Q: Intel Imac with bad logic board.

Hi Folks

I've been following these posts since my 3 1/2 year old Intel Imac went "Kernel Panic" crazy last night.

Apple store took a quick cursory glance and told me that the issue was hard drive - no problem, they'd replace for $250 (Canadian), but would lose my data. Suggested that I go to a place that recovers bad hard drive data as they did not.

Agreed - "So I get the old drive back after so I can do this?{"

"Oh no - Apple keeps the old drives so they can study them for future learning" (I swear, I'm not making this up)

"Well, then I guess I should take it in to the recovery place first - see you"

Recovery Place (actually a well-frequented, non authorized Apple repair place - I had actually used them in the past to replace my broken iphone glass)  - after a slightly more thorough analysis

"You're hard drive is 100% fine - I am looking at the files right now.  The problem is your Logic Board - fried.  No point in repairing - better to pull out the hard drive and get a new machine" (By the way, they don't sell machines so he was not just pulling the old "Apple Store" strategy).

He is taking out the hard drive so I can use it connected to my wife's MBP (I'm told I can do that ... ), and he has agreed to search for an Intel Mac machine that I might be able to place my hard drive in.

BTW - Confused by the conflicting diagnoses above, I called a 3rd place who said "if the problem is the logic board, we can fix/replace them = for less than $650".  More confusion

BTW2 - I called Apple after I had spoken to the Recovery Place to com/explain about the poor diagnosis they did "Oh, well, once they got it in the back room, they would have really diagnosed it and if they had found it was the logic board and not the hard drive, they surely would have called you blah blah blah"

Key learnings:

1. Extended warranty is not really an extended warranty - it is a carefully shaded part of the price if you want your device for 3 years.  It's like at Disney world where a 1 day park pass is $40 per person, but if you buy multiple days, the 3rd and 4th day go down to, like $6 bucks.  Same with Apple - Apple products are good for one year if you pay $XXX.  If you are willing to pay $XXX + $160 you can keep your Apple product for 3 years.

2.  Repair at Apple only during the warranty.  After the warranty they make the price so high for repairs, are consciously bad, rude and frustrating to work with - that all they are geared to do is either make you buy a new machine, or make you wish you had -  no one gets out of an after warranty repair without paying so much they might just as well have bought a replacement.

3. Apple consciously does the above to discourage you from hanging on to equipment.  They want you to change every 3 years. Period. Full Stop.

4. Unlike me - back up your data so that when your machine does (inevitably) crap out - you're only cost is the cost of the machine - not the cost of lost files.

I figured it out - it was there all the time!

Give

Error Prone

Newbie

Idiots

Unsatisfactory

Service

Buy

A

Replacement

I have a mid 2011 21.5 inch iMac configured with a 2.8gHZ intel i7, 8gB of RAM, and a 1 tB harddrive. This is my first Mac and I did ALOT of research on them. This iMac just doesn't seem to be living up to apple's reputation. It's becoming unreliable. It started off with frequent kernel panics and one day while making a video presentation for school( I was running Garageband and iMovie), Garageband came up with a window that said it was out of memory. I know this is'nt possible because I have 8gB of RAM and a 1 tB harddrive(only 30 gB used).after weeks of trial and error with apple care over the phone, it seemed to stop. Although it never did run quite right, I was satisfied and left it at that. Know, a new problem is occuring. The machine will freeze up unexpectedly to the point were I have to do a hard reboot via the power button. This seems to happen when I'm am doing something pn Google Chrome with a flash animation or playing a mildly graphic intensive application on the machine. When I'm doing something with sound and it freezes, the sound continues as normal but the screen frozen. I'm starting to suspect either the GPU or the logic board. Either way it has to be covered because I have apple care. Any suggestions???

A_pple: I would ask for a credit, I went the Mac Mini route for now with Lion and everything seems to be working so far. This is my first machine since I switched to Apple, that I have ever experienced problems with, and that be my iMac i7 27" I no longer have because of similar issues to the point of you can keep the "F"ing thing. Personally give me Leopard back, those machines where rock solid!  Most of the major issues started with the late versions of SL and Lion on most of the iMacs as it seems to affect them the worst.

Marketing Mike: I agree, replace them or better yet in my case I didn't want another unit, not till they get this figured out, and quickly! They are already on Lion

updates that are cause more issues than helping fix ones. I must say for the most part all of my devices from them haven't failed and I have a crapload of Apple products, iPods/iPhone and iPads. I still have one of the first iPod Mini's still kicking, I wish I could say the same of my ill fated iMac!

Forgot to edit, it's been my first product from Apple to ever fail, since 2003 and that includes quite a few items

over the years.

No, I've been a bit busy as of late. Expect something in the next week or so.

