So I just picked up my imac from the Apple Store, brought it home, plugged it in, then what did I see…? Nothing but a black screen. Hmmm…
It made the usual sounds when firing up, it’s just that the screen never came on. 😕  I then proceeded to shut it down and then restart it. A few seconds later… bam! …it’s working again. In fact, the system seemed to be performing faster than it had before, which would make perfect sense if the logic board had been faulty before the repair.
About ten minutes go by and pretty soon I hear what sounds like someone outside operating a leaf blower. Then I realize the noise is coming from my previously whisper-quiet imac!
I then open up my system preferences and see that the fans are running at 4x the normal speed. The default is 1500 rpm, however they were running as high as 5800 rpm by the time I shut the system down. I had them set at 1800 rpm, but they were in runaway mode. Fearing a serious blowout, I quickly shut the machine off and went for the phone.
I first tried contacting an Apple Genius at the store that’s had it for the past five days, which I’d also just driven 50 minutes round trip to pick it up from. As you may have guessed… no luck there. They took my number and informed me that an Apple Genius would return my call as soon as possible.
I then phoned AppleCare and the technician had me reset the PRAM, which is one of the basic troubleshooting steps for us mac users. So far so good, but I’m still anxiously awaiting a return phone call from an Apple Genius who hopefully can shed a little more light on why those problems may have occurred.
2.5 hours later and still no response from a Genius.
I gotta tell ya folks… I am not the biggest Apple fan at the moment, and here’s why…
After purchasing this computer just over 12 months ago, I have:
- spent nearly three hours driving back and forth between the Apple Store for service
- gone 10 business days without my computer, which I use for business. Ouch!
- had the hard drive replaced
- had the logic board replaced
- had the audio board replaced
- had the graphics card replaced
Considering the computer is barely over one year old and cost me over $2,600US with tax and extended warranty coverage, doesn’t all of that seem a bit excessive..?!
One would think that after having essentially the entire computer replaced within a year’s time, any further hardware problems would result in the issuance of a new computer. Nope. I’ve already tried heading down that road. Apple will gladly replace up to three logic boards, which consists of six trips to the Apple Store and 10-15 business days without your computer, before they will even consider a replacement. How on earth they can deem that an acceptable service policy I will never understand.
I had always viewed Apple as a step up from PC, and felt that the several hundred extra dollars they charge you for a computer translated into increased stability and reliability. Ha!
So anyway, yeah… I’m a little bit pissed. Could you tell?
Alright… enough of all this Apple BS bullcrap. Provided my computer remains stable, I intend on doing some heavy updating within the next week or so. Lots of good stuff on the way for HuntsmansLodge.com – I promise. 😀
Be aware that some new iMacs have issues with the internal fans running for a bit as they should but eventually get stuck at a low speed (and appear to be really quiet). What happens is the fans should speed up when the unit runs longer and hotter (and will thus get noisier) but eventually they stay on the low speed. All duh stuff, I know.
Well, mine ran fine for a few weeks after buying it but then I noticed the top of the iMac was getting hot to touch. The fans were “stuck” at a low, quiet speed. I installed a third-party fan control program and it keeps the fans honest and the box cool. You can even tweak a profile for WoW use that runs them a bit faster to keep things cool.
Periodically check your iMac for excessive heat and/or lack of fans getting noisier when you play Wow for 30 or more minutes at a time. The excessive heat of a quiet iMac may have been what was killing your components.
I went and picked up the new imac today.
They hooked me up with the brand new equivalent of my previous model. I now have a 1 TB HD, a beefier graphics card and iLife ’09. It’s also much more responsive than my previous imac.
Other than restore my data from the Time Machine backup and d/l all of the software updates, I’ve not had a chance to do much else with it yet. My wife’s heading out of town for 9 days, so I foresee this new machine undergoing some heavy Naxx 25 and Ulduar in the next week.
They did the right thing. I am now a fan of Apple once again. 😀
I was going to ask if you talked to the Mac Peeps about the possibility of your computer being a lemon. It can happen.
Good luck with your new machine. 🙂
Oh that sounds great! Shiny new computer, let’s hope it will behave.
If you keep have recurring problems with any computer- ie. different systems failing. Then I suspect you may have a faulty power supply.
Hey Garwulf,
I can imagine how you feel. I currently have problems with my Macbook Pro. Crashes, freezes, kernel panics while playing WoW, and then it stuck at the blue screen. I phoned apple care to tell them it wouldn’t switch on and then it did after 10 minutes of blue screen. PRAM resetting got it working, but today I noticed my temperature was at 90 degrees Celsius with fans running at 6000rpm! I can use it to fry eggs! Oh, and still random crashes. I still have applecare on it, thank god for that. Ah, I wish you good luck with yours. Updates soon yay!!
As soon as this Time Machine backup is complete, I’m off to the Apple Store to pick up my new machine.
Apple’s decided to present me with a brand new computer.
More later…