Q: Intel Imac with bad logic board.

Hi All

Just putting my failed IMAC on here as well. Its just died with a failed Logic board. At £520 to fix it I am not sure its worth it as I could get a W7 PC with a great spec for that price. Plus if thats motherboard fails its £100 rather than £500.

I am trying to work out now what to do with the other 5 we have in work? Risk it with Apple or bite the bullet and switch back to Windows.

Alex

A few days ago I got the call from the Apple store:
Failed logic board on my household 2007 Intel iMac.
$650 for the replacement and labor.
I cannot afford that nor can I afford, nor do I want, to buy a new iMac (or Mini as was suggested by the Apple Care rep).
I dragged my old eMac out of the closet and am hobbling along until I can figure out what to do. To say I am disappointed would not even begin to describe my feelings.

Good news today. I called Apple again and this time they agreed to replace the logic board if I pay for the labor only. I'm satisfied with this arrangement and hopefully I'll be back on my Mac within the week.

It occurred to many of us to buy AppleCare extended warranties. Did it do us any good? Not when the computer failed 3 months after the extended warranty expired. Am very disillusioned with my iMac and with Apple.

Michael10 wrote:
I will contact Apple and see if there is anything they are willing to do to help offset the purchase price of a new computer.

How'd that go??

I'm thinking the same thing about my MBP (my appointment is tomorrow). During an Apple-Store-pop-in a Genius told me it sounds like I have a bad logic board (that was a replacement less than 2 months ago).

I have to add my name to the list of failed logic boards. Bought my imac in feb 2007. 2.14ghz 24 inch imac paid $2000 dollars for it. Just visited the apple store and they want 600 to replace the logic board. They then had the nerve to ask me if I wanted to buy a new one. That was like spitting in my face. I spent 2k on something and 3 years later it's a piece of junk. I guess the way to run a successful business is to screw over their loyal customers. The sad thing is I have a 2002 imac g4 that still works while the newer machine is a great paper weight!

Youch. I've just suffered the same harsh fate (the remedy to which lies outside my current budget parameters), which bespeaks some genuine quality control issues.

Less than a year and a half after splurging and deciding to take the Apple plunge (20" iMac), after only mild use in a controlled home environment, my computer suddenly would not boot yesterday. The prognosis from my Genius Bar appointment today: A bad logic board, which they offered to fix for $700, which I cannot afford right now. I also could get a wonderfully nice PC laptop for that price.

Yes, I of course now wish I had scraped together the additional $170 for the AppleCare extended warranty. But the main board shouldn't be going bad after 17 months.

And even after having been burned on my first Mac purchase, paying to fix the problem won't make me any safer against the same fate: I asked whether, after paying to install a new logic board, I also could pay to have it warranted for an extended period, to avoid a repeat of this crisis. To my surprise, the answer was "no": It would be warranted for only 90 days after installation, and there is no extended warranty option. I asked what would happen if the new board went bad a year and a day after installation, and was told I would need to buy a third.

Yes, I liked the Mac experience while it was working, but the overall cost and durability issues have me reconsidering the entire cost/benefit calculus. I definitely am going to wave our IT department away from purchasing Macs for our next Committee upgrade, unless our budget increases significantly.

My brother has a 2008 24" iMac upgraded to the GeForce 8800 GS with 512MB of RAM. He did not get Applecare, and at the 13 month mark it started freezing up. In it's current state he says it either doesn't find the boot disc, finds it and freezes during the load process or loads to the desktop and then freezes. He says however that there are no graphical glitches on the screen when it freezes, and the diagnostic disc reports no troubles.

Due to the expense to repair it, his iMac has been sitting in a corner collecting dust for the past 11 months. What are his options? Sounds like the cost to repair is almost as much as a whole new iMac. Are there outlets that'll buy dead Macs, repair them and resell them?

I have a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Imac, has the ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro video card.

Apple diagnosed it as a logic board failure.

Before it was toast I ran the 1.9 EFI Firmware Update and the computer was supposed to restart but no video comes up. You can hear it trying to come out of sleep, you can hear the drive spin but it goes back to sleep 10 seconds or so later. You never see anything on the display.

I tried doing the firmware update multiple times and it never successfully installed, it would keep asking to re-install, this last time the computer is toast.

Out of warranty logic board replacement costs $650.

A 24" iMac I bought for my wife in March of 2009 just failed. Logic board. No Apple Care. I've had Apple computers for 30 years and never had a logic board fail on me before. I did buy Apple Care for my new i7 MacBook Pro 17" because I travel, but didn't imagine I would have to for the iMac.

Has anyone found a good technique for getting Apple to stand behind their machine and repair the mistake for a reasonable price if not for free?

Well add me to the list. My early 2008 24" intel-based iMac has been diagnosed with a failed logic board.

It gets better. The quote for a new logic board from a local authorised Apple repairer is almost $2,800 Australian.

Yes, i am still in shock.

Add me to this list. I think it's just shy of 18 months and my 20" iMac is dead. As many have posted, it started suddenly. I had absolutely no problems with my iMac and then week before last I noticed it had turned itself off while I was not home. I turned it on and didn't think anything about it. But, the next morning it had turned itself off again and this time would not turn on anymore.

I took it to the Apple retail store and they checked it out and said it needed a power supply, logic board, and video board. The price quoted was almost what I paid for it. Of course, I had not purchased apple care for it.

I have always had the machine plugged into a battery backup/power conditioner and we have not had any major storms in a long time. So, I am concerned.

Does anyone else think Apple should stand behind their product and ensure it will last at least 2 years? I wonder what percentage of the 20" iMacs in the retail stores have experienced this.

It's weird though I have several very old PCs that have been running for years, some in harsh environments, and never a problem like this.

Last Friday my 2008 24" iMac crapped out on me (I've had it for just over 2 years now). At first I thought it was a video card issue, but after taking it to the nearest Apple store the problem was diagnosed as a bad logic board. Repair estimate was $915. Today I got a call from the Apple store informing me that the video card needs to be replaced as well. Total cost to repair is estimated to be $1300.

I've been a loyal Mac user from the beginning (the first one I owned was an SE30) and this is the first time I've ever had a Mac have such a catastrophic failure so soon after purchase. Seeing all these posts describing similar problems has really got me rethinking things.

Same thing happened to my unit and about 3 months outside Applecare...And the repair was quoted at $900.00. Decided to purchase a newer imac. Apple suggested I sell it on ebay for the parts. Or they would recycle it for a fee. Bottom line this is a terrible way to treat customers when this is obviously a design flaw. Best wishes....

Add me to the list. 2008- 24" iMac with the NVIDIA card... started doing some weird green and pink chunks on my screen and then freezing. It got worse and worse over about a week. Took it in to an authorized dealer for repair and $600+ later I had a new video card. I didn't have it back home more then two days and it happened again, only this time it's the grey screen of death. Can't boot in safe mode, can't boot from a DVD. It's not that old of a computer and I don't think I should have to buy a new one yet. I thought maybe next year or two years from now. I'm really shocked to see that there are so many of us experiencing similar problems with these machines.