Intel Imac with bad logic board.

I recently replaced the bad logic board on my early 2006 intel iMac. The guy at the apple store (where they would have charged me over $800) was nice enough to give me the logic board part number. And I was able to find a part on ebay for $200. It might have been slightly used, but it works. There are great instructions to do this replacement on ifixit.com. It was very challenging to get the mac open and get to the logic board, but I just wanted to let people know that it is doable. I also bought the "Home Tech Toolkit" from ifixit.com, which I couldn't have done it without.

Like I said, it's not easy and you have to be very careful. But personally I couldn't stand to see my iMac sitting there not being used.

My 2007 2.16ghz 24", 7600gt / 256mb iMac can go on the list too. It started playing up over a year ago but now I can't use it for any longer than 20 minutes without getting a kernel panic. I'm getting all of the usual shadowing and horizontal lines that everyone keeps reporting too.

I took it into the Apple Store in Leicester in England on 6th August, 2011. The first thing the Genius did was try and sell me a new one. I couldn't believe what I was hearing! He said he'd never heard of this fault before (reading from the script he'd memorised) and I asked to see the manager. A senior manager came up and tried to sell me a new one too! Then he said he'd never heard of such a fault. "Let's go on Google then and I'll prove it" I said. "No, you can't believe everything you read online" he replied. WHAT?! He then said they'd replace the logic board for £300 - this I refused.

I quoted English consumer law which is some of the strongest in the world. Basically it says this:

The Sales of Goods Act 1979 (or even the Supply of Goods & Sevices Act 1982):

It must be of satisfactory quality, as describe, fit for purpose and last a reasonable length of time.

...this can be up to a maximum of six years. The senior manager then said I had to take it back to the place I bought it from as it was their responsibility - what, the Apple online store?! He then suggested we could "come to some arrangement on the cost of labour". I flatly refused and told him I will be taking legal action. Then he gave me a direct number to customer relations who I telephoned a few days later; the woman was most unpleasant (even though I was perfectly calm and polite) and ended the conversation as soon as I mentioned legal action.

In the next week or two I shall be taking Apple to the small claims court and I suggest anyone else in the UK with the same problem does too (in Scotland the law lasts for five years, not six). If enough of us do it and if Apple lose in one case then it could be looked at as though Apple have had to admit fault.

I completely empathize with your issue. My late 2007 iMac now constantly freezes and I have to reboot it 2-3 times every time I use it, and will likely soon give up and use a Macbook I have. I really believe there is a problem with this model, and I have seen many, many posts in Apple communities regarding similar problems. The response I get from Apple is that it will need a new motherboard at approx. $900 USD, and I refuse to spend that when a new iMac is $1199. Unfortunately, consumer laws here in the US, and especially these days of corporate greed where you can wait a lifetime to get to the right person, are not as clear cut. Apple claims this is not a widespread problem. All the more reason, with their runaway profits, they should at least acknowledge their fault and replace the part at least at cost (which I imagine is far less than the price quoted) or at no cost to loyal customers. I'm very disappointed in Apple, and given other recent decisions like i(head in the)Cloud, and the premium one pays for Apple products, will consider a Windows based desktop.

Please share the results of your claim on this site if you would. Thank you!

After a good couple of months of many telephone calls and emails between myself and two Apple representatives and two trips the nearest Apple Store with my iMac for a Genius to look at I finally got sick to death of all of the messing about and gave them a week to either repair or replace my iMac free of charge, otherwise I would be taking legal action (which I would have done).

About two or three days before this deadline I received a call stating that Apple were prepared to fix my iMac for free 'as a gesture of goodwill'.

I'd suggest anyone else in a similar boat with equally strong consumer laws in their country to persevere - not only has this saved me many hundreds of pounds but I also have an iMac that is actually worth something again to the second hand market; especially useful when the time comes for me to upgrade.

EDIT - The price I was quoted for a complete logic board replacement, with labour and taxes, was UK£300...about US$460 at current exchange rates. Considerably cheaper than it is in the US it seems.

I'm in the same boat. my 4 yr old iMac logic board died. I found a dealer on eBay, by the handle of 'domkuk'.

http://myworld.ebay.com/domkuk/?_trksid=p4340.l2559

I bought a NEW logic board for $448. It comes from Hong Kong. Has to go through customs. I'm still waiting for mine. He has very favorable ratings. (Over 700 feedbacks)

I'm OK with swapping out a CPU board, but you may need some help from a techie friend.

Ummm...there was one other reply from Garrod in the UK about taking legal action against Apple because they had his computer for 2 weeks or so and he got it back with the exact same problems. Where is that now? I also replied to that with my own logic board problem I had diagnosed yesterday-Where is that?!

