Oh dear, my iMac just died

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joescrivens

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This is going to make some of you smile and it's going to make neil smile A LOT!!!! :LOL:

There I was typing an email when my screen just went all fuzzy and i couldn't see anything. Restarted it and nothing. WOn't get past the spinning circle - no grey screen kernal panic or nothing.

Try to boot from disc, same thing.

Is it me or does this indicate a hardware problem - faulty logic board?

It will start in target disc mode and I am currently plugged into my macbook doing a carbon copy clone of the hard drive so i won't lose anything.

But from what i remember a logic board replacement is very costly and I'd be better buying a new iMac right? Is there a way to find out what hardware issue it is from my symptoms?

oh and Steve now has a letter from my lawyers asking for a divorce!
 
Could be a hard drive failure even though you can access it. (strokes my lovely PC)
 
ok, if thats the case, one this carbon copy clone has finished i'll try booting from the external drive, if that works i guess it would be that, but surely it would boot from the dvd even if it were a hard drive failure?
 
I hope it's not the logic board Joe. I had a similar failure with mine a couple of months ago. I was quoted just over £600 for supply and fit of a new board :puke:

Luckily the fault with mine was traced to a defective data cable which they replaced for £50ish :)

You'll probably have to take it to an Authorised Apple Repair Centre tbh :(

Good luck, these puppies aren't cheap to repair :help:
 
lol, thanks for your humilty! no applecare. So cost will be at my expense.

I thought £600 was about the quote for a logic board, hence why if thats the case i'll be just buying a new mac instead.

an hour or so for this backup to complete then i'll try an external boot, if this fails then it might give me more clue as to the issue. I'm thinking it is hardware and not software related though
 
joescrivens said:
lol, thanks for your humilty! no applecare. So cost will be at my expense.

I thought £600 was about the quote for a logic board, hence why if thats the case i'll be just buying a new mac instead.
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You could buy a PC for less :naughty:

It does sound hardware rather than disc related - you should have been able to boot from the DVD.
 
As you're in stoke it might be worth contacting the Ethical computer centre in Burlem/Tunstall as they do low cost repairs. Burslem one is on Hamil Road (180 ish) just next to the Coral bookmakers. Tunstall one is on Roundwell street. They usually have decently priced second hand stuff around too.

01782 – 824976, 823035
 
Oh and if you have the trapdoor memory access thing, just check the memory is seated properly just in case.

There's also the firmware reset doodad that can get it unstuck. You have to hold down certain keys and wait for beeps. You need to be an octopus to do it though...

Bit worried now as I have a 5 year old imac which has been on 24/7 for most of the those 5 years :-/
 
srichards said:
As you're in stoke it might be worth contacting the Ethical computer centre in Burlem/Tunstall as they do low cost repairs. Burslem one is on Hamil Road (180 ish) just next to the Coral bookmakers. Tunstall one is on Roundwell street. They usually have decently priced second hand stuff around too.

01782 – 824976, 823035
Click to expand...

was going to try the mac store in the potteries, they usually send it back to apple
 
srichards said:
Oh and if you have the trapdoor memory access thing, just check the memory is seated properly just in case.

There's also the firmware reset doodad that can get it unstuck. You have to hold down certain keys and wait for beeps. You need to be an octopus to do it though...

Bit worried now as I have a 5 year old imac which has been on 24/7 for most of the those 5 years :-/
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yeah, this is 3 years old and same thing, never gets turned off.
 
joescrivens said:
yeah but i'd rather not handicap myself! :D
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You do know it's essentially the same hardware inside don't you? Just you have to fill Mr Jobs' pockets to have all those trendy people sell it to you in big expensive high street stores ;)
 
arad85 said:
You do know it's essentially the same hardware inside don't you? Just you have to fill Mr Jobs' pockets to have all those trendy people sell it to you in big expensive high street stores ;)
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hardware is irrelevant to me in most cases, it's the OS that makes me fill his pockets. I have a pc in a table about a metre to my right that I could take out and use any time I wanted but I'd rather stab myself in the foot than have to put up with windows :LOL:
 
Try doing a pram/nvram reset.

Hold down the Command-Option-P-R keys whilst you turn it on. Keep on holding the keys down whilst it reboots twice (you should here the startup chime)
 
Clearly your choice, but they both do the same functions, in essentially the same way. I think Win7 pretty much levelled the playing field as far as the UI goes so to my mind there isn't really that much in it now except for the price and entrenched positions ;)
 
arad85 said:
Clearly your choice, but they both do the same functions, in essentially the same way. I think Win7 pretty much levelled the playing field as far as the UI goes so to my mind there isn't really that much in it now except for the price and entrenched positions ;)
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much like a fiesta and a porsche but there's a reason the porsche costs more - same with OSX ... in my opinion of course, some people hate porsches :)

whilst you may think windows 7 levelled the playing field, not for me, still feels very different and doesn't do anything for me. Just my preference though
 
Hi. I had a logic board problem with my iBook a while ago. Screen got all sorts of coloured lines, patterns and eventually died. Mercifully Apple replaced it free of charge even though it was outside of warranty as it was 'a known fault' with certain logic boards. May be worth trawling some mac forums for info?
 
Ploddles said:
Try doing a pram/nvram reset.

