iMac Pro logic board failure

Thanks! Yes, it IS a drag.

Unfortunately I had issues with Time Capsule / Time Machine too.

My 3Tb Time Capsule already had too much stuff on it from two MacBook Pro backups, so I bought and attached a brand new G-Tech G-Drive USB-C 4Tb to it via a USB-C to regular USB converter cable. For some reason the add-on drive was making the Time Capsule unable to communicate properly with the iMac Pro unless the entire TC and G-Drive were turned off and back on, and then for ONE cycle, they would both handle a backup, and then lock up again. (G-Drive reasoned that the converter cable was just not able to communicate properly with the Time Capsule.) So, I managed one complete backup of the new iMac Pro onto the new G-Drive, until we figured out that for whatever reason this new G-Drive just did not work and was affecting the Time Capsule when connected to it directly via the converter cable.

So then I connected the G-Drive directly to the back of the iMac Pro via a USB-C cable, and engaged Time Machine, and I BELIEVE it did complete an entire backup. Apple told me that eventually the G-Drive would overwrite the old backup. Last I checked it, before the iMac Pro went kaput, it seemed like it still had both backups on it, although I can't be sure.

I don't have the iMac Pro back yet from Apple. When I get it back I am hoping that there is a full backup on that G-Drive for me to access.

Worst case scenario, the contents of this iMac Pro came from a late 2015 iMac Retina 5K, so I'll just have to re-migrate everything from that older iMac to this new iMac Pro, and deal with the loss of a week or so of new data.

Whatever I do though, I'll have to get back on the horn with MSFT and maybe Adobe, also maybe Quicken/Intuit, because when you migrate data from an old Mac to a new one, your serial numbers/registrations for some of these products no longer function and you have to call them, or chat with them, to get new one time installation codes to reactivate your licenses. Yeah, a pain, more of a pain than the overnight wait to transfer data, really.

My family had a PowerMac 9500 in the late 90s that had a bad power supply almost from the getgo. And then a 2008 iMac its hard drive failed after a couple of years. Otherwise, no major Apple issues, but you'd think on such an expensive and new iMac Pro that it would not have any hardware issues, especially not so soon.

As you may see, I have a lot of time on my hands here, with no iMac Pro, to write stories to post here. I need that dual screen machine back, to get back to work! In the meantime I am working on a MacBook Pro sized screen, and sitting here looking at a forlorn looking and blank LG 5K monitor.

I just hope that this is not representative of some manufacturing or design defect in the iMac Pro 18 core - for now the system is sitting dead in the Apple Store awaiting the parts, which haven't even been shipped yet and probably come from China (which is where the direct shipment of the iMac Pro 18 core came from in the first place).

Still at the Apple Store, they received a logic board which itself in turn seemed to be faulty or some such. They say that the system is running slow, and in any case, it is not yet repaired! 18 cores and not working!

Finally got the machine back after over a month at the Apple Store, they replaced the logic board - twice (first one that came in was itself defective), and the power supply.

Had the machine a week now and seems all is well. One morning I was a little concerned when the display would not wake up from sleep until I tapped magic mouse repeatedly, but since that one morning, just one tap, wait a bit, and it wakes from sleep fine. There have been no freezing issues.

Luckily there was a complete backup of everything dating from the day before the machine went kaput on Time Machine, but this took overnight to transfer the approximately 1.2 Tb of data. One thing that seemed odd was that even though I was backing up via USB-C to an external brand new USB-C capable drive, that the movement via Migration Assistant was pretty slow, sometimes dropping down to something like 10 mpbs. I phoned Apple to ask about this and they said that as long as the transfer was progressing, to not worry about it - that depending on WHAT was being transferred at that moment, that USB-C cable connection or not, speeds could drop down quite a lot from what might be expected.

After transferring all the data had to go through the pain of reactivating all the MSFT, Adobe, Intuit, etc. software with my licenses. The Apple software doesn't seem to need license reactivation after such transfer.

I am sorry to hear that, please keep us posted in this thread!

So far, my iMac is fine, other than that basically I had a non-working machine for a good three months (one month in the shop, plus two months of struggling through issues). Since repair it wakes up from sleep fine, and goes to sleep fine, and it has not frozen while using it yet.

If you contact AppleCare while it is malfunctioning they are able to email you something called Capture_Data.dmg to download that is able to pull the processor logs and then send them to Apple, so that they may look more closely to see what might be the issue. Or, even after you get the machine back and it is working, still you may use Capture_Data to analyze what was going on, if you can remember the exact times that it was malfunctioning.

I suggest you complain to Apple and ask them to extend your warranty for the number of months that your machine has not been working - sounds like over six months now for you.