Intel Imac with bad logic board.

It took me a year but after threating legal action (after about four times) Apple gave me a brand new 27" iMac last month as a replacement for my 2006 24" iMac - as a 'goodwill gesture'. I read so much about English consumer law that I knew they didn't have a leg to stand on. Copy and paste this article because it will soon be deleted by the moderators but I will soon be opening a website documenting my experience and how YOU can be helped, for free, with just a few simple rules to follow. I will post details of the site early January.

Will you be posting to this thread in early Jan? If this thread is closed, where will you post the information?

Thanks for your reply

I agree. I've used Macs for some 20 yers, and they have always performed very well. TO have a spate of logoc board failures like this isn't good. Will all future Macs be like this too?

Luke, that sounds identical to the problem I had with my white 24" C2D, about the same vintage. Controlled for quite a while with fancontrol but eventually that failed too.

The problem was the video card (overheating, probably it baked) and it can be replaced without replacing the entire motherboard. Probably you can do it, but I found getting this done at the Apple Store worked and they were fast (if perhaps not cheapest). It was a couple of years ago, and has been rock solid since...

Hope it helps.

MH

Well in my Case my iMac is the issue..... I think they are still having issues with there logic boards and there LED's that they get from LG.

Basically this is what has done with my computer.

SSD Drive Failed: $907.95 to replace it the first time.

New Memory: 16gigs

Logic Board: 737.50

SSD Drive: 907.95

Cable SSD 6.82

Heat Sensory ?

Hardware Labor: 39.00

Roughly $2700.00 to fix this thing? ***? It would have been easier to replace this unit and take this one back

and put it up on there reburbished board without any hassles to me bringing the fricking thing in 3 times and be without a computer for 3 weeks. I mean come on Apple go back to you customer service where you actually make people happy to own one of your products. Thank God for Apple Care, but then again they could make this less problematic if they just replaced the d a m n thing! After my repairs the first couple of times, it is clearly defective.

I'd like to add mine to the pile of defective computers.

I have a late 2006 iMac core 2 duo with all the same symptoms of a faulty graphics card / logic board.

Today I took it to an apple store to get a genius to check over it, he confirmed that there was indeed a fault with the graphics card which is fixed to the logic board and to replace the part it would cost £500.

I said that I believed I was covered under the Sales of Goods act and I was initially told that for that to apply the fault would have had to have happened in the first six months. (this is wrong, within the first six months I don't need to provide proof of the fault, afterwards I do which I have done by having the genius bar confirm the fault) I was then told that as there wasn't a precedent they wouldn't pay for the cost of the repairs. I said I was unhappy with this and they said that I could refuse to pay for the repairs and contact them via email if I wished to take the matter further.

From what I've read of British law I'm within my rights to claim that they repair this issue as it has not lived up to satisfactory quality.

Garrod, I would really appreciate any advice you may have on this matter so that I can get it sorted swiftly.

Good luck to everyone else struggling with this issue.

-Inter-

simply put, why would any of you spend $1500 on a machine and not spend the extra $169.00 for applecare? No offense, but this is electronics and no manufacturer warranties anything for longer than a period of 1 year. While I agree that 2 years is a very short time span, clearly none of you have thought of checking out Apple Authorized Service Providers that aren't the Apple Store. The most expensive repair is at Apple. There are many places that can fix these boards for a few hundred dollars and you're back up and running.

All of you should look into Apple Component Level Repair facilities.

A few that I suggest:

MicroReplay - www.microreplay.com

Tech Restore - www.techrestore.com

keep in mind however, Tech Restore and many companies are "a la cart" type repairs. So they don't offer flat rate repair.

MicroReplay def offers flat rate repair. This type probably around the $399-$499 price point

Mac 'n Josh: Your generalizing as some of us do have Apple Care, my machine was bought in June of 2011, and I have Apple Care. What I don't like, this machine should have been sent back to Apple and gone over and then sent back and sold as a refurbished model, instead of me having to wait over a week each time they try to repair it, now if I was past my second year of Apple Care then I could "maybe" see going this route. They are sending more time and money on it then what it is worth.

again opinion not fact. If you had a warranty on your tv at best buy they would do the same thing. Maybe you should have bought a dell

Fact, machine isn;t working! I been a Mac/Apple user since 2003, Fact I have a Warranty that I buy with all my Mac's! Fact Apple will be replacing the unit and or giving me in store credit as I just got off the phone with them. Fact, my Son for the 3rd time just trashed the POS dell in our living room! LOL All are facts not opinions! Fact, Apple Customer service has always been good to me, and fact I am going into Apple tomorrow to pick out a different type of computer. Even though I have boughten Apple Care in the past I really never had to use it because of Hardware falilures, just some online tech support. So I suggest you take your Dell and stick it. 😉

Myservice.com . Check that out. It's an authorized apple repair centre. I had my macbook pro with water spill. Apple, as usual said, logic board replacement with over $900 ???!!!!! MyService repairs your laptop. They are really professional. Give it a shot.

Mac 'n Josh wrote:

simply put, why would any of you spend $1500 on a machine and not spend the extra $169.00 for applecare? No offense...

No offence taken Josh, but, in my case Applecare in the UK would have cost me something like 180 GBP, for two extended years of warranty. On this machine (which is a late-2006 C2D iMac purchased 4th Qtr 2006) the hard drive has failed and now in the past year it has exhibited the Graphics Card / VRAM issue so well described in this thread.

Applecare would not have caught either of these problems, in fact the HDD failure occured just outside that three year period which would have been highly frustrating.

At the end of the day it's just extended warranty that you are sold for everything dressed up in a fancy Apple name; it's a very personal choice whether you plumb for this sort of thing. I rarely do, and this case it was the right decision, but it's a coin flip. Electronics can go wrong at any time, or they can last a lifetime without any hassles, every component has a tolerance after all!

You have a year's warranty on a new machine anyway, I would not take Applecare, but then making a judgement around 11months of ownership as to whether to extend for two years

I had a conversation with a software representative shortly before I bought my iMac, he said (at that point in the summer of 2006) he would never buy a Mac because they were too flakey on hardware!! Well, well, well!!

Anyways, smcfancontrol is currently making my machine workable again, but I know this won't last forever.

If anyone has any guarenteed precedent set for having Apple cough up for a repair or a new machine, keep posting!!

Luke

could you email this information. I just took my computer in for service bc it kept shutting down and they said it was the logic board. I got my computer in 2007. It's a 24" iMac.

emilywelz@gmail.com

Did you ever start up your website about how to deal with Apple, Garrod?

So, after a lot of kicking up and waiting for a verdict Apple have told me that it isn't my logic board, but a power connector fault... and because of that they have to replace my logic board! Go figure.

This however means that I wont get a free repair. Alas, the authorised Mac dealer had quoted me £830 to do the job. I've asked for my Mac bac, as I know someone who'll do it for £240. Which only adds to the impression that Mac has turned into a big corporate rip-off machine. What a shame.

To note: I paid nearly £2000 for the Mac - not listening to my wife who said I could get an equivalent PC for a third of that price. After over 20 years as Mac user (1988) I'm beginning to wonder...