Intel Imac with bad logic board.

Anon M: It most likely still does produce a lot more heat then current models. My unit got so hot to the touch you couldn't keep you had on it. Too me that just means the logic board amoung other things is being cooked! 😟 The Disc drive is no biggie as I have several of them laying around, one less thing to worry about if it fails and you have to bring the whole thing in to have it fixed. Don't get the thick model one, the heat is about 60% in the new current thin models. If you can find 2 side by side which I was able to do at the Apple Store before they replaced all the models, there was a huge difference on heat coming off the thicker models verses the newer units. I think Apple new this, but won't admit it that heat was a huge factor on failure rates so they changed the disign for the better.

My early 2008 model 24" iMac is dead due to a logic board failure after less than 5 yrs of mild usage. Zippin Pippin (Cambridge UK) gave me an estimated repair cost of £600 (£576 plus labour). I bought this iMac from John Lewis at the end of June 2008. As I always have a laptop provide by my company for the past 10 years, I only use my own iMac during weekend and evening as well as holiday time, mainly in organising personal photos using iPhoto and Software provided by Canon when I bought my DSLR camera. I am really disappointed with the quality of the iMac and have written to JL to see if it could either contribute to the cost of repair or give some credit for buying a new computer from JL store by citing the Consumer Rights Act 1979 but have not received any response yet. Luckily I just completed a Time machine backup one week before the logic board failure. In addition, the hard disks of two early 2008 model 24" iMac and one late 2006 24" iMac in my research group also failed recently. I totally agree that Apple has let their customers down - I have been a loyal customer of Apple computer since mid-1990. All my older generations of apple computers in my loft are still in working order, my 1st Apple B/W laptop is made about 20 yrs old! Maybe it is time to boycutt all Apple products.

Hi Gandalf The Grey,

I have had almost the exact thing happen to my IMac that I bought in March 2011. It is a 27 inch intel core i3 and as soon as I tried to upgrade from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion all **** has broken loose.

Hard drive was replaced in January and yesterday I brought it in again to have the logic board replaced.

I am a bit tech savvy......but I do have a question that is not being answered by Apple. Can a software upgrade create this much havoc on my system?

Your insight would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

You are lucky that you have the Consumer Rights Act. We don't have anything like that here in the States - at least I haven't found anything. My '08 27" iMac bit the dust after only 4 years 4.5months and within a week of upgrading from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion. I too used it only for email, music and photo stuff. Nothing heavy duty graphically. Did start to notice the back of the unit was warmer than usual. Think that Apple is going to lose a lot of loyal customers due to a decline in quality. I was told that my machine was 'old'. Old is not 4-years. And to have a logic board replacement costing more than a new machine? Ridiculous. I don't have the funds right now to replace and/or fix this unit so I will use it as a fancy doorstop. In the meantime I'll have to plug away using my husband's PC, a unit that is over 8 years old and still working as if it is brand new.

Smarten up Apple................

I'm lucky to have AppleCare and they have replaced the hard drive and now the logic board at no extra cost. I have raised customer care complaint and Apple is looking to make it right for me! Don't know what that means but what I do know is that it would have cost over $1200 to fix both issues if I hadn't purchased AppleCare.

An update on my 27" IMAC that broke down a year ago.

Recap- found screen all white with straigt lines horzontaly. Took it it Apple store, it was just 2 years old and out of warrenty.

2 guys looked at it and said logic board is bad and cost $1700 to repair.

I just bought a new one and this just sitting in my closet.

A recall was issued Oct 2012 calling for HD replacement. So thay replaced my HD in my broken IMAC. As I played and took it apart the last year, I found a sensor broken. I also had apple replace the fan sensor ($17.00) .

Now it works fine. Not logic board as thay original y said. Hard drive or fan sensor gixed it.

Apple needs to train the techs that work for them. I got an extra 27" IMAC. And wasted 2k.

Iknow I have some typos here. Sent from my phone....

I had an issue recently with the screen on my Late 2009 27" i5 2.66ghz iMac. It was like a brown staining down the whole left side of the screen, bottom centre and middle right. At the same time this started to appear, the machine began to run incredibly hot which worried me greatly. I rang AppleCare (as the machine was still under warranty) and told them what was going on and they arranged a collection to get it repaired.

Now, the interesting bit......... During the phone call with AppleCare, the support person asked if I had any other issues with the machine at all as it was going in for repair. I don't know about anyone else but I've never known any company, but especially Apple, ask if they could fix anything else for me under their warranty whilst they're fixing something else.

Over a similar period to the staining & heating issues, I started to have problems with the USB sockets not responding correctly and de-mounting or dropping the peripherals that were attached. I'm a photographer, so frequently have high-drain devices attached to both the USB and Firewire sockets on the machine while shooting tethered but never had a moments problem with the Firewire. I'm aware that across the USB board, the power can fluctuate wildly but this problem was happening on all the sockets.

