eMac freezes randomly, open window turns into broken up jibber

I finally called Apple and talked to a supervisor. I read her all the posts from people that have gotten thru to Apple and Apple has agreed to pay for the logic board at least or for the repair at most. All she did was repeat over and over again that all she could do was document my case. I couldn't be more disappointed in Apple. I have been a finatic Apple supporter since 1993, and now I feel like garbage. I just forced my parents to switch to Apple so that we could us Ichat- but now I know that it is I who should have switched. I cannot believe that no one will help me there. Catherine

emac Mac OS X (10.3.4)

hello,

been here reading posts. i have the same problems with video freezing, etc. i've called apple care and the rookie I spoke to says he has not heard of any of the mentioned issues and could not help me since i was out of warranty. He put me on hold for 8 minutes to tell me that! my purchase was in July 2004 and my serial is G84292WJQJB. I'll keep posted for any new info.

Charles...don't mean to scare you any more than you may already be.

hello,

been here reading posts. i have the same problems
with video freezing, etc. i've called apple care and
the rookie I spoke to says he has not heard of any of
the mentioned issues and could not help me since i
was out of warranty. He put me on hold for 8 minutes
to tell me that! my purchase was in July 2004 and my
serial is G84292WJQJB. I'll keep posted for any new
info.

Charles...don't mean to scare you any more than you
may already be.

Too late. My eMac just froze up for the second time in three days. No screen jibbering, it just froze solid. No mouse movement, no clock movement, nothing. If I put in a store-bought DVD, it's fine, but if I put in a DVD I burned (on this machine!) the screen starts to break up and the screen artifacts persist even if I remove the DVD, until I restart. Same DVD used to work on the eMac and still works on m DVD player. I think mine is affected, too. Apple Tech Support can't help, beyond giving me the Customer Relations number. (1-800-767-2775, 6-6 PST, MF) I guess I'll call 'em tomorrow.

And, oh, yeah... I can't get Apple Care on it, Apple Care has to be applied before the warranty runs out. As Apple Care was not available in Florida until December 2005, and I bought this eMac in August 2004, I was never eligible for Apple Care. I am eligible for Pro Care, but that's $100/year for 'fast-track' treatment, not an extended warranty. Basically, for $100 they fix problems faster. I can wait.

Looks like I'm gonna have to limp along with this machine until I can get hold of an iMac G5, and not necessarily a brand new one either, unless the replacement motherboard is real cheap. (Yeah, right.) A mini is out, 'cause I'd have to either rig something to let it use my WinXP's monitor or buy a new monitor, and I'd rather have an iMac with a flat screen, thanks. I had been planning to get an Intel Powebook/MacBook/whatever they're calling them, and use this machine for Classic. That's out now. Sigh.

I left the general ATI Open GL driver in the Extensions folder and F12 doesn't seem any slower to me...

hello,

been here reading posts. i have the same problems with video freezing, etc. i've called apple care and the rookie I spoke to says he has not heard of any of the mentioned issues and could not help me since i was out of warranty. He put me on hold for 8 minutes to tell me that! my purchase was in July 2004 and my serial is G84292WJQJB. I'll keep posted for any new info.

Hi everyone,

To throw a monkey wrench into it all, I recently started having the same problem with a few lab machines at the college I work at. However, these are 1ghz systems purchased in March of 2004 and have serial numbers starting with "YM40". I'll be going to that lab tomorrow and will be trying the temp fix of disabling the ATI extentions.

Greeetings:

My post in http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=380521&tstart=0 echoes far too many threads and posts here and in other forums around the web in that it's not sheer coincidence that so many 1.25gHz eMacs are having same problems over a 1 1/2 year in and for a me, three months out of warranty (unless this is some impish plan to prompt users into Apple Care.) This has to be investigated and corrected, This is not simply an "age" problem; it's a design/manufactering flaw. Apple's done performed free corrections since early Powerbook days and this one looks like a keeper. I'd like to see some Mac magazines stand up on their hind legs and start taking this issue on Apple's carpet for once. I can't keep using my eMac in Safe Boot forever.

Fellow sufferer, James Greenidge


1.25 gig eMac and Performa 6320

1.25 gig eMac and Performa 6320

Kirk:

You're an angel brain, guy!
Thanks a million for your suggestion to chuck the ATI extensions. Seems to work straight away and hopefully much longer as I'm aware this might be only a stop gap measure, though for what I do I detect no performance changes. I wonder whether this deterioration of the video chips is just going to stop there. I'm already wary of causing damage to my eMac by turning it on and off so many times in trying to resolve its problem. From what I gather from forums outside Apple's out there, this common timely affliction smacks of a design/manufacturing fault. It behooves Apple to freely remedy this quickly; it can't afford to disaffect all those schools who boldly bought eMacs in the face of Dell as well! Bad enough I can't sling my eMac under my arm to the nearest Apple Store!

Thanks for the help!


1.25 gig eMac and Performa 6320

1.25 gig eMac and Performa 6320

1.25 gig eMac and Performa 6320

Sorry to hear there may be more eMacs involved. Until the posting today, I've seen the problem with G8421...., G8429.... (including mine), G8232...., G8439....

Mine is still at an Apple Store for repairs. They seemed to agree that it was a logic board problem, though said they have not seen it "on eMacs." Thus they are familiar with the problem, but.... Wish someone from Apple would read this string and investigate.

