We use Macs. We have ever since the dawn of the computer age. Mary's school used Macs, so that's what we got for home. The current descendant in this Apple legacy is our G5 iMac 17" 1.9ghz "iSight" that we bought in late 2005. What a great machine! Great display, quiet, stable with OS 10.4 ... a model citizen. That is until I started noticing some strange video and random freezeups and fan operation. This was in February of 2008. Despite these small glitches, the computer was mostly usable, so we ignored the trouble until the video finally went whack on March 19 (one day after my knee surgery) I had a painkiller clouded encounter on the phone with Apple Care and we determined that the logic board was dead. Since I was immobile, Mary had to take the iMac to the repair shop in Fresno. They ordered the part and installed it. They were unable to get the machine going and determined that the replacement logic board was also bad. Bummer. They ordered another board. It arrived. They installed it. Couldn't boot the iMac ..... reason? Another bad logic board! This was becoming rather surreal. I did discover through a bit of internet research (on a backup G3 iMac) that this logic board issue is a known one that Apple partially addressed with a service bulletin and replacement program that, of course, did not include my machine (it is too new). Another board was ordered and installed, and the machine was proclaimed cured! I got it home and all looked good. However, a couple of days later I witnessed more odd video, freezeup, and fan behavior. I went into full diagnostic mode to try to determine for sure if we were experiencing a software problem or if it was again the logic board. I uninstalled and reinstalled iPhoto (the problem was most noticeable in this app), reset the PRAM, reset the SMU, Archived and Installed, and Erased and Installed to no avail. The clincher was when I administered the dreaded Apple Hardware Test found on my system DVD (once I was finally able to boot the machine from DVD ... it took several attempts) The test prompted an error code that I shared with an Apple Care rep on the phone. The code indicated a bad logic board. That would be 4 bad boards including the original. I called Apple Customer Relations (this is sort of customer service for annoying, problem consumers like me) and asked for some sort of resolution. The rep, while understanding, insisted that Apple get another chance to fix the machine. Despite my frustration, I just wanted our computer to be working normally, so I relented and agreed to take it in for service once again. I heard nothing from the repair shop for a week, so I called to get an update. The tech told me that the manifest showed that my part was ordered on May 13 (when it showed "in stock" ), but was not due for shipping until June 9(!!) I immediately called Customer Relations back to fill them in. The rep said that generally when there is a delay like this they expedite the part, but considering the circumstances of our case that they were going to replace our computer with a new iMac.
Crazy stuff.
I'm glad I footed for the Apple Care, because without it I'd be $800 poorer (cost of logic board replacement) or getting by using a broken iMac .... neither a fun option.
.... so, I've been perusing the Apple Support discussion boards looking for issues to watch for with the replacement iMac, just in case.
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