As soon as I then mentioned the USB issue to the support person on the phone, there was a long silence, followed with "Oh, OK, we'll test the machine & see what the problem is". The long silence made me curious, so I asked if there were any known issues with the logic board and specifically relating to the USB sockets but was told that there was not.

Now call me a cynic but the last time I asked Apple if there was an issue (after my HD failed on the same machine!), they said no there was no issue, replaced the drive under warranty and then 2 weeks later announce the Seagate 1TB HD replacement programme!!

There was no mention of what other repairs were done when the repairers called to tell me the machine was ready to come back to me, so I asked what had they done? "Replaced the logic board" they said, "it completely failed all our tests and we couldn't work out how the machine was working at all"!!

I've now got the machine back with brand new LCD & Logic Board installed and all seems to be well. I can't complain too much as if the tec support hadn't asked me, I might not have remembered to mention the USB issue, and now have a dead machine as the warranty has now expired.

So, I have 2 pieces of advice:

1)

Always get yourself an AppleCare warranty with a new machine

Yes, it's a lot to add on to the price of a new machine when you're spending around £2K already but then it's an extra 2 years cover on top of the 1 year manufacturers warranty. Applecare for an iMac is around £140 here in the UK, which works out to under £6 a month for the extra 2 years cover. I've just had £1600 worth of repairs done under warranty (not including the HD replacement) which fully justifies the £140 AppleCare cost and I'm very, very thankful for it. I learnt the hard way as my 17" Powerbook screen failed without AppleCare around 8 years ago and it cost me £800 to replace, so I've been on the other side of the fence too & learnt my lesson!

2)

If you have to send your machine in for repair under AppleCare, ask (very nicely) if they will run a hardware test when they are doing the repair to check the main components. You never know...!

So here is my update.....please excuse the novel and PLEASE BUY APPLE CARE PEOPLE!

January 2013: So I downloaded and installed Mountain Lion and my IMac completely goes wonky. I have to lug the 40 pound machine to the Apple store. The Apple tech tried to reinstall software but was unsuccessful and said he had to replace the HD.

NOTE: I had after market RAM installed and they (in-store Apple tech) thought that was the problem and noted it in the work order history but never advised me(sneaky). They tested the IMac with my original RAM installed leaving out the aftermarket stuff I bought. That did not resolve the issue and as I mentioned above the Apple tech replaced the hard drive. I Picked up the IMAC and when I got home I powered up the machine and noticed that they did not put back my original RAM, so I then had to lug my IMac back to the store as Apple would not allow me to just pick up my RAM....they needed the machine back in to install the RAM themselves. This really TICKED me off! Btw the repair took 10 days to complete because the Apple store was busy!

Between January and April 2013: I Experience numerous crashes, involuntary shutdowns and kernel panics. So I lugged my IMac back to the Apple store for a third time as it would not get past the white Apple screen before it shutoff again. It was at this point that I contacted Apple customer care and advised them that I was unhappy with the quality of the product and that I felt completely let down by their service.

So moving on........The Genius that I had appointment with at the Apple store performed an MRI and said that it was most likely the aftermarket RAM, nonetheless he wanted to test my IMac with their RAM to see if the issue persisted.....it did! Therefore, he said that it was a faulty logic board and that it needed to be replaced.

I get a call the next day from Apple tech and he says it's not the logic board as he was able to log on to their on-line operating system with no problem and if it were a faulty board the machine would not boot up. He then began to tell me that it was my after market RAM that corrupted operating system and that he had to reinstall Mountain Lion. He also said that I should come back into the store to back-up my HD.....why wasn't I asked this before when I initially brought in my computer???? I was fuming at this point but I kept my cool and went to back up my content, furthermore this was the 4th visit to the Apple store regarding this issue.

I get a call Sunday April 21st @ about 5:30 in the evening saying that my IMac was ready for pick-up and that I was to bring my original Apple RAM (Samsung 4 gigs) so they could install it and remove the after market RAM (crucial 16 gigs). I picked up the computer on Tuesday afternoon, brought home, plugged it in, press the power button and I get 2 tones in succession which usually means a memory issue. I know now that the After market RAM is NOT the issue as my Apple RAM is the only memory installed at this point. So, I wait a little and try to turn it on in the evening and to my amazement it does! So, I start navigating and testing stuff and out of no where, the computer shuts down, restarts and presents a kernel pacnick.......at this point my Blood pressure is through the roof. I contacted the Apple customer rep care who I was dealing with during this whole ordeal and they just kept on telling me to talk to their senior technical specialists, or have me take the machine into get checked out again. I said no way......and that's when she said "Why won't you cooperate?" Really....not cooperate.....I have done nothing but cooperate.

