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My 24" imac's video crapped out
- Thread starter rigid
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I realize this is an old thread, but I can't find any newer threads with problems as similar to mine. I have a 2.93 iMac with a GT 120 card that is giving artifacts and eventually the lower half of the screen goes black and the upper half jumps and flickers and I have to hold down the power button. It was doing this a few months ago and I used SMC fan control to make the fans run a bit more. Problem went away. It has come back this week and more frequently than before. I'm honestly hoping for similar results to others here with repeated trips to the Apple store ending in a new machine.
I don't, however, have confidence that a new machine will last more than 2 years. When they upgrade you, are they just giving you store credit towards a new computer? The more I use the iMac and it's small enclosure and laptop components, the more I want a Mac Pro.
Fortunately there are 4 Apple stores in southeast Michigan, and one is less then 5 miles from my house. I have an appointment to take it in tomorrow. Thankfully I have a Mini that I was using on the TV until recently, so it will be repurposed for the time being until I get the iMac issue resolved.
I don't, however, have confidence that a new machine will last more than 2 years. When they upgrade you, are they just giving you store credit towards a new computer? The more I use the iMac and it's small enclosure and laptop components, the more I want a Mac Pro.
Fortunately there are 4 Apple stores in southeast Michigan, and one is less then 5 miles from my house. I have an appointment to take it in tomorrow. Thankfully I have a Mini that I was using on the TV until recently, so it will be repurposed for the time being until I get the iMac issue resolved.
I suppose at that point I could ebay it as NIB and get close to full price for it and do as I please. Thanks for the feedback.
Well I took it in and they ordered the logic board, video card and display. The total of the 3 parts was $2000. The computer cost $1700 new. 
He said they probably wouldn't replace all 3. Even if they just replace the video and logic, that was $1400 of the total. To me, why don't they just replace the whole computer at that point? Seems obvious why they don't keep fooling around with them when they come back a second or third time.
He said they probably wouldn't replace all 3. Even if they just replace the video and logic, that was $1400 of the total. To me, why don't they just replace the whole computer at that point? Seems obvious why they don't keep fooling around with them when they come back a second or third time.Logic board fault
These all sound like more examples of the same issue many people are having with these models of iMac - I have been on to Apple support about this for about a year - the logic board needs replaced - certainly a manufacturing problem - in Scotland we can pursue such matters up to 5 yrs after the fault is discovered - And, Senior Customer Relations at Apple said, more or less, we will not replace the board unless you take us to court - so that's what I'm doing - in many countries now if the fault is a manufacturing issue you may well have good grounds for a claim. There is even a petition site that has gathered nearly 900 signatures from people with thus problem yet Apple say it ix not a known issue.
These all sound like more examples of the same issue many people are having with these models of iMac - I have been on to Apple support about this for about a year - the logic board needs replaced - certainly a manufacturing problem - in Scotland we can pursue such matters up to 5 yrs after the fault is discovered - And, Senior Customer Relations at Apple said, more or less, we will not replace the board unless you take us to court - so that's what I'm doing - in many countries now if the fault is a manufacturing issue you may well have good grounds for a claim. There is even a petition site that has gathered nearly 900 signatures from people with thus problem yet Apple say it ix not a known issue.
As you can see by searching through some of my posts here and as reported on MacFixIt last year, I've had a similar problem with the 8800GS when playing some heavy-duty games like SCII...first I thought it was a problem with the game provoking the issues (due to endless processing of sprites), but it was really the GPU which then spread the issue to the main board.
After some explanation, gathering documentation on the issue from other people and a couple of trips to the local Apple Store, the company agreed to repair my iMac's GPU AND MOBO for free, even though it was out of warranty and with no Applecare. This seems to be NVIDIA's problem indeed.
Believe me, Apple's customer service is second to none; my repaired iMac has been fine so far.
I'm in England and had similar problems. However, I managed to get Apple to replace my 2006 iMac for a brand new one later last year. It took some time but it worked. I've documented everything I did here:
Link to my article.
Quicksilver2001
macrumors newbie
The price of being thin a poignant example we have here, so Yoda might say...
I bought the less oomphy Early 2008 iMac 24-inch (because it was like a Mid 2007 build-to-order model but "optimized" and I love it but due to trying to shoehorn 21st Century technology into a house built during World War II (one of the rare houses with that distinction) we have come to the point where the hard disk is unhappy and the overall capacity when going to format will be 297.77 GB but once it is formatted it is only 296.6 GB. The iMac saw me through as much of college as I could get loans for, and I am now going to keep it and give it the "semi-retirement" treatment.
I plan on buying a new hard disk and paying someone to install it because I wanted more space than 320GB anyway, but wanted to wait until the factory hard drive gave me a reason to replace it. It's amazing it still works after five and a half years of needing to use it, but I made strenuous efforts to supercool it when I needed to use it heavily and keep it off the rest of the time.
It's rare when you have one of these that after 5 years the two most expensive components are working better than the hard disk, but that's because I realized it wasn't a Mac Pro and therefore I didn't work it like one, because I didn't need to.
Unlike on a MacBook Pro I had, I will swallow $600 to have the professionals replace my iMac's hard disk gladly, because as long as they treat it they way I did, I'll have one that's better than new.
It saw Windows 7 Release Candidate and Windows 7 RTM, and I would buy it again knowing what I knew then.
Hope my story is inspirational to somebody.
I bought the less oomphy Early 2008 iMac 24-inch (because it was like a Mid 2007 build-to-order model but "optimized" and I love it but due to trying to shoehorn 21st Century technology into a house built during World War II (one of the rare houses with that distinction) we have come to the point where the hard disk is unhappy and the overall capacity when going to format will be 297.77 GB but once it is formatted it is only 296.6 GB. The iMac saw me through as much of college as I could get loans for, and I am now going to keep it and give it the "semi-retirement" treatment.
I plan on buying a new hard disk and paying someone to install it because I wanted more space than 320GB anyway, but wanted to wait until the factory hard drive gave me a reason to replace it. It's amazing it still works after five and a half years of needing to use it, but I made strenuous efforts to supercool it when I needed to use it heavily and keep it off the rest of the time.
It's rare when you have one of these that after 5 years the two most expensive components are working better than the hard disk, but that's because I realized it wasn't a Mac Pro and therefore I didn't work it like one, because I didn't need to.
Unlike on a MacBook Pro I had, I will swallow $600 to have the professionals replace my iMac's hard disk gladly, because as long as they treat it they way I did, I'll have one that's better than new.
It saw Windows 7 Release Candidate and Windows 7 RTM, and I would buy it again knowing what I knew then.
Hope my story is inspirational to somebody.