Hold down the Command-Option-P-R keys whilst you turn it on. Keep on holding the keys down whilst it reboots twice (you should here the startup chime)
Click to expand...

will do once this carbon copy backup has finished, looks about 75% through now, man I have a lot of crap on my hard drive
 
Win 7?? Don't make me laugh. Should have seen the trouble my friend had with her netbook just getting a wireless connection with the thing. Wouldn't work with either of my routers and all the other macs worked fine. It didn't work until you went through some trouble shooting thing and it had to download via a 3g usb stick some extra stuff it needed to work. Like dur. Needing to download wireless drivers on a netbook. How mad is that?!

I had to use vista a few months ago. Didn't even update the file list properly so it would say recently created files in a search didn't exist when you could see them in an explorer view. Lousy usability.

Simple answer is pc hardware but run a proper linux os :) Save the money and don't give it to Bill either.
 
neil_g said:
it is a nice reminder that not even macs are indestructible :p however i wont laugh, its not nice when you have a failure that takes your machine down for an undetermined amount of time..
got applecare?
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+1

We may all have a bit of banter about the Mac vs PC thing but no one like to see this happen. Best of luck getting it fixed - at least it sounds like your data is safe :)
 
srichards said:
Simple answer is pc hardware but run a proper linux os :)
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Hmm.. I tried that last year when I built the machine I'm on now (Ubuntu 9.4 IIRC). I found more bugs in the UI/apps than you could shake a stick at so reverted to XP. Oh - just remembering the experience is making my heart race with frustration....
 
arad85 said:
Have to say this is the only forum I use that doesn't have :rolleyes: :)
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for good reason, they only cause ill feeling.

Now, let's get this thread back on topic, and that is trying to help Joe get some life back into the mac, not whether or not PC's/macs reign :)
 
XP is about the only windoze OS that is solid now. Wasn't when it was first released. It would be hacked before you'd had chance to download the security updates so you had to download those on another machine and burn them to cd/stick them on a usb. Linux can be quirky but generally the quirks don't cause your machine to be compromised and your data stolen.

Have spent many a tortured hour trying to get redhat linux to work with a certain make of video card it didn't really like.

There's also SL electrotech in Chesterton that do Mac sales and repairs. If you're out of warranty they might be much cheaper.

If it is going to be silly money then check out the apple refurb store. Gear on there seems to be about a third off.
 
dod said:
Now, let's get this thread back on topic, and that is trying to help Joe get some life back into the mac, not whether or not PC's/macs reign :)
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I think he knows exactly how to try and get this fixed, judging by Joes posts. At a guess, he's whiling time away on this thread whilst the backup happens ;)

srichards said:
XP is about the only windoze OS that is solid now. Wasn't when it was first released. It would be hacked before you'd had chance to download the security updates so you had to download those on another machine and burn them to cd/stick them on a usb. Linux can be quirky but generally the quirks don't cause your machine to be compromised and your data stolen.
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Win 7 is pretty solid too. My machine only ever gets rebooted when I decide on installing windows update or add new hardware.

I wouldn't call the issues I had with Linux "quirks" either - they were out and out bugs (ranging from file dialogues not opening correctly, through problems with sound dropping out to Firefox/FLASH not working reliably when they worked perfectly happily on a Windows machine running Firefox). I rebooted that build/OS more than I have done with either Win7 or XP. Looked pretty though...
 
arad85 said:
I think he knows exactly how to try and get this fixed, judging by Joes posts. At a guess, he's whiling time away on this thread whilst the backup happens ;)
Click to expand...

well, i don't know how to fix it other than send it away for repair, so yeah i am waiting for the backup and my hope ws someone might be able to tell me a troubleshoot test to ascertain if t was the logic board or not to then decide if i even bother sending it away or just buying another one.

But me thinks that doesn't exist.
 
joescrivens said:
well, i don't know how to fix it other than send it away for repair, so yeah i am waiting for the backup and my hope ws someone might be able to tell me a troubleshoot test to ascertain if t was the logic board or not to then decide if i even bother sending it away or just buying another one.

But me thinks that doesn't exist.
Click to expand...
Well, if you can't boot from the DVD drive, you're not going to be able to run any test software. Can you boot from a USB drive on a Mac? Might be worth trying to run memtest86+ on it if you can find a way of booting it.
 
arad85 said:
Well, if you can't boot from the DVD drive, you're not going to be able to run any test software. Can you boot from a USB drive on a Mac? Might be worth trying to run memtest86+ on it if you can find a way of booting it.
Click to expand...

this is my next test. Once my clone drive has finished, currently taken 5 hours and still going grrrrrr thats what i'll be trying next
 
Photodiva said:
Does this shed any light?

http://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/6127/How+can+I+tell+if+my+iMac+logic+board+is+dead
Click to expand...

Some symtoms of a dead logic board are as follows:

No chime - I have a chime

Fan activity- I don't get a huge fan activity, that i can hear

Drives spinning up - the drives spin

nothing displayed on the screen - I get the apple logo but nothing else

no power throught USB (or the otherway around) - i have power on the usb

No Power Through firewire (or the otherway around) yes i have power through firewire

abnormal noises - none

fans running at max speed - no

computer heating up abnormally - no

display image distortion (prior to fail) THIS i did have
 
was wondering about the video card but then theres no issue with crazy lines or ruined graphics during the apple logo startup now the firewire mode.

I'm guessing that with both a video problem and a memory problem that neither would boot up from the external drive either. I do have some other RAM i could swap in to test once the god damn backup is complete 6 hours and counting
 
if it is either of those i would expect the problem to occur while booting from external.

i think (baring in mind this was a couple years back) ive seen graphics card issues that havent effected the bios screen on non-apple hardware before?
 
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