If there is an Apple store close by, I would recommend going there and discussing it with them. Escalating your voice as needed. Might help.
The new iMacs have fans. No heat problems for me (5 months). No problems waking from sleep either.
Sorry about you iMac DV, don't have any experience there.
Regards, JJ
On Friday, January 9, 2004, at 12:18 PM, walter wrote:
Hi listers,
my iMacDV special edition (slot-loading graphite) 500Mhz G3 died today. Four weeks after AppleCare expired, needless to say.
Two weeks prior to my warranty running out, the computer wouldn't wake up from sleep. The power button light went green, the screen went grey, but the HD would not spin up. I did a forced restart, but the same thing happened at startup. Power light goes green, grey screen, but the HD would not spin up. I put the hardware test CD in, and the CD-Rom drive wouldn't even take it.
So I switched it off and unplugged it for twenty minutes.
I plugged it back in, and tried starting it up again. No problems at all. I was quite puzzled so I called up my local Apple centre describing the problem and explaining that given that my warranty had two weeks left, maybe it made sense to have it checked up. They said to monitor the problem in the remaining two weeks and that if it came up again I should take the computer in. If not, it was difficult for them to assess an intermittent problem of the kind described.
Of course the iMac behaved impeccably for the following fortnight...
The problem recurred twice over the Christmas holidays. And I solved it by the same procedure, a cold restart would sort out whatever problem there was. I blamed it on the cold weather... As always, we keep it on sleep rather than shutting it off at night, as advised by Apple personnel at the time of purchase. Occasionally, I got slightly worried by the fanless design and the possible chance of overheating, but by and large it seemed fine. The previous iMac had gone through two logic board failures. This seemed fine.
During the last few days, we found it shut itself off of its own accord (it happened to someone else on the list some time ago, if I remember rightly). We were able to restart it without trouble.
This morning it shut itself off once again. I pressed the power button. Nothing. I unplugged it and after five minutes started it up again, the HD started spinning up, but there was a bit of a crackle and hiss and then a very strong smell of burnt plastic or whatever. We unplugged it immediately.
Phoned the Apple centre to explain the situation. I was hoping for a grace period given the circumstances. No way.
My reaction was: this is the last Mac I will ever buy (I've bought six altogether). It's a lovely design, but a fan-less computer is a daft idea. We've had problems with the previous iMac, we also had a very noisy hard drive in this one to begin with. And my clamshell Indigo iBook has a CD-Rom drive that is probably going. All these problems, I understand, are rather common. Design considerations probably led to wrong decisions in terms of what was best for the hardware. We forked out good money for a strikingly looking computer that had a basic design fault. An overheating core. It was difficult to suppress a good deal of irritation. I hope you can relate to this.
I think because of the substantial investment in applications and also the emotional attachment to Apple, we will buy a new iMac anyway, if as I fear the cost of repair will not be economical.
But I would be interested to know how many fan-less owners on this list have had similar experiences. I've read of several cases on the 'net, I just hoped my symptoms werent' the same ones...So it makes perhaps sense to issue a word of warning to anyone experiencing the sort of startup troubles described above. Have it checked immediately. The lady at the Apple centre said the problem I was describing was not known to her. I bet this was not the case. I made a mistake. Let other people be warned.
With regard to the new LCD-iMacs: is the consensus that the overheating issue of the fan-less models has been completely solved in the new design? The case looks so compact that I will confess I have some worries there. Also, if there is a potential problem with sleep, as I think Kyle was urging some time ago, why doesn't Apple officially warns users not to choose the sleep function as their preferred overnight option? When I bought the iMac that was definitely their recommendation. I've read some Apple Knowledge articles where they qualify it merely by reference to the number of hours one uses it during the day. I've never read any official advise NOT to use the sleep function for long periods of time.
Finally, any idea what may be wrong with the iMac? I won't have a chance to take it in for repairs until into next week. I hope the data is recoverable. And please, don't ask about backups...
Sorry for the long post. Hope it is useful to other people on the right side of their Applecare warranty.
Regards, Walter
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