iMac 24" (early 2008) with Nvidia 8800GS - Repair hopeless ?

manfredfromhamburg wrote:

My NVIDIA 8800 is gone too... is function normal with little high Temp, but if heavy videoload Display is freezing.

Imac is now 5 years old. I here from a lot of people with the same machine and the same problem. It must be a design or a chip error...I don't understand that apple is ignore everything in case and offer no solution. 5 year old Imac for the garbage 😟

Sorry to hear that your iMac is acting up. It's quite possible that it's something other than your GPU. Hard drives are much more prone to failure for instance. Whatever it is your local Apple store can diagnose it free of charge. If it's a hard drive you can probably replace it yourself. If it is the NVIDIA GPU Apple (or an authorized Apple repair facility) can replace it.

I had the frustrating experience of having the NVIDIA GPU replaced in our Early '08 iMac almost two years ago. Apple charged me $170 (about €120?). My wife "inherited" it since I purchased a brand new iMac in November and although she doesn't play any graphic-intensive video games or edit movies, she's more than happy with it. I swapped out the HDD for an SSD about a year ago and it's very speedy now. I'd expect it to last several more years.

If your iMac has been fine for five years that's a fairly decent track record IMHO. I also hold Apple to a high standard, but realistically I don't know of any company that would replace a part that failed after five years free of charge.

So try to cheer up a bit. Your iMac is far from being ready for the "garbage heap", particularly since it may be something minor. Have it checked out first. Even if the GPU has to be replaced, it's likely still worth it as you could probably get a few more years out of it or sell it for a good deal more.

Best of luck and let us know how it goes.

I have a 2008 2.8 iMac that had the graphics card go south - also an NVIDIA card. I think Apple does need to take responsibility for these problems. I bought a new iMac and while I am not having any problems, it is within the range of ones that Apple is fixing for the 2011 models, so why not fix the others and bill nvidia for the problems?

H. William Rhea III wrote:

I have a 2008 2.8 iMac that had the graphics card go south - also an NVIDIA card. I think Apple does need to take responsibility for these problems. I bought a new iMac and while I am not having any problems, it is within the range of ones that Apple is fixing for the 2011 models, so why not fix the others and bill nvidia for the problems?

Sorry to hear that your iMac lost its video card. I’m not sure which iMac you have. AFAIK 2.8 isn't a model number so I don’t know if it’s the same one as being discussed here; the early 2008 iMac 8,1 with the NVIDIA 8800GS GPU.

Although NVIDIA is certainly to blame for a weak GPU design in our case, I guess I'm not sure what the time period would be to hold them accountable. Three, four, five, six years? That doesn't seem very realistic IMHO.

Mine lasted about four years. Had it failed within the warranty period of one year (or in my case three years with AppleCare) Apple would have replaced it for free. They did fix it for many folks under warranty and I've seen posts that said that they did it outside of the warranty for others. It sure would have been nice to have them and/or NVIDIA step up to take care of it after the warranty expired for a time, but I think that time has probably long passed.

So I'm certainly sympathetic to the frustration of having a video card fail. I feel that it's really sad that there's no alternative other than to replace it with the very same product for the iMac 8,1, but that's how it is.

FWIW the replacement NVIDIA 880GS in what's now my wife's '08 iMac has been working fine for almost two years so I guess it's possible that NVIDIA's more recent GPU's are better...although she doesn't stress it like I did. So far the $175 or so to replace it was worth it. Guess only time will tell.

$175...where can i buy one, please??

Pretty impressive stuff there Shane!

However, what it does show, is that Apple quite simply got it wrong with either the spec or the design (or both) and that we, the loyal Apple customers, are expected to pay the price for their failure to provide a quality product for the usual premium price Apple charges us.

My iMac 24" 2008 with Nvidia graphics, died a few times. First the DVD drive stopped reading music CDs; then the HD died (and later came back to life after I had been booting from a Firewire drive for a few months) and then finally, the graphics card issue, described by all the others on this forum (and hundreds of others), occurred while the iMac was being used (lightly) as a second machine.

The fact that my old 2004/5 white iMac is still running without any issues is testament to the fact that Apple are increasingly using poorer quality components in their products – Oh, and my current Macbook Pro had to have its logic board changed after six months...

Sigh!

I realize the above post is quite old, but given there may be others asking the same question, as I am right now, I'd like to correct the information given. The 8800 graphics card is not soldered on (although it certainly is the case that the Nvidia GPU is soldered on to the graphics card) and the graphics card is user serviceable if you have the right tools, know-how or willingness and ability to learn and the service manual, available here at the time of this posting: http://tim.id.au/laptops/apple/imac/imac_24_early_08.pdf (If this is no longer available, please let me know and I'll e-mail you a copy). The video board connects via a slotted connector on the back of the logic board and can be replaced. The most important question of course is what to replace it with as the original poster asked. I was informed at the Apple Store that Apple doesn't make parts available after 5 years. The choices appear to be (1) send the board in (somewhere?) to be repaired, (2) by a refurbished board or (3) if you can find one, buy a new board (at an exorbitant price - about $600 right now). I did find one online retailer that had refurbished boards that you could get with up to a 3 year warranty, but they would not send me a written copy of that warranty and otherwise had horrendous reviews, so I'm not considering them.

