Q: Intel Imac with bad logic board.

I have a early 2008 iMac, and in one week, two power supplies have went bad, it is in repair at the Apple store for its 3rd power supply. My Next computer will be a Mac Pro Clone with retail boards, GPU's, CPU's and other Drives, including the Blu Ray Apple pulled at the last second from their Late 2009 27" iMacs. The reason behind that was because the ATi Radeon 256Mb GPU cannot push a full screen 27" dispay at 1080i quality. Thats from ATi. A 512MB GPU is needed, but Apple dropped the ball on it. Of course I will be using Snow Leopard with Ubuntu 64bit as a dual boot system. I may even throw a copy of MS Xtra Pathetic on it for the out of date game companies that wont do Mac Releases on new games.

Message was edited by: PaganEgyptian

You know, I've been wanting a mac desktop for the longest time, but I've been reading all this stuff, with many people saying that, "most of the computers are problem free" ? So, clearly there are 2 sides to this, just based on what you read here at this user forum.

However, the ONE thing that has made me more wary than anything else is just observing, just how many refurbished models there are for sale! There are a lot of iMacs on there, all the time! There are a lot of macs on there that are older models from late 2007. Why? I just have to wonder why there are so many failed ones, that have been repaired and are for sale on there. There are a lot of newer laptops and everything else on there, and it just makes you wonder why there are so many. Obviously some were mistreated or just dropped or whatever, but I find that most people treat their computers pretty decently, and that most failures are unrelated to simple mistreatment.

I have a early 2008 iMac 24 inch and I just had the Logic Board and Hard Drive replaced. I took it into my closest Apple Store(hour drive from my house) and I'm glad I bought the Apple Care Plan. I had no idea I would be using it this soon since I bought my iMac in February of 2009. I asked the tech at Apple if this was a common problem and he said not really. . . . .after reading this post and other's I see now he was lying! Anyways just wanted to add my name to the list of people with failed Logic Boards. Its really sad when you pay so much for Apple products expecting to get a great product, just to have it fail a year later. . .or sooner! Kinda reminds me of Toyota. . . .did I say that out loud??

ANOTHER IMAC FAILURE!! I am familiar with ~8 imacs of 2005 thru current vintage. FOUR HAVE FAILED!!! All logic board failures. I WILL NOT PURCHASE ANOTHER IMAC!!!!! Come on Apple. Admit to a serious engineering problem before the inevitable CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT!!!!!!!!!

Same thing here the computer is not dead yet but might as well be. It has all the signs of the logic board taking a dive and horizontal lines on the screen, crashing without recovering. Apple is known for their "Sorry you aren't covered" policy. Sadly never buy a mac without the warranty, or get extended. You never regret it if it dies.

I'm throwing my name in the hat. My 2008 20-inch intel iMac started acting up over the last 4 weeks. Freezing with horizontal white and gray lines to the point where I have to reboot it with the power button. I ran the diagnostics test and got a 4MOT code. Which according to an authorized repair shop means - check fan motors. Action procedure: replace fan, if issue not resolved, replace logic board. Ooops!! Went and bought an external hard drive and got Time Machine running quick, fast, and in a hurry. I promise you this, if my iMac goes out and needs a new logic board, there is NO WAY I'm repairing it. I will be spending the $900 to buy a new i7 core HP. By the way, I have an HP laptop I bought in 2003 which still works just fine, other than the DVD player which died last year.

Partial Redemption! I went back to the Genius Bar, sigh, to get them to remove a library dvd. I patiently explained that, not two months ago, they had replaced the screen at no charge due to a known problem with vertical pin-striping.
The Genius clearly thought that their workmanship was implied.
It almost makes all that standing around for late appointments worth while.
OK, so there are still some reliability issues with the imac IMHO, but Apple have now handled it pretty well for me.

Mine failed too. I'm going to think long and hard about replacing it with another iMac when the time comes. At least when I build my own PC, I can swap out the parts cheaply and by myself. Windows 7 isn't nearly as bad as Windows Vista.

On a somewhat related topic, if my iMac does die, will I be able to access my backups created with Time Machine from a Windows PC? I understand I won't be able to do a full restore, but will I be able to at least go in and pick and choose the files I want? I'm asking because the formating is different when writing data, but how about when reading?? Thanks.

I am in Italy. I bought an iMac ALU (early 2008) on June 29, 2008. Practically brand new. From the Apple store. And since the previous iMac (G5) had its graphics card fail on me after two years and the warranty had expired the year before, I also purchased an AppleCare warranty extension plan, which proved to be the best 250 euros I spent in my whole life, because:

1. One week after purchase, I had to send the iMac to Apple's national repair center because it overheated. The repair center returned it saying everything was normal and that ACTUALLY, it was normal for the iMac to become as hot as a ventilated oven.

2. Exactly one year after purchase, June 29, 2009, the hard drive failed. Fortunately, I had backed up most of my important documents on an external hard drive but I had some important work to complete, so I had to purchase a portable PC (and it was not an Apple product, I had already grown diffident). Apple sent me a tech onsite to replace the hard drive after about ten days and quite a few angry calls.

