Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Imac Failure Rates by Time Poll Please respond
- Thread starter Tudeski
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I bought this 20" Aluminum iMac, 2.66 GHZ, 4 GB of Ram, 320 GB HDD, ATI Radeon mobility HD 2600 Pro 256mb V ram, 1066 mhz FSB less than a month ago (right as the new ones came out)
After the first two or so weeks, the system completely freezes when...
-Playing Youtube videos in OSX (such a hard task it is...)
-Playing games in Windows XP
-Running VM Ware Fusion
So, anything that taxes the graphics card too much makes it **** itself.
In the process of having this issue resolved with Apple. Reinstalling the OS tonight (at their request) to see if it works. It won't. It's a hardware related issue.
After the first two or so weeks, the system completely freezes when...
-Playing Youtube videos in OSX (such a hard task it is...)
-Playing games in Windows XP
-Running VM Ware Fusion
So, anything that taxes the graphics card too much makes it **** itself.
In the process of having this issue resolved with Apple. Reinstalling the OS tonight (at their request) to see if it works. It won't. It's a hardware related issue.
I would not go as far as saying this poll is meaningless. The data is there if someone is willing to plot it if you are looking at fail rates/trends. You asked for a poll and thats what you got which in turn is almost the same thing as a survey...just a shorter version. Information can still be extrapolated from what you have in this poll. If you cant find the answer you're looking for, maybe you need to redefine your question.
If you really wanted to get into it, you would have to include daily use, environment, demographics, what constitutes a failure (mouse...HD?)...etc
But we're not doing Six Sigma here, just figuring if an iMac is worth the $$. Again, the numbers speak for themselves....
If you really wanted to get into it, you would have to include daily use, environment, demographics, what constitutes a failure (mouse...HD?)...etc
But we're not doing Six Sigma here, just figuring if an iMac is worth the $$. Again, the numbers speak for themselves....
Yeeeeeah, but for the sake of simplicity, this poll does serve its purpose. Is it perfect, no its not. But we are talking about computers, not nuclear weapons.
If I wanted to buy the best watch...car...what have you. I would go about things a bit differently when it comes to any survey to formulate my own opinion. Obviously statistics are not my forte, I have only dabbled in process improvement, so I wont pretend to be a statistical whiz.
Was reluctant to vote since the newest iMac I have is the Revision A 17" G5 model. It died 9 days before the warranty expired. Midplane was replaced. Has been fine since. This model is no longer supported by Apple, according to the telephone reps I have talked to. I am watching the results of this poll since I am thinking about getting a new computer this year. I am a fan of Apple and their products, I do not know why there seems to be so much hate from the peecee faction of the world. Must be jealousy.
The problem is that with a nonrandom sample pool, you could get completely false results and are therefore lured into a false sense of confidence.
If you poll inmates at a prison and ask them: Does the justice system work?
Then go to a lawyers office and ask the same question. What do you think the responses will be? MacRumors tends to draw members who have had problems with their computers.
In reality, the number of faulty iMacs is probably far less than is indicated by the poll. Professionally run polls consistently place Apple near the top for reliability.
Polls are fun but lets not consider the results to be anything beyond that. Anyhow, I think I've beaten the horse well beyond death so, carry on...
Ditto, like I said, "I must be lucky." After I get back from Kuwait in Sep, I'm looking at a new 24" iMac to add to my line-up.
Understandable, I had the same notion in my head, just could not put it into text without butchering it.The problem is that with a nonrandom sample pool, you could get completely false results and are therefore lured into a false sense of confidence.
If you poll inmates at a prison and ask them: Does the justice system work?
Then go to a lawyers office and ask the same question. What do you think the responses will be? MacRumors tends to draw members who have had problems with there computers.
In reality, the number of faulty iMacs is probably far less than is indicated by the poll. Professionally run polls consistently place Apple near the top for reliability.
Polls are fun but lets not consider the results to be anything beyond that. Anyhow, I think I've beaten the horse well beyond death so, carry on...
I did make mention of what you recapped in my dirt bike motor skit a few post before. I have noticed the same. Meh, enough said....forward.....
Thanks for voting! I think we are finely getting some results here. Poll is open for the rest of the month...
The problem is that with a nonrandom sample pool, you could get completely false results and are therefore lured into a false sense of confidence.
If you poll inmates at a prison and ask them: Does the justice system work?
Then go to a lawyers office and ask the same question. What do you think the responses will be? MacRumors tends to draw members who have had problems with their computers.
In reality, the number of faulty iMacs is probably far less than is indicated by the poll. Professionally run polls consistently place Apple near the top for reliability.
Polls are fun but lets not consider the results to be anything beyond that. Anyhow, I think I've beaten the horse well beyond death so, carry on...
Could you guide me to any of these professionally run polls? I can't seem to find anything conclusive through Google, but I'm interested to know.
Late 2007 aluminum 20", got it when Leopard was still so new that it was on a drop-in upgrade disc.
Still running with no major faults. No dead pixels. The only thing I've had to do is an SMC reset after my external FireWire drive refused to respond one day. No calls to Apple support or visits to the Genius Bar needed, nothing.
Am I missing something, or am I just lucky?
Still running with no major faults. No dead pixels. The only thing I've had to do is an SMC reset after my external FireWire drive refused to respond one day. No calls to Apple support or visits to the Genius Bar needed, nothing.
Am I missing something, or am I just lucky?
You will probably find a lot of the polls through news sites i'm guessing. not that they will specifically be about computers, but they will be polls.
Here's 2 done in the last year:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/547026/
http://www.insanely-great.com/news.php?id=9996
You're probably just lucky.
No, people just tend to complain more about the bad stuff that has happened rather then bragging about the good stuff. On this forum, with a mac, with everything in life all over the world. Oh well.
That's not exactly what I'm looking for. The first has nothing to do with hardware reliability, although I did find it interesting to know! But, as stated, the high customer satisfaction rating probably had more to do with "a particularly poor response to Window's Vista, which may have contributed to drops in the satisfaction of rival companies."
And, well, I wouldn't put anymore weight into the second survey than this one!
This pretty much sums it up, "Among other things, I don't believe they really make any effort to advertise themselves as a company to call for Mac service. The typical Mac owner/user having problems would be far more likely to call a firm advertising their Apple expertise."
I've never even heard of Rescuecom and definitely would not call them if I had problems with a Mac. That's what Applecare is for. Now if I had a Dell, I would avoid their technical support at all costs! And Rescuecom would start looking pretty good
So you can see where the bias is with that survey. Just not what I am looking for.
I think it's hilarious that Apple scores so high on a survey taken by a magazine called "PCWorld". Although looking through the articles it seems PCWorld just can't say enough good things about Apple. Good find.
Didn't mean to come off as rude - I was shooting for more "matter of fact".
I agree with the sample bias problem posted by others, but also think that it is good to see a poll of such a biased sample produce such an encouraging result.
If the risks of an out-of-warranty failure bother you, just get Applecare, and then sell the computer for 60% of what you bought it for in 3 years, and then get another one with Applecare. Macs hold their value very well.
I have a Rev A White Intel iMac (Core Duo) that was bought way back in 2006 and it is still running fine. It desperately needs to have a reinstall though, as it is very cluttered and running slow. Nothing has failed on it though, I just installed a bigger 500GB hard drive in it so that there is actually some space left.
You can stretch this to 4 years if you charge both the machine and Applecare to an AmEx card.