev A 1.8 17 inch and I have had absoloutly no problems with it.
My only crit. is that it's a little loud when Im using photoshop or a processor intense program

I recently replaced the 80 gig with a 300 gig HD and 2gb ram - believe it or not I think its getting quieter.
 
wordmunger said:
That's because no one is going to post to MR saying "My IMAC is working FINE! NEED TO KNOW WHAT TO DO ASAP!!!!!!!!!
Click to expand...


My IMAC is working FINE! NEED TO KNOW WHAT TO DO ASAP!!!!!!!!!

Not a problem and have had my 20" since the first units shipped.

FWIW, I have never had a problem with any Apple product I have owned - Mac SE, Mac LC, Mac IIsi, Quadra 7 something, a lowly Performa, iMac, iMac G5, iBook G3, iPod 3G.


Oops, I lied. I did have a dog of an Apple 15" CRT which they promptly replaced.
 
I've not had any issues with the Rev B 20" iMac we purchased a month or so ago - works great and I can't see a reason not to get one if you're thinking about it.

D
 
October 04 Rev A Working fine

I've had my rev A 17" 1.8GHz IMac G5 since early October 2004. No problems.
 
Imac 20 rev.B with flickering pixels

Hi...
I have an Imac 20" rev B and I have only one complain that I don't know if are a hardware problem or a software problem (running tiger 10.4.1)
Three days after I bought, some pixels start flickering around desktop, in red and green...this lasts 10 seconds.
On the following days it happens again, different behavior. One time this happens only above the DVD window I was playing, other time only in the middle of the screen, last night happens around all the display.
This not affect any application and I xbench my imac, scores 170.
It's just annoying and I'm all time looking for new info. I will not wait until something worst happens.
I run the apple hadware test and everything pass.
I love my imac and will continue with him until a nice PB G5 become real.
If someone can give an inside, I even post a topic for that.
Best Regards
Guilherme
 
I have your other half!

guigo said:
Three days after I bought, some pixels start flickering around desktop, in red and green...
Click to expand...

Hmmm - I think my machine and yours are other halves of each others' souls. You had the red and green. Mine eventually spent more time being blue than full color!

Finally convinced the (wonderful, btw) phone support people to stop making me try stupid things and let me take it into an authorized repairer. Brought it in to CompUSA April 30. Forty-five days later (yup, 45), they're still waiting to get a midplane from Apple. I guess there are so many issues it's tough to get your hands on them.

And yet, if I had to go buy a computer today, I'd buy an iMac again. As someone said, it's the sweat spot right now for power, price, and semi-portability. And it's just a pleasure to have in front of you (aside from having a fan that close to your ears, of course.).

Whelp - let's see if Day 46 is my lucky day!

😉
 
I've had a rev A iMac G5 since 2 October 2004 and I have exactly one dead pixel. The only time I've ever experienced lots of noise was when I was using my iPod as a start up drive...but otherwise...nothing.


My grandmother's rev A 17in on the other hand....it squeals and squeaks to no end
 
wow.. i never new my future imac ( which will be history this weekEND) could have this many problems.. *Gets Nervous*


perhaps an emac?
 
new imac

I am writing this on my brand new imac (2.0, 20") that I took delivery of exactly 27 minutes ago. It is a thing of beauty. The moment I powered it up all my fears vanished.

This computer is very quiet. Not silent, but infinitley quieter than the bf's rev A 17". I haven't taxed it with anything yet, so I'll hold out final judgement. I'm going to be optimistic and expect several years out of this machine.

Now, off to buy the sims 2. 😛
 
I'm writing this from my new (refurb) 20" 1.8ghz iMac as well. I was all ready to dime up the $1799 for a new one, but after the Mactel announcement I just couldn't bring myself to spend that kind of cash on something that I might want to replace in 2 years (versus my usual 4-5 years per Mac). I opened the box, went to install my 512mb of ram from crucial.com, and noticed that there was already 512mb in there (supposed to have 256!). So I add te extra anyway, boot it up, and.... Kernel panic! After three more panics within an hour, I pull out the crucial ram and it's been flawless ever since. I've yet to try Tiger, but 10.3.9 is a nice upgrade (I was running 10.2.x on my G4 450). I also noticed that I've got a 250gb HD instead of the 160gb that was supposed to come with it! I couldn't be happier with my $1399 purchase. Now I just have to return my DOA, unnecessary ram to crucial.com. 😀
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back