iMac died in it's sleep

[atari1356]

Came in to work this morning and the 1.8Ghz G5 iMac that I use was powered down. When I try to turn it on there's just a small flash of the white LED, but it doesn't power up... there's not even a startup chime. I also tried a different power cable and power outlet but that didn't help.

So... we called the local Apple store and I have an appointment to drop it off a little later. When my boss bought the machine at CompUSA, they sold her Applecare (which is surprising since we're in Florida, and I thought Applecare wasn't valid in Florida until just recently). Either way, it's still just barely within the 1 year warranty.

Is there anything I should be aware of when taking the machine in? I backed up everything about a week ago... of course I'll request that they don't reformat the hard drive, but if they do I should be okay and not lose much work/email.

Thanks for any advice.

 

[johnnybluejeans]

Remember to take all your porn off first.

 

[jacobj]

have you tried booting it up in target mode? probably won't work but it may be worth a go.. if and it is purely an a non hd issue, then I believe Apple will not guarantee that they won't reformat the drive but that they do state that they make a best effort not to.

 

[atari1356]

Remember to take all your porn off first.

Well, thanks for the tip but:

1. I don't have any porn on there

2. the computer doesn't even boot, so the only way to pull stuff off would be to transfer the hard drive to another computer or external case

3. there are some confidential work related emails on there, but nothing I'm really worried about enough to take the time to pull the hard drive out of there to transfer it off

4. I'ts too late. I already took the machine in and they said the problem is most likely a power supply failure - and will take at least 3 days before they fix it and get it back to me.

Apparently there's a repair program in place for the G5 iMac's to replace bad power supplies for 2 years beyond the standard 1 year warranty (at no cost to the owner).

 

[atari1356]

have you tried booting it up in target mode? probably won't work but it may be worth a go.. if and it is purely an a non hd issue, then I believe Apple will not guarantee that they won't reformat the drive but that they do state that they make a best effort not to.

It wouldn't boot at all... no startup chime or anything. So even target disk mode wouldn't work. It's just dead.

 

[mrfrosty]

Sure it's sad, but dying in your sleep is the way to go. At least it didn't suffer.

 

[mingisback]

this just happened to a friend's iMac G5.

he dropped it off an the local apple store... they had to replace the power supply, logicboard, and CPU.

i guess there have been issues with the power supplys on the iMac and it sometimes surges and fries itself, the MOBO and CPU.

it said $980.00 on the work order when he picked it up... but he didn't have to pay a cent bacause it was still under warranty.

he drscribed the incident just like yours.

 

[atari1356]

this just happened to a friend's iMac G5.

he dropped it off an the local apple store... they had to replace the power supply, logicboard, and CPU.

i guess there have been issues with the power supplys on the iMac and it sometimes surges and fries itself, the MOBO and CPU.

it said $980.00 on the work order when he picked it up... but he didn't have to pay a cent bacause it was still under warranty.

he drscribed the incident just like yours.

Ouch, that's expensive. Good thing his was under warranty (and that mine is too). The guy I talked to at the Apple store did mention that they would check the motherboard too. If the power supply fries things that badly (killing the motherboard and CPU), it's a good thing it didn't catch the whole computer on fire.