3. On May 11, 2010, the graphics card failed suddenly. It took Apple 9 days to send me a tech with a replacement card and I made a couple more angry calls in the process.

4. Last week, one week after the replacement of the graphics card, the motherboard failed. I was contacted by the national repair center within the same day of placing A FURIOUS call to Apple, with the promise of a prompt repair of both the motherboard and the graphics card that fried along with it or a replacement of the whole product. Actually, they were surprised I had not asked for a total replacement already. Of course, it is Monday today and I got no confirmation of any visit by a tech.

And the irony is: none of the software tools allowing me to check for hardware errors reported anything ever.

During the weekend I bought a Dell PC. Apple has lost a customer for good.

Apple hardware has ups and downs. It is clear that the iMac of 2008 is like the Performas of 1994. The worst example of fraud I have ever seen in my whole life as a computer user. At least Performas were only very slow.

Here is another Imac with a bad graphics card. The issue began while under warranty, but they merely replaced the power supply, not finding graphics problem described that later resurfaced. Since then I've pretty much gotten by with a box fan and SMC Fan control keeping the computer extremely cool, but this is starting to fail. I think the problem is partially my fault, as I did not realize how hot it was getting in Windows, as that the fan was not kicking on with high temps.
My main gripe is that the GPU is supposedly soldered onto the logic board. Why is this done? Also there is no way to hook up the screen, the reason I bought the computer, to an actual working computer. I feel stupid for having an an all-in-one unit that feels like it was intentionally made unserviceable.
I like apple and have had good experience with them, but I'd really like to know why it was engineered in this manor. Intentionally disposable Ipods is one thing, disposable Imac's is another. I have 90% of a great computer with the other 10% ruining the whole!

Enough venting. Please make your own post if you are reading this. Thanks to those who have already posted! I also recommend buying a squaretrade warranty (look for extra coupon codes online) as they helped expose similar problems with Xbox's. I'm guessing only a small subset of imac users really push their graphics card, unlike Xbox users however. Still third party warranties are really the best hope for keeping companies honest.

System specs:
Processor 065-6791 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory 065-6474 2GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM - 2x1GB
Graphics Memory 065-6801 NVIDIA GEFORCE 7600 GT w/256
Hard Drive 065-6438 250GB Serial ATA Drive
Optical Drive 065-6439 SuperDrive 8X (DVDR-DL/CD-RW)
Modem 065-6448 None

And this hasn't become a class action lawsuit yet HOWW???

I read about this problem when i purchased my 24" iMac in May 2008 (the particular version had just come out) and was quite scared that one day I may fall victim to these shenanigans... Whaddayaknow, not even 2 years of operating and BOOM! Headshot!@! Playing a game last night and visual / graphical distortions, vertical artifact lines, etc... had to reboot after this. Basically after this initial crash I would have to reboot, and it would boot fine to the desktop, but open and graphically demanding program (firefox, even!) and Zzzzzz.

Now, Apple I was extremely frustrated with you when my battery on my 2005 Macbook Pro failed THREE times, but each time you ensured me "I'm terribly sorry about this inconvenience and we are aware that this is a common hardware failure in this generation of notebook and we have established a repair program just for it." GREAT, now by my standards it just makes a little sense to me if you would do something about a similar problem we have which is:

A. Driving dozens and dozens of consumers onto the internet to ***** about your service and your incompetence at properly engineering a computer.
B. Costing the faithful consumers who are willing to stick with a Mac repairs of upwards of $950, are you f*cking kidding me?!?!

I have been having the same problem for while. It began with horizontal lines/scratches, odd color smudges (mostly pink)and sometimes the graphics would stretch. The exact symptons described throughout this and other threads. I had used smcFan to put off the inevitable but over the last month the freezes got worse and worse. Still had movement of my mouse, but no interaction with the screen. Now I get 5 in minutes from start up if I'm lucky.

The main reason I'm posting is not only to echo the list of symptoms, but share a 1/2 solution that I found is working for me. For some reason, if I boot in SAFE mode by holding the shift key, my iMac works fine. I'm typing on it right now. It's been on for hours with no hint of beach balls or lockups.

Granted this is no long term solution since safe mode means many things won't work. But I wonder that if safe mode is fixing it, and safe mode is supposed to disable potential SOFTWARE conflicts, what is it thats safe mode is preventing from running? Any specifcs? Could this be software related?

For some reason, if I boot in SAFE mode by holding the shift key, my iMac works fine.

I think that is working because it disables hardware acceleration / use of the GPU. There are a couple tricks you can pull that will effectively disable the GPU, forget particulars right now but one is done by telling the system there is no/zero VRAM.
Many (all?) graphics related things will suffer in this mode (e.g. video, gaming).

I'll just throw mine in here too...

24" Intel iMac - One hard drive & logic board meltdown after 3 months... Fixed under warranty. It's now 22 months old and it's happened again! I'd seriously consider your alternatives before buying an iMac... it seems to be such a common fault...

£1500 for less than 2 years computing... It still looks great, shame it doesn't work.