So I gave in and she transferred me to another Senior technical specialist who was to own this situation at a technical level from now on. The customer care rep was sure that it was a software issue and so the Tech rep is asking me questions in order to diagnose the issue and asks me "when was the last time you had the operating system reinstalled?" And my response was "2 days ago". There was a pause and then the Apple tech guy says "it's not the software....you have new software that every other Mac user in the world has access to and all is good....it has to be hardware related".

At this point I asked him to transfer me back to customer care and that I now wanted to speak to a manager.

I get a manager and express my frustration and anger.....he says that because there has only been one hardware failure that he cannot give me a replacement but offers to have an Apple authorized dealer pick-up my machine and take it in for diagnostics. They pick-up my machine last Thursday morning and call me later in the day to tell me it's my Mac RAM that is no good and that they were given approval by Apple to replace the RAM and that it would be in on Monday. I call on Monday and was told all diagnostics were good and that they were going to put my machine thru some rigorous overnight testing to see how it responded.......I call Tuesday April 30th and was told that my machine is stuck/hanging at the WHITE APPLE screen. Clearly not the hard drive, Clearly not the Software and Clearly not the RAM! Could it be the logic board? I don't know........but I know one thing........I HAVE HAD ENOUGH.........I WANT A NEW MACHINE!

STOP THE PRESSES EVERYONE.........I have been offered a BRAND NEW MACHINE FROM APPLE!

They have also agreed to throw in an Apple USB SuperDrive as the new machines do not have DVD drives.

WOW......patience really is a virtue!

Congratulations with your result! very similar things happened to me which culminated in me receiving a brand-new latest iMac in 2011 as a replacement for my 2006 model (yes, 2006). Mine was well out of warranty but I stuck to my guns. I've blogged about it in great detail here, it might be some help to others in the same boat:

http://bit.ly/108has6

Really pleased for you, as for Garrod! People pay premium prices for these computers so, IMO, a replacement is the very least that Apple should have offered you. Even though I sold my failed iMac on eBay, I'm always glad to read of others getting VG outcomes.

Man, here in Brazil, I just gotta U$ 2.300 bill for a 2010 new Imac logic board!!!!

And, I didn't accept it, of course!!!

What can I do with the broken thing?

Burn it, record it and post on youtube!!! The best thing!!!!

😁

Hi all,

I got this kind of problem on an early 2009 24' iMac (3,06GHz Intel C2D, 8Go Ram, GT130m). Blinking screen, black screen, no boot, hard drive issues, ...

I am electronician, so I want to repair this myself. And I don't want to open it, I don't want dust behind the screen. I think this can help for a lot of problem on this model.

It's not a logic board issue, not a HDD issue, not really a power supply issue. It can be crazy for a brand like Apple but this just a BAD ground route map.

If a peripherical is "tired" and dirty the current a lot of problem happens. You just have to connect a ground from the iMac (from firewire or usb port for example) to another ground of another DIRECT CURRENT electronic stuff (i use ground from my arduino) you use on the same power point NOT DIRECTLY TO THE POWER POINT will fix all your issues, it works for me.

Another point if to boot faster you need to unplug other usb device such as external hard drive, they are another problem with current up and down on usb power supply from the iMac, to fix it you need to plug a DC/DC converter between but it's no easy as well grounded the stuff.

This kind of things are normally made from factory, but not from Apple. Think different =]

Hi everybody, since yesterday my Imac 8.1 (2008, 3.06 ghz) got the same annoying 😠 diagnosis of a logic board failure (A-Mac, The Netherlands) and to repair it, it will cost me 800 euro's. This does mean the end for my good looking Imac (on the outside). What is happening with Apple and its originally good quality products. They look better each year but seem tot get more vulnerable on the inside. Since 2000 It is my second apple product (after a good 🙂 working G4 Mac Pro machine). The weekend before I did spend about 20 hours because I had the idea it was a software problem. Like most of yours my machine got stuck at the startup proces, and did into eternity reboot itself. After a clean install suddenly a good working machine (for 25 minutes) and then the same problem again. I have this machine since august 2008 and used it a lot for my work. Still the price is way to high compared to the age. I will try the idea of MrHyd and I will never again buy an Imac. Maybe the Mac Mini is a better idea for my small business, or if I can afford a second hand Mac Pro with Cinema display.Another option is to by an HP Elitebook 8760 that I can trust for my work.

my adventures with apple's logic boards

- eMac G4: logic board died

- iMac G5: logic board dies, replacement board also died

- intel iMac: logic board died last week

So all my desktop macs from the last 10 years had great design, but zero durability.

My MacBook Pro i7 seems to be ok...