On 1/2/04 7:30 pm, "walter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi guys, > > I just thought I should warn any of you lot living in Scotland or > thereabouts. > > There is a company called Scotsys. They run the Apple Centre in > Edinburgh and they also provide technical services connected with > AppleCare (they're the guys who repair your computers under warranty). > > Based on my experience, my advice is to stay away from them. Avoid them > like the plague. > > I've had a very bad experience with them and they have proved to be > absolutely unreliable as well as utterly dishonourable. > > I bought AppleCare on an iMac DV SE through them. Two weeks prior to > the AppleCare expiring, the computer wouldn't wake up from sleep. I > forced a restart and the iMac would not start up either. In both cases, > the power button green light came up but I would only get a grey > screen, and the hard drive would not spin up.
This can sometimes be due to a faulty USB hub connected, but due to the later total failure probably not. > > I unpulled the plug and let it rest for a few minutes thinking it might > help (I had heard about degaussing the monitor and things of that > sort). > > After 15/20 minutes I plugged it back in and it restarted normally. > > I phoned Scotsys up and described the problem. I also pointed out that > my warranty was about to expire. I asked whether the problem that I was > reporting was a serious one in their opinion and whether I should I > take it in for repairs. > > They said the problem was not known to them. Their advice was that with > intermittent problems it is difficult to judge. They said to monitor it > for the next ten days and to take it in if the problem recurred. They were correct re intermittent faults, but due to the Applecare about to expire they should have taken the repair in. The problem would then arise if they had it on test for a few weeks and it didn't fail. > > The problem did not recur for the next two weeks or so. Three weeks > later, it happened again and I was able to restart it by following the > same cold restart procedure. A month later the computer shut itself > off. On restarting it, there was a hiss and a crackle and a strong > smell of burnt stuff. Something quite serious had clearly happened. > > I phoned Scotsys again and put it to them that in the circumstances I > thought it fair that the computer ought to be repaired under warranty > given that I had reported the problem before the warranty had expired > and that they had declared the problem not a serious issue. > > They were extremely unhelpful. I'll spare you the details of a long > series of conversations with them. They have been refusing to > acknowledge responsibility. I am now taking legal action against them. > For I have discovered that the problem I had described to them, far > from being 'not known', was so well known as to deserve the nickname of > 'green light of death'. Unfortunately posters to Apples discussion area aren't technicians, and muddle up both tray and slot loader iMacs with a wide variety of faults, all labeled as the 'green light of death'. Only recently I helped out someone with a similar iMac, who like you suspected fbt failure as he had no display. Based upon what he read on the web, he bought one, fitted it and it made no difference. The problem turned out to be OSX installed on old firmware, a very common problem. > The symptoms I had described, I learnt, are the > classic tell-tale signs of impending failure of the flyback transformer > on the analog board. Scotsys failed to recognise, or rather pretended > not to recognise one of the commonest problem with fanless iMacs. The known problem you read about only relates to the older tray loading iMacs, not the slot loader you have. The Power/Analog/Video board does die for various reasons, but never flyback transformer related. I repair these to component level when possible, and have never failed a fbt. Tray loaders are different, it's a very common reason for failure. Also bear in mind an AASP only swaps boards, most techs working for one wouldn't know what a fbt was. > > My advice to anyone around Scotland is: stay well away from Scotsys if > you want to buy Apple products or AppleCare. > > By contrast, I got a very good deal from PC World in Dundee. Sad to > say, you get better service from them than from Apple's own > representative in Scotland. Any AASP such as Scotsys only follow Apples guide lines, and Apple is very strict over the warranty period. Only Apple themselves could have extended the Applecare. > > Just thought it might save some of you much grief in the future, > > Regards, > > Walter Check into your rights under the sale of goods act, 3 years is believed to be too short a life for an iMac. Steve Bell -- Mac UK is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... 123Inkjets.com <http://lowendmac.com/ad/123inkjets.html> Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> Mac UK list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/mac-uk.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-uk%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
