On Jan 9, 2004, at 05:18 pm, walter wrote:
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.
Everyone on here with a technical knowledge of the G3 iMac would recognize that straight away, and most of us don't even work on Macs for a living.
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...
Isn't it always the way... How many times has this happened with your dishwasher, TV or oven? When Apple said they wanted to get into consumer electronics few thought they'd be this good at it...?
I think you ought to go over there and ask them exactly what kinda training their phone support and tech staff have. It appears to me they totally failed to diagnose the most common problem the iMac has yielded over it's lifetime. That to me is enough ammunition ti get a full free replacement, and I wouldn't stop until I got the thing done free of charge.
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. ...worried by the fanless design and the possible chance of overheating ...we found it shut itself off of its own accord .... 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.
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.
Something I keep telling people. Apple got around it on the G4 Cube by using and external PSU. Of course the Cube also hasn't got the HT circuits for a 15" CRT in it either. Apple relented on the original Macintosh design and fitted a fan from the SE onwards.
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.
I saw the CD-ROM on my 300 Clamshell iBook get worse and worse and eventually die. A replacement CD drive and ribbon cable had no effect. I concluded the board had failed. A few months after the power socket started acting up so I had to scrap it and sell the parts. I was pretty gutted about it.
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.
Totally. I have seen a lot of people on this list who shelled out a lot of money on that era of hardware and saw it disappear down the pan as the analogue board fried or the logic board failed. not to mention peopl with Snow iBooks...
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.
I'm sure others will be able to advise, but you are probably right.
But I would be interested to know how many fan-less owners on this list have had similar experiences.
Enough to know there definitely is a design flaw.
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.
I suggest in future you ask to speak directly with a technician.
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.
I have had no problems waking my G4 iMac from sleep. Referring back to the above diatribe the G3 iMac has less 'heat/power saving' features in it, and thus leaving it in sleep will not be a healthy thing. If I am leaving my G4 iMac unattended for more than 2 days I shut it down, more as a protection against power surges than anything else.
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...
I don't know the tech behind the issue but it sounds like capacitor failure, and happens on Mac Plusses (all those years and they still didn't learn!) as well. They go on an on for ages then behave funny then one day they go 'pop' and emit a nasty smell as on of the capacitors shorts and blows out. This problem sounds just the same. It's due to a lack of through moving air. The random shutdowns are the PSU unit overheating. The problem gets worse as the capacitor get hotter and the insulation starts to break down. The one day it shorts across the insulating membrane and goes bang. The solution suggested for Mac Plusses is to fit a fan or two into the vents on the top to speed up the convection. I suggest people with iMacs heed the warnings here and fit a fan for the same reason. If you want to be really funny about it you can get ultra-silent clear plastic ones from custom PC parts vendors.
The good news is that the hard drive is not likely to have been damaged, it's usually in the HT (CRT) section that the cap goes, but the devastation usually takes out the mains side of the PSU.
Sorry for the long post. Hope it is useful to other people on the right side of their Applecare warranty.
I can only hope the G4 iMac is a more robust design!
-- Mark Benson
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