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Heard A Pop, Unit Won't Turn On

H

henryonapple

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 29, 2012
406
0
Hello Every One,

I own a Mid 2011 iMac and it died on me today. I was video chatting and suddenly heard a small pop sound, and everything shut off. At first I thought the iMac turned itself off to protect itself from overheating, but after letting it cool off the unit will still not power on.

Has anyone experienced a similar problem? If so, what component went bad and how much did it cost to repair?

All responses will be greatly appreciated
 
Possibly a blown capacitor on the logic board or power supply. I had an older model do something similar. It went pop with a bright flash and starter pouring smoke out of it. As it was older I just knocked it over, burst the display etc and got a new one on the house insurance :rolleyes:
 
irnchriz said:
Possibly a blown capacitor on the logic board or power supply. I had an older model do something similar. It went pop with a bright flash and starter pouring smoke out of it. As it was older I just knocked it over, burst the display etc and got a new one on the house insurance :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

LOL. Win! Because you know most of the time they screw us.

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henryonapple said:
Hello Every One,

I own a Mid 2011 iMac and it died on me today. I was video chatting and suddenly heard a small pop sound, and everything shut off. At first I thought the iMac turned itself off to protect itself from overheating, but after letting it cool off the unit will still not power on.

Has anyone experienced a similar problem? If so, what component went bad and how much did it cost to repair?

All responses will be greatly appreciated
Click to expand...

Are you in the UK?
 
If it is a power supply capacitor. You can buy a new PSU for the iMac for around $90 to $140 on eBay. Depending on specific model and new or used.

If it's the motherboard and a capacitor. Replacing it would be more than it is worth. You might be able to find someone willing to unsolder the old capacitor and solder on a new one for a reasonable price. Such a repair is a gamble though.
 
velocityg4 said:
If it is a power supply capacitor. You can buy a new PSU for the iMac for around $90 to $140 on eBay. Depending on specific model and new or used.

If it's the motherboard and a capacitor. Replacing it would be more than it is worth. You might be able to find someone willing to unsolder the old capacitor and solder on a new one for a reasonable price. Such a repair is a gamble though.
Click to expand...

I have two of the same iMacs, swapped PSUs, and found out that both PSUs are working fine on the machine that didn't pop on me.

I suspect the issue is within the logic board at this point. How come you think it's not worth it to unsolder the old capacitor and solder a new one on?
 
henryonapple said:
I have two of the same iMacs, swapped PSUs, and found out that both PSUs are working fine on the machine that didn't pop on me.

I suspect the issue is within the logic board at this point. How come you think it's not worth it to unsolder the old capacitor and solder a new one on?
Click to expand...

Having the second Mac was certainly helpful. It seems to eliminate the PSU as the problem, even though it statistically was probably the most likely. Also, you seem comfortable working inside the Mac, which is an asset.

So I would agree at this point that a cap on the logic board is the most likely initial point of failure. Since an out-of-warranty replacement of the logic board probably doesn't make economic sense for you, you have very little to loose by trying to replace the damaged cap. Do you actually have visual evidence of one particular cap being suspect?

If so, and you have the tools and available replacement cap, I would be inclined to try replacing it. However, I would do so under the expectation that it was a long shot in terms of entirely fixing the problem. There is a good probability that some logic circuitry was also damaged and of course this would be much more difficult to localize and repair. But it may be worth a couple of $$ for a cap to try it and convince yourself that you did everything you could reasonably do to fix it.

Good luck if you decide to proceed, and keep us posted on your outcome.
 
henryonapple said:
Apple Care expired several months ago, this would be an out of warranty repair
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If you aren't too far out of Apple Care, I'd still recommend taking it down to the Apple store and see what they can do. Since you bought AC and your computer is only ~3 years old, they might be able to work out a solution for you.
 
colodane said:
Having the second Mac was certainly helpful. It seems to eliminate the PSU as the problem, even though it statistically was probably the most likely. Also, you seem comfortable working inside the Mac, which is an asset.

So I would agree at this point that a cap on the logic board is the most likely initial point of failure. Since an out-of-warranty replacement of the logic board probably doesn't make economic sense for you, you have very little to loose by trying to replace the damaged cap. Do you actually have visual evidence of one particular cap being suspect?

If so, and you have the tools and available replacement cap, I would be inclined to try replacing it. However, I would do so under the expectation that it was a long shot in terms of entirely fixing the problem. There is a good probability that some logic circuitry was also damaged and of course this would be much more difficult to localize and repair. But it may be worth a couple of $$ for a cap to try it and convince yourself that you did everything you could reasonably do to fix it.

Good luck if you decide to proceed, and keep us posted on your outcome.
Click to expand...

I will keep every one updated. I can only view the back of the logic board at the moment, but there is visual evidence of dried out capacitor fluid. I feel comfortable removing every component except the logic board - heard it was super tricky getting it reseated properly inside the iMac. At this point I don't have much to lose so I'll probably just remove every component, and if I'm unable to repair the logic board I'll just part out the iMac on eBay. I was doing the math yesterday and I could probably make a cool $500-$600 by selling the parts individually. Or maybe I can just keep in stored away somewhere, in case my other iMac fails on me.

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Altis said:
If you aren't too far out of Apple Care, I'd still recommend taking it down to the Apple store and see what they can do. Since you bought AC and your computer is only ~3 years old, they might be able to work out a solution for you.
Click to expand...

I have an appointment tomorrow actually. Hopefully they don't charge me a diagnostics fee because I believe I've pretty much pinpointed the problem. If not the PSU, it must be the logic board, right?
 
Hi Every One,

Sorry for the one year delay in update, but the Apple store replaced the power supply and graphics card and my unit still won't turn on. Looks like it's the logic board. At this point I probably will part the iMac out to recoup as much as I can.
 
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