I'll post final results on my eMac whenever they are in. Hopefully by the end of this week.

Greetings Fellow ATI sufferers!

Thanks a million for Kirk's suggestion to chuck all ATI extensions. Seems to work straight away and hopefully much longer as I'm aware this might be only a stop gap measure, though for what I do I detect no performance changes. Flurry screensaver is now jerky as Frankenstein's shuffle but at least I can do biz software. I wonder whether this deterioration of the video chips is just going to stop there. I'm already wary of causing damage to my eMac by turning it on and off so many times in trying to resolve its problem. From what I gather from forums outside Apple's out there, this common timely affliction of summer 2004 purchased machines smacks of a design/manufacturing fault. Where there's smoke there's a fire or a liar, and it behooves Apple to freely remedy this quickly; it can't afford to disaffect all those schools who boldly bought eMacs in the face of Dell as well! Bad enough I can't sling my eMac under my arm to the nearest Apple Store!

Thanks for the help!

James Greenidge


1.25 gig eMac and Performa 6320 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

1.25 gig eMac and Performa 6320

1.25 gig eMac and Performa 6320

Here is my info from the fix-it guys to fix the problem:

We found the computer cannot boot up porperly with freezes and or kernel panic appeared once the computer boot into the finder. What we tested as below:
1) Tried known good memory modules and the result is the same
2) Tried boot up from different HD with different versions of operating system on it and the problem remain. Sum up the result is the machine need to replace the logic board in order to fix the kernel panic problem.

I have been talking to Apple about the problems with the 1.25GHz eMac. It looks like Apple got a bad batch of parts when the logic board were built. Apple is replaceing 53 of the bad logic boards under a CS code. I have sent in photos of the bad caps and Apple also wants me to send some of my bad boards. The leaking caps cause a lot of problems. Computer freezing and locking up, letters on the screen looks pixalated, video garbled, and other problems that just can't be explained. Replacing the logic board will correct all of these problems if the caps are leaking. This problem only seems to be with computers with the SN of G8438xxxQJ8. The replcement logic boards have different caps to replace the ones that are failing. I have repalced 20 of my bad logic boards in the last week. I am not a fraud. I am an Apple Tech that is in charge of a lot of computers. I have been working on Apple computers for 7 years here in Arkansas and for 3 years out in Melbourne FL. I also worked in Orlando FL for about a year. Apple computers are the only thing that I work on. Feel free to email me for more info on this.

eMac 1.25 GHz

All Mac's

Another sad story:

My eMac's screen died after 13 months (bought it in June 2004), so it's out of warranty. The Apple service technician told me the "detection card" has to be replaced -- for "only" 215 euros. Argh... After Apple's very own forum saw the complaints of so many people who had problems with the display on eMacs, Apple should do something about it.

I love Macs.

Courtesy of Mac Fix-It ( http://www.macfixit.com/) who of all Mac mags cares.

10:31 EST James Greenidge pointed out the mysterious meltdown of a number of eMacs, and it looks uncomfortably like the iMac G5 problem that forced Apple to create a special "repair extension" program:

[James Greenidge] Please report on growing summer 2004 purchased eMac logic board problems with deteriorating performance and freezes: eMac freezes randomly, open window turns into broken up jibber

"I have nine eMacs (USB 2.0) that just started having this problem at what seemed like over the course of a week or two. . There seems to be nothing to fix this issue. Zapping the PRAM, Reseting the PMU, Fscking it, running disk utility, apple hardware tests, tech tool deluxe, restoring the machine to its original operating system that it was shipped with and replacing the RAM (The RAM in them is the original RAM that came with them). I work in a school system and there are 38 of these machines alone in one school, more across the rest of the district (13 schools). Apple is saying there is no know issues, but ** they gotta start somethwhere. Of course the nine machines are out of warranty...
I believe as it was said in this topic to be the logic board because I've had a few of these machines sent out for repair while under warranty and they all had the board replaced."

[MacInTouch Reader] I work for an Apple Authorized Service Center and Apple Specialist. I've seen a few eMacs coming through my service department lately with bad logic boards. One thing in common to a lot of them is blown capacitors exactly like the first-gen iMac G5s had. It seems Apple put some of the bad capacitors (identifiable with a + on the top of them, and a puffy top or dried electrolyte leaking out the top when failed) in eMac computers as well. The quantity of failures hasn't been as bad, and some of the eMacs continue to work with a "vented" cap' or two visible underneath the RAM cover. Still, though, these machines with the bad caps will likely fail sooner than later.

*************

I HIGHLY ENCOURAGE ALL TO MAIL OR PHONE APPLE ABOUT RETIFYING THIS MANUFACTURING FLAW ISSUE AS THEY HAVE WITH OTHER MODELS! THE MONEY YOU KEEP IN YOUR WALLET MAY BE YOUR OWN!!!


1.25 gig eMac and Performa 6320

1.25 gig eMac and Performa 6320

1.25 gig eMac and Performa 6320

Apologies in last post. The logic board flaw announcement was courtesy MacInTouch, NOT Mac Fix-It

Drop by http://www.macintouch.com/ for info

James Greenidge


1.25 gig eMac and Performa 6320