It was removed by an admin - I received email informing me so. However, Apple have agreed to perform another 'repair' for free.

How nice of them to inform you of why the admin decided to take your reply down. However, they seem to be ignoring the need to give me any explanation on mine. Being that it was my first posting ever in this community, I can't say I see Apple as being all that friendly and community-like now.

Good luck with another your repair. Hopefully it actually gets fixed this time.

As of October 2011 I've just been quoted £778 (parts and labour) to replace a 24" (Early 2008) iMac logic board.

Seems a bit high, for a computer that's only 3 years and 5 months old, that cost £1700 new (with its 3 year AppleCare warranty). That's a lot of money for such a short lifetime: I can either write off the £1700, then spend about the same again to get a new model (which may also only last 3 years?), or pay nearly half of the purchase price to get back to what I already had.

Up until this failure, I've always been impressed with the reliability of Apple machines (I've got an older Powerbook from 2001 that's still doing good service with a family member, and a number of other Macintosh machines all still working.) But I can't see myself buying another iMac, if this is the likely price of repair out of warranty.

Look up the Sale of Goods Act or speak to Trading Standards in the UK. You have rights!

My iMac Intel Core 2 Duo is about to give up the ghost too. I just had it in to Apple Dealer and they said it was the logic board. Sadly, this happened moments after I upgraded to Lion. Lion seems to have brought my machine down. I'm going to try down grading to Snow Leopard but I don't think that will make a difference at this point.

The dealer quoted me for $800 for a new logic board. Sad too, because it really is still a great machine despite the random freezing I'm experiencing.

Yep, my Intel iMac Core 2 Duo just died. Took it to an approved Mac repair agent who intially told me it was the power supply. Now they recon it's the power supply AND the logic board. Apparently it is beyond economic repair.

I have owned over 10 Macs and never had such a catastrophic failure.

Feel a bit dissapointed to find so much feedback on the issue here, it is clearly a big problem for the iMac and it doesn't look like Apple have done much about it... recall anyone?

So who do I e-mail about this... Apple website seems pretty light on e-mail addresses.

I've been using Macs for over 20 years now. And in all these years I felt that I paid a premium for a premium product. However, now my Macbook Pro's logic board has dies, I'm discovering a new side to apple, judging by the sheer amount of people who are having the same problems as I am having.

Pay £1000 for a repair? That's madness! They are forcing you to go and buy a new computer. Though my next one will probably now be a PC. I can pic up something with just as high a spec for less than the repair cost quoted.

My thought: Apple has lost it's way, and if it carries on like this it'll go back to being a marginal player in a few years time. (As I'm now not interested in getting an ihone but will opt for an Adroid). Have been too faithful to Apple for too long.

Christian,

I had the same issue with my 2008 MB Pro. I took it to the Apple store and when they checked it, it turns out there is a manufacturing bulletin on the MacBook Pro (at least for my model). The said the logic board needs replacing and they would cover the cost. They had the part in stock. They quoted a 24 hour turn-around. I left it at 1pm and I received an e-mail at 9:45am the next day. It was ready for pick up. By the way, this happened last week. My AppleCare had expired.

My problem was that the Mac would not turn on at all. If I were you I would have them check the manufacturing bulletins for your model.

If it helps, my model is:

15" MBP

MacBook Pro 4,1

Hope this helps!

Add mine to the list!! Late 2006 C2D iMac. I can't remember when this started happening, maybe a year ago or so? I can't remember, but yes, the horizontal lines. Graphical artifacts / anomolies. Constant freezes; sometimes the machine can last for a few hours, sometimes only a few minutes.

I've had freezes where the screen just goes blank, and one where I get a blue screen with white/grey vertical pinstripes.

I haven't taken any remedial action at present bar the smcfancontrol, I haven't changed out RAM or done any sort of clean install (currently updated to 10.7.2).

I have run the AHT test on it, which picked nothing up but that was only one extended test.

I will look to replace the logic board myself (well, my mate who's good with this stuff will, I hope!) as I'd be gutted to see the computer scrapped, but this will be weighed off against whether I buy a new computer. I might leave it to see if anyone has any luck with legal action, not sure on how consumer law would relate to computers? It's generally accepted that a reasonable lifespan of a computer is three to four years ... five to six years??

If I do buy a new computer I'd be tempted to get another iMac, but, I would look around at PC/Windows alternatives.

I'd be interested to know how anyone get's on, personally I haven't got time to donate towards pursuing legal action, but if it were successful I'd certainly look to do that if there was a precedent set.

Luke