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My iMac died and I'm about the throw up. **UPDATE**

I got a call from my Mac repair guy today. Good news and bad news.

Good News: Its not the hard drive!!!:D

Bad News: Its the logic board!:eek:

He said he plugged the new drive in and it also would not show up. So as far as he knows all our data is safe. He's going to let me know the price to replace the logic board later today.

How can it be the logic board? We only bought this thing August 2007! Now, I love Apple and all, but I never had any of my Windows machines motherboards crap out on me. A little over a year seems like and awful short life.

I had a feeling it wasn't the hard drive. It was just weird the way it would not show up at all even after trying every technique on Apple's site. It had been getting really slow though, we ordered another 2GB of ram the day it died on us.

What could have caused this?
 
A lightning strike could have caused it, but it's anyone's guess really. It could have just been a bad part with cold solder joints.

It's good to hear your data is there. Now, get it backed up. ;)
 
I'm also from Canada.

The logic board went on my MBP 11 months after I got it. Got it repaired...... I assume it was the NVIDIA issue....... glad it was covered. Sorry to hear yours is out of warranty :(
 
The repair guy hasn't given me a quote yet but the Apple store said $800-$1200!

At that price we might just get a new iMac. Refurbished ones are $949 and then I can get Apple Care so this won't happen again. If I buy a new logic board for $800, I still won't have a warranty on the computer.

A new one would give me a fresh computer, Apple Care and Leopard. Plus I can probably sell the broken iMac for a few bucks to offset the cost. Everything else on it runs fine, just needs the logic board.

What do you guys think?
 
Well 800 dollars for a motherboard! Is that including labour as well?

For 800 i would be putting that toward another machine, plus as you said you can get a refurb with probably better spec'ed then your current one and apple care. I say get the new computer!
 
They said $800-1200 including labour, but they wouldn't be able to give me an exact quote without me bringing the computer in. I expect it to be somewhere in the middle of that though.

The guy who has the computer now said he'll let me know first thing in the morning how much he would be able to do it for, but i expect its about the same as Apple.
 
MVallee said:
The repair guy hasn't given me a quote yet but the Apple store said $800-$1200!

At that price we might just get a new iMac. Refurbished ones are $949 and then I can get Apple Care so this won't happen again. If I buy a new logic board for $800, I still won't have a warranty on the computer.

A new one would give me a fresh computer, Apple Care and Leopard. Plus I can probably sell the broken iMac for a few bucks to offset the cost. Everything else on it runs fine, just needs the logic board.

What do you guys think?
Click to expand...

I think...don't you have consumer protection laws in Canada?! If this happened in the UK (and it's clear that it's a defect present at the time of purchase), Apple are liable regardless of warranty - you don't expect something to break after 357 days. It's completely unreasonable to buy something and replace it within such a short period.

If you don't have such laws, might be worth ringing Apple and explaining anyway. If you get a nice advisor they might help - I've had that from them, but admittedly on smaller items like an AEBS and a few mice.

AppleMatt
 
Yes, I'd plead my case with Apple. A friend of mine did this recently with a dead Mac that was far further out of warranty and they found a way to extend his coverage.
 
Apparently Apple has a "logic board exchange program" and instead of $1000 for a new one, its only $499 if you return your broken one to them to be recycled/refurbished. So installed it $600 and we'll have our iMac back Tuesday. Hopefully all will be back to normal.
 
OMG!!

Ok, so I went to pickup my iMac today with the new logic board. The technician assured me he had tested it extensively, restarted it 9 times and every-time it booted without a problem. He also said he tried loading programs like iTunes, iPhoto and a few others, and all went well.

We brought it home and I installed the new RAM I got from Crucial. I started it up and voila, it worked. Everything was as I left it. My BitTorrent downloads were still going. But the system felt slow and i kept getting the pinwheel just like before. I deleted some files, ran software update, shut off all my downloads, restarted it and it was still slow. The system profiler showed 3GB of RAM and it was sluggish just running Finder.

I tried to click on iTunes and it froze. The mouse wouldn't move, I couldn't force quit, nothing. So, out of options, I hit the power button.

I restarted to find the folder with the question mark, once again. It fried again within 30 minutes of being home!! I've tried 5 times to restart and its the same as before. Running disk utility from the install disks shows the same as before, no drive.

I assume its the same problem again (the drive is fine, its the logic board) seeing as the symptoms are the same.

How can the logic board fry again? Its a new board! I just spent $670+ on it!!

I'm a little pissed.
 
MVallee said:
OMG!!