I purchased the kit necessary for disassembly (as listed in the service manual) - for $162 w/shipping. The kit contains two large suction cups required to remove the front glass (fastened on with magnets only), anti-static gloves, bags, a sticky roller and papers for cleaning the glass surfaces, etc. In addition to this kit you need three torx screwdrivers (#6,#8,#10) and a #2 phillips screwdriver. It took about 2 leisurely hours to get to and remove the video board (which included a trip to the store to get a couple of things I forgot to pickup like contact cleaner).

I was hoping cleaning the contacts and re-seating the video card might do the trick, but it didn't, so now I'm faced with the same dilemma as the original poster. I may go with cheapest alternative first -- sending in my board for repair -- and see what happens. I'll post my experiences after I do this.

jwgish, you mentioned that someone at an Apple store told you that "Apple doesn't make parts available after five years", however I've had Macs older than that repaired at our local Apple store.

Did you actually take your iMac to an Apple store and ask them to repair it (and they refused) or were you trying to order the GPU itself? Just curious.

As mentioned earlier, Apple replaced the NVIDIA 880GS GPU in my wife's '08 iMac for about $170 about 2.5 years ago and it's still doing fine. Fingers crossed.

Best of luck!

I went to the Apple Store with my iMac and was told in no uncertain terms that they "couldn't do anything for me because parts were not available for machines that were older than 5 years." This was at the Apple store in Burlington, Mass.

Wow...that's too bad. Knowing the history of this particular GPU I guess I wouldn't order any more if I were Apple either (and NVIDA is almost certainly not making them otherwise).

Sorry to hear that. If you find a (reasonable) solution I know I'd love to hear it. Hopefully the wife's iMac will be okay for a while because I'm not ready to make my 27" iMac a hand-me-down just yet...at least until a Retina model arrives. 😉

Best wishes and keep us posted!

I'm happy to report that I'm back up and running. I have successfully resurrected my iMac with the bad 8800 video card, and for what I consider a reasonable cost. Here's what I did.

Purchased the kit for removing and cleaning the glass and the LCD (includes suction cups, anti-static bags, gloves, sticky roller and paper for cleaning, and microfiber cloths) -- (Display Cleaning Tools Starting Kit (p/n 1007027)) from welovemacs.com for $162 (incl shipping).

Disassembled iMac and removed video card using instructions in the iMac Service Manual.

Sent video card to brickfence for repair (ebay) -- $89.00 + about $4.00 to ship there.

Reassembled. Total cost $255.

While I was at it I popped in a Samsung 850 Pro 500GB SSD ($358) in a Newer Technology AdaptaDrive 2.5" to 3.5" Drive Converter Bracket ($15) from B&H I put my old drive in an Insignia drive enclosure I got from Best Buy for $40. (Total: $412).

So, for a total of $667, I not only have my graphics restored, but I have a much fast machine than I started with. Furthermore, I'm thrilled that I didn't have to relegate this otherwise perfectly fine computer to the scrap heap, From an environmental point of view, I can't stomach the fact that Apple and others are so cavalier -- "just toss it. It's 5 years old!"

I realize that not everyone has the time or ability to do the iMac take-apart, but it's pretty straightforward if you have a few simple tools and carefully follow the directions. (I started building electronics kits 50 years ago, so I fortunately I have some experience).

Jim

I took my iMac to the Applestore in Bluewater (outside London) today... The staff denied ever having heard of this issue before! I told them that there were numerous cases of this GC failure on the Apple Forums and all over the internet, but all they said they could do was to "look in to it". Half an hour later they called me to say that there was nothing they could do as there was no official recall for this issue... Worse still, they informed me that Apple doesn't repair this age of iMac any longer – So I can't even pay Apple some outrageous amount of money to repair their faulty/poor-quality components – my machine is scrap!

I now know why Apple is the richest company in the world... They charge a premium price for a sub-standard product, which stops working after four years, and they won't even fix it for you if you want to pay them! They assume you will just buy another one from them...

This sort of commercial arrogance will surely be their undoing.

That was exactly the story I got, both on the phone to AppleCare, as well as in the Burlington, Massachusetts store. That is why I took it upon myself to repair the machine. Good luck. I agree -- it is definitely corporate arrogance. Worse still, it's the kind of attitude and practice that has lead us down a path of environmental degradation - why repair something when you can trash and replace it!

Hey guys. I get the frustration with this issue...been there done that. However upon reflection, and with all due respect, doesn't it seem like our expectations of Apple may be a little bit unreasonable?

Apple did in fact repair iMacs with this issue under warranty and in my case after my AppleCare warranty had expired (see my previous posts).

