iMac going south...

[whyrichard]

Hey,

My wife's imac may be going south... about 3 years and 3 months after purchase...!

A few days ago the video went wonky, and then was 'fixed' through a restart.

Now the harddrive seems to be wonky, slowdowns all over the place, itunes skips and copying and pasting into powerpoint, etc. doing a verify disk in disk utilites, at first it failed, and then it worked saying the disk seems to be okay.

I hear of videocard problems with the imacs, is this going to be an issue soon?

what else can slowdowns be attributed to? could the hard drive be going bad even if disk utilities reports it's okay?

thanks,
r.

 

[aphxtwinin]

Hey,

My wife's imac may be going south... about 3 years and 3 months after purchase...!

A few days ago the video went wonky, and then was 'fixed' through a restart.

Now the harddrive seems to be wonky, slowdowns all over the place, itunes skips and copying and pasting into powerpoint, etc. doing a verify disk in disk utilites, at first it failed, and then it worked saying the disk seems to be okay.

I hear of videocard problems with the imacs, is this going to be an issue soon?

what else can slowdowns be attributed to? could the hard drive be going bad even if disk utilities reports it's okay?

thanks,
r.

my videocard failed about 4months after purchase and had to get it replaced, that was a early2009 iMac. the genius bar guy that helped me told me that there are 3 lights that are visible when viewing through the grills on the bottom, in the area where the Ram is. I believe the three lights are display/hdd/videocard so if any one of them is having a problem those lights should reflect the problem. just another way you can diagnose the problem.

 

[whyrichard]

hmmm... no lights.

are imac's of early 2009 known for any motherboard problems?

thanks,
r.

 

[Badger^2]

I thought you said it was 3 years and 3 months old?

that would make it a 1st generation AL iMac from 2007.

Thats the 24" with the 2600PRO, right? I have never seen an issue mentioned with the video on those?

Have you tried cleaning it out?

Stock 320 gig drive was pretty slow, maybe its time for a replacement. Its actually pretty easy to do. I could do it in about 15 minutes.

Maybe time for a nice WD Caviar Black...

 

[rgarjr]

what kind of graphics card u have on that?

 

[CHSeifert]

I'm a Mac newbie, but I've have built PC systems for the last 12 years and this looks like a video card fail, not RAM nor HDD fail.

Could also be the motherboard, but my guess is 80% chance of Video card fail and 20% chance of MOBO fail

Hope you get it ifxed for a decent fair price !!

 

[MacHamster68]

3 years 3 month is more then i would have expected it to last without parts replacements in between under apple care

 

[infidel69]

3 years 3 month is more then i would have expected it to last without parts replacements in between under apple care

That's not a long time at all. Computers shoulds should work for a long time without part replacements infact they should out live their usefullness. 3years & 3 months is nothing especially for a company that charges 3 times as much as the competition and brags that it just works.

 

[MacHamster68]

That's not a long time at all. Computers shoulds should work for a long time without part replacements infact they should out live their usefullness. 3years & 3 months is nothing especially for a company that charges 3 times as much as the competition and brags that it just works.

just have a look what the sony vaio all in one cost in comparison , offering less processing power and smaller screens , so please compare them so they are comparable , you cant just say a Ferrari cost 10 times more then a volkswagen beetle just because both are cars ,so the Ferrari has to last 10 times longer

and your statement about life expectancy of a computer was valid about up to 2005 sort of if you ignore laptops where this low life expectancy started earlier , but since then the life expectancy dropped and today 3 years are a eternity already for any computer , they are not meant to last , the companys want you to buy a new one , so a lasting product is counterproductive in terms of profits

and "it just works "refers to OSX not the hardware

and apple is really good at hiding the real failing numbers , that why they never do recalls , and its only a small amount of people coming on forums complain about it , most put up with it and think they had just no luck and buy a new one, and apples sales figures prove i'm right
they can produce anything and put a apple sticker on and nobody will really question the quality..its a apple product and looks good and is some sort of status symbol on peoples desk ,thats enough to sell the product, and most sell their Mac within the 3 years of apple care , as that is the time with the highest resell value

 

[whyrichard]

I thought you said it was 3 years and 3 months old?

that would make it a 1st generation AL iMac from 2007.

Thats the 24" with the 2600PRO, right? I have never seen an issue mentioned with the video on those?

Have you tried cleaning it out?

Stock 320 gig drive was pretty slow, maybe its time for a replacement. Its actually pretty easy to do. I could do it in about 15 minutes.

Maybe time for a nice WD Caviar Black...

you're right, an AL imac from 2007....

and by cleaning it out, you mean....

 

[Badger^2]

theres a large vent across the top and a vent where the ram is -- have you blown them out with some compressed air?

it might just be getting hot.

although only ancedotal evidence, Ive got the same iMac, runs 24/7 doing some hard stuff, no issues with video or heat. And its running a 7200 RPM 750 gig drive.

 

[MacHamster68]

only cleaning top and bottom vents is just not enough , there is lots trapped inside , and the only way to clear all the fins of the heat sinks from dust is to open the whole thing up

 

[skinny*k]

OP

The video stayed okay after the restart? If not, attach an external monitor; if it looks similar to your picture, its a video card problem. If you see a desktop image, its in the display's circuitry (the display is bad).

If the display only looked like that the one time, the problem is elsewhere; It may be a loose connection inside, or a failing power supply. I'd go ahead and open it up, clean it out, and check all of the connections. If you can't find anything, put it back together and take it to a good Mac repair shop for an estimate; the more you run it as is, the more likely one component (or a bad voltage) will damage something else (cascading failures).

Would your wife mind if you bought her a new one? And how does she use it with the mouse on top?

Good luck,
skinny*k

Edit:
BTW: Disk utilities do miss problems—try setting up an external drive, and boot from that—but the hard drive can't make your display act up like that.

 

[logandzwon]

95% sure your video chip is bad. It's part of the main board. Often using the right tricks someone can probably get it to working again, but it'll just fail again within a month or so. You should test it by attaching an external monitor and seeing if you see the noise there. If not it's just the screen. If you do it's the main board. Either way if it was me, I'd test the external monitor, try a clean OS reinstall, and if it isn't working after that, I'd sell it as parts.

Usually the iMac is pretty damn reliable. Usually, once they made it 3 years they will continue to work great till they out live their usefulness. I have one of the first Intel based iMacs my kids use, 4.5yrs and 7yrs. It does everything they want and is still snappy, (for their uses.)