Ok, so I went to pickup my iMac today with the new logic board. The technician assured me he had tested it extensively, restarted it 9 times and every-time it booted without a problem. He also said he tried loading programs like iTunes, iPhoto and a few others, and all went well.

We brought it home and I installed the new RAM I got from Crucial. I started it up and voila, it worked. Everything was as I left it. My BitTorrent downloads were still going. But the system felt slow and i kept getting the pinwheel just like before. I deleted some files, ran software update, shut off all my downloads, restarted it and it was still slow. The system profiler showed 3GB of RAM and it was sluggish just running Finder.

I tried to click on iTunes and it froze. The mouse wouldn't move, I couldn't force quit, nothing. So, out of options, I hit the power button.

I restarted to find the folder with the question mark, once again. It fried again within 30 minutes of being home!! I've tried 5 times to restart and its the same as before. Running disk utility from the install disks shows the same as before, no drive.

I assume its the same problem again (the drive is fine, its the logic board) seeing as the symptoms are the same.

How can the logic board fry again? Its a new board! I just spent $670+ on it!!

I'm a little pissed.
Click to expand...

Did you back up before you did any of this?
 
Did you ever run Diskwarrior on the drive? I saw someone mentioned it, but I didn't read that you tried it..

It sounds to me like the drive could be corrupt and Diskwarrior might just fix it.
 
Dude, having a 3 years of data and not backed up? :rolleyes:
nelson-haha.gif


There are TWO kind of people:

1) people who have not backup up their stuff :p
2) people who WILL backup their stuff :cool:
(after learning the hard way)
 
The data was all there for the half hour it was working. Didn't get a chance to copy it all off before it died again.

I was thinking it was the power supply too, I can't see what else would fry a brand new logic board in 30 minutes.

I'll be calling the repair guy again today....
 
So I brought it in and when I called yesterday the guy said there was nothing wrong, it ran, the files were there, it was fine. He said he'd keep trying to see what was happening.

I called today to Apple and they said because the problem was initially diagnosed as a logic board problem, any other repairs that the computer needed would be covered by them. Thats a relief.

I called the repair guy again and he said he found the problem. He ran the computer for over 3 hours yesterday without a problem, and then the hard drive failed, so we need a new hard drive and he's currently trying to recover my files.

So I brought it in and my files were there, I got it back and my files were there, he tested it out yesterday and they were there for 3 hours until whatever he did made the hard drive fail. So who will be paying for data recovery if the files are indeed gone? Not me.

:mad:
 
You did all that and did no backup your hard drive?

That's nuts.

BTW, a friend has an older iMac G5 isight and it wasn't a logic board problem, it turned out to be a ram problem.

If your hard drive was failing that whole time, I could also have seemed like a logic board problem. AT the least, they own you a new hd.

and a new powersupply.

For some reason I think it was the hard drive all along. How could you exist in 2009 without Time Machine or some other back up ?

Tell your "apple guy" to immediately pull your hard drive and get it home in an external enclosure and do the freezer trick. Google that. You may have a few minutes to get stuff off the drive. I am still dumbfounded that this was not your first order of procedure when you first took it in.
 
MVallee said:
So I brought it in and when I called yesterday the guy said there was nothing wrong, it ran, the files were there, it was fine. He said he'd keep trying to see what was happening.

I called today to Apple and they said because the problem was initially diagnosed as a logic board problem, any other repairs that the computer needed would be covered by them. Thats a relief.

I called the repair guy again and he said he found the problem. He ran the computer for over 3 hours yesterday without a problem, and then the hard drive failed, so we need a new hard drive and he's currently trying to recover my files.

So I brought it in and my files were there, I got it back and my files were there, he tested it out yesterday and they were there for 3 hours until whatever he did made the hard drive fail. So who will be paying for data recovery if the files are indeed gone? Not me.

:mad:
Click to expand...

No one pays for data recovery except for you.

Fine prints and common sense point out that it's your responsbility.
 
Well he's currently trying to recover the data, but he misdiagnosed the problem. I only had it running here for 30 minutes, hardly enough time to back up 250GB of stuff, especially when I thought it was fixed. If i had know i only had 30 minutes I would have pulled all the important stuff i could off the drive. he had it running for 3 hours yesterday and didn't copy anything off, now that its broken he's trying it though.

I know I need backups, its my moms computer and she did not back up. We will in the future, but haven't had a chance since we've been without the computer for nearly 2 weeks.

My cousin brought her computer into Geek Squad and while there the hard drive failed and she lost everything. They paid to send it to a clean room and recovered all the data, no charge to her.
 
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