NVIDIA no longer makes the GPU and there isn't a substitute. So I'm not sure what Apple's expected to do about it six years after the sale.

In fact I don't know of any manufacturer, Dell, Asus, Lenovo, Sony, that conducts business any differently. When a machine is out of warranty - ours are at least five years past - that's pretty much the end of their obligation. Even though in this case the GPU had been problematic, to expect any tech company to do something about it more than a half-decade later isn't practical IMHO.

The fact that we have more-or-less direct access to Apple is unique in the industry. Other manufacturers utilize authorized dealers (Apple does as well), but AFAIK the opportunity to walk into a Dell store and get someone to do anything but sell you a new computer doesn't exist. I feel very lucky that we have that option even when the answer we get may not be what we want to hear.

I blame Apple for setting such a high standard and in my book they do an order of magnitude better job of taking care of their customers than any other company, but this isn't an Apple issue any more than it would be a Sony issue.

Bottom line, computers become outdated and/or just wear out and they have to be replaced sooner or later. Apple computers in general last much longer than PC's. You can't give a six-year-old PC away, yet there are plenty of equivalent Macs for sale.

My wife's still using our '08 iMac. Not one thing outside of the GPU has failed. That's fairly astonishing to me. I just upgraded it to Yosemite. Knock on wood it'll last a little longer, but when the day comes that the lousy NVIDIA GPU (or pretty much any other part in it) fails, it'll be time to replace it. We have several local computer recyclers so hopefully some of the parts and pieces will keep someone else's iMac going for a little longer.

So I get it...it would be nice if everything worked perfectly and lasted forever. In my many decades of computer experience with just about every brand, Apple products are about as close to that ideal as it comes but no one is perfect.

Folkshave been predicting Apple's demise for one reason or another for over 30 years. Apple is the most valued company on the planet today. Never say never I suppose.

Sorry to hear that it didn't work out for you Mazzak. Switching back to a PC won't ever be an option for me, but best of luck with Windows 8! 😉

Enjoy your "new" iMac jwgish!

Cheers!

Jim,

Thank you for sharing everything that you did - you've given us hope! My graphics card "bit the dust" around September 2014 and we were looking into options - saw Brickfence but hadn't heard a whole lot about them. This will be our first course of action.

How has your imac been running? Were you happy with the refurb and with brickfence?

Thanks!

Sigh, I just posted a long reply to richsadams, thinking i was in this thread, when i was in an older, shorter thread on the same topic.

here is my original reply:

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The bottom line is that Apple orphaned this iMac line very early on, having made a bad engineering choice with respect to the graphics card, which is an unusual form factor not shared by other models of iMac. (It's not, by the way, really an 8800gs -- it's actually an 8800M GTS, or maybe GTX, ie. a laptop GPU). By 2011 it was clear that they had a serious problem on their hands, and they did NOTHING to protect the customers who owned the machines. In particular, they did not work with any of their suppliers to ensure the future availability of any newer model of GPU on the same form factor. Instead they charged increasingly ridiculous prices to replace the original card with a comparable card (that might even have the same engineered-in flaw). If your iMac went bad in 2012, you were looking at spending something in the mid-300s to mid-400s to replace the card with a technology with half the performance of cards selling for $150. It was outrageous. I have a 2008 iMac with a beautiful monitor and a fully functional motherboard, and it's been nothing but a paperweight since 2013 because Apple decided it was okay for a 5 year-old machine to be scrapped.

The exact circumstances of this engineering snafu are well understood -- there's a website devoted to it, nvidiadefect, though it can take you about two full days of searching and reading to get the full picture -- and I'm sure everyone at Apple knows exactly what happened and why. Someone at the company made an explicit and conscious decision that the owners of these machines would be hung out to dry as their GPUs failed. According to at least one user, the official story was that Apple <i>did</i> have a replacement program for the same cards in the Macbook Pro, but inexplicably didn't include this iMac model in the program. Moreover, according to the founder of that site, Apple personnel routinely told UK customers that they had no recourse, when UK law indicated that Apple WAS liable for replacing the parts, regardless of the official warranty period.

I can, indeed, go ahead and buy a brand-new (i think) hilariously outdated Apple part 661-4664 for the entirely unreasonable price of $295 (not including installation), because Apple orphaned the form-factor and left its customers in the lurch. As someone who has been using Macs since 1985 (first workplace machine was a 512K fat mac, with an external floppy drive, oooooooo!), my disgust at this particular choice by a company with literally more money than it knows what to do with is and shall ever be boundless.

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I have an addendum to that reply, which is this: You can right now buy an identical 8800M replacement card for your HP laptop (LOTS of laptop manufacturers had this problem, none that I know of dealt with it very gracefully), for $110, the only problem being that its flash rom firmware will not be compatible with your iMac. In other words, Apple is charging you a $185 premium for the honor of being an Apple customer who was sold a defective product. The existence of the HP card makes it perfectly clear: Apple could sell you a replacement card for $110 without losing any money, but that is not good enough: They insist on profiting handsomely from this defect.