iMac Won't Power-Up or Boot-Up

[landman0360]

I have a 24"iMac that I bought in December of 2008. Worked great yesterday. Today it will not boot up. No power at all. Tried the power cord in another iMac and it worked. Changed out the cord with a new one and it still won't work. Called Apple and they will not let me ship the iMac to fix. Said I had to take it to an Apple Store. Not a good option. Over 5 hours from me.

Is this something that I should take to the BestBuy Geek squad? If it won't power up how do I get my info off of it. Hate to have to buy another computer. Sounds like this could be an expensive fix.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

 

[Tankmaze]

It could be the power supply. Have you experience any blackouts / brownouts ? Do you use UPS ?

 

[landman0360]

No blackouts, power outages, etc. Yes, we do have UPS and FedEx.

Any ideas why it won't power up?

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Is it time to replace this 4 year old iMac? if so, how do I get my "stuff" off of it if it won't boot up?

 

[Mike in Kansas]

UPS = Uninterrupted Power Supply NOT United Parcel Service!

The poster was asking if you use a UPS, implying that most UPSs have power conditioners / surge protection and would have protected you from surges from brown- or black-outs.

My guess is that you don't have one as you didn't know what the other poster was referring to!

 

[landman0360]

What does that mean if it was subject to surges from brown- or black-outs.

Is my iMac toast? Or a cosltly repair?

I appreciate any help.

 

[Mike in Kansas]

If you suddenly lost power due to storms, line going down, transformer in your neighborhood failing, etc., you could have a black out (complete loss of power) or a brown out (usually 1 leg on a transformer, so partial power). All of those events can have a power surge both when the event occurs, and then when your power is restored. These surges could have killed your power supply. I do not think that the iMac has any sort of fusable plug or other overload protection built in; that's why you should keep your expensive electronics on an outlet with surge suppression or power conditioning.

Did you try plugging your iMac into another outlet - one that you know works? This may sound silly, but crazier things have happened!

If those simple things don't work, it's probably time to take it to someone.

If you decide to scrap it, you can pull out your old HDD and put it into an enclosure to get your stuff off of it.