Here's link to an article about how I went about solving my white, late 2006 24" iMac problems sorted. Sorry it's so long! Here:

http://shaungarrod.over-blog.com/article-how-i-got-apple-to-utimately-replace-my -faulty-late-2006-imac-for-a-brand-new-i5-27-imac-for-free-98729037.html

Why will my wife not listen? I'm a PC she is a MAC. After 1.5 years of use of her 27 inch Imac it died. Apple tech says bad logic board and would coast$1400. lol ***, for an other 500 I can buy a new one. O, thay also charge her $99 to retrieve 8 gigs of data. Wth??? I could have done that. I have a  srewdriver and sp. bit set, I only needed a suction tool ( used my car GPS windshild mount, lol, works great ). Now this silver rig is part of my spare hobbie hard ware. I got her a new one 2 grand and $280 for a 3 year warrenty thru Navy Exchange.

After shopping around That logic board will coast me $700, so thinkin about it, Apple wanted to charge my $700 for one hour of labor. ;(

hey man,

there are many apple repair facilities that can repair it for much less.  I suggest a place called "MicroReplay" just north of boston.  They fixed my logic board for around $499 and its working great!  http://www.microreplay.com.

I believe I dealth with Dave and Charles, both were great.  Hope this helps!

Josh

also they are a mail in service, so you can mail it to them and they will send it back

libs101: I use both because I had to and have to, and regardless of the iMac mess, I still would choose a Apple product over a PC anyday of the week. Been working on and working with PCs since the good old DOS days, Windows etc.. Since 2003 on Apple with zero issues till now, so I will go with the better track record in my case.

Now if you say your Apple iMac died after 1.5 years of use and Apple said it was $1400 to repair it, I got a similar bill when they showed it to me and laughed because I had Apple Care. If you had Apple care, you shouldn't have been charged a dime for recovery of your data, not sure what Warr department is like through the Navy Exchange but if you had Apple Care you wouldn't be paying for anything. Once this update of the software started, that's when a ton of problems started with a lot of people with iMac, I had 3 repairs done:

1. SSD Drive they said failed, I think it was fine

2. Memory replaced

3. Second SSD Failed/Logics board and heat sensor

Frankly I think all these repairs were done to cover up a much greater problem, regardless of the problems I had, with Apple Care I never paid for anything. Apple Finally gave me a Gift Card that had loaded on all the money I had spent on the iMac and I bought different computers for now as I don't have any faith in the iMac currently. Now I have had other iMac in the past, with no issues and I have used them at work with no issues, but they are all running lepoard..

So if Apple is trying to charge you $700, and you are still under Warr. Then you most likely don't have Apple Care.

The apple care plan she had was for only 1 year, I feel guilty cuz i suggested she only got the 1 year plan. Her older imac she has had and still have is over 4 years old. And it still works. I do see Imac are great computers, but at what coast? The 2 of the 3 pc i have i built and have only one mobo problem after 6 years of use and it only coast $50 to get a new one. I see alot of logic and gpu problems in these forums. I know there are places that can repair this 2 year old Imac for less than the apple store, but I can now do it myself, its that $700 mobo price is hard to swallow after I just spent over 2 grand on a new mac.

Thanks for the responce thou, just blowing off some steam.

v/r

libs101

linux, win xp user and sometimes osx

libs101: iMac and all Apple computers come with 1 year Warr. The Apple care extends it to 3 years. If your a PC builder it doesn't suprise me you don't have as many problems, because your the one most likely sticking in the better parts you want to use. Not sure paying the $280 dollars Warr got you very much, as it should have at least gotten you a 3 year Warr. With so many PC being made by different manufactures it is pretty easy to keep the cost down on the PC side, frankly I wish Mac Clones where allowed again as at one time there was a company down in Florida makeing Mac Clones. This is were Apple is trying to control way too many markets, and companies like Samsung etc.. are all trying to do the same thing, Sony did this and it ended up costing them a ton of money in the long run.

If I spend a lot of money on a computer or TV, I always buy the extended Warr. With my iMac it paid off and with a 6 year old Sony it paid off.

The warrenty by the Navy exchange I find better, for $280 we are covered for 3 years, its a no questions asked full replacement ( up to onece a year ) If anything ever happens to even me dropping it I just bring it in and get a replacement, if not in stock, I leave them the broken one and thay will mail me a new one, but as cpus changing every 6 months, if this model is not being made anymore, thay will give me a current equivelent.

on a other note, I'm filing this in my house insurance and need the apple tech report. So after calling apple to send it to me, I read it and says,may be just a bad hard drive. Thay could of told me that before paying $99 for a data recovery and buying a new Imac. Noop those apple knuckle heads told me it was a bad logic board. So thay said I can return the new mac. but the 2011 Office Mac software is an other story.

The only good thing out of all this, I am more about Imacs hardware and software.

FYI the new Imac do not come with the computer spasific install cd s anymore. Its in a partion in HDD.  That's one less thing you can't do on your own. replace your own HDD.

libs101: Well if your covered then I would just simply ask for a new one as what you were saying before didn't make much sense till now. An easy way to save yourself a problem down the road, do a Time Machine back up I need to do this as my Mac Mini is running very well and I want to make sure it stays that way, but I turned off the Automatic updates for now, as it seems the updates cause more of an issue than what they are worth.