iMac - one thing after another

[lesleybogan]

Hi Everyone,

Hoping someone can help by diagnosing my new problem and giving me some help as to how I should handle my issue.

I have a 24" iMac that is 4 years old. It's first birthday passed, and of coarse, its warranty expired... a few DAYS later my hardrive failed. Luckily, apple honoured my warranty and replaced my harddrive at no cost. Everything was working fine and then birthday number 2 rolled around... harddrive failed AGAIN. This time I didnt have warranty, so I paid to get it replaced yet again. Now, its 3rd birthday just passed in December and I was noticing issues like not waking up from sleep, shutting off randomly and the spinning wheel of death appeared far more than normal (even when switching to a different page on the internet). Anyways... a few days ago I went to wake up my Mac and it didnt wake... so, I turned it off and tried turning it back on... NOTHING! I didnt hear a chime noise and I didnt get past a black screen... all I could hear was possibly the sound of the fans starting up (but that was only for about 3 seconds).

It being the third time I've had issues with the same computer, I am starting to give up on Apple. I am a professional photographer and really I cant be dealing with issues like this... I need my computer to work! What is Apple's policy on repair? Does it matter to them how many times you have to get it fixed? What should I do here???

Please help!

 

[xraydoc]

Best I can tell you is to take it to an authorized Apple dealer you trust - an Apple corporate store would be best if you have one near you. Don't take it to a big-box chain place like Best Buy (I've never, ever heard of a good service outcome from those places).

Be prepared though to pay for repairs - main logic board (aka motherboard) is an expensive piece.

Otherwise, consider it time to replace the machine. And if you buy another Mac, be sure to buy AppleCare for it. It'll give you a 2 year warranty extension on top of the 1 year standard warranty (at least it does here in the States).

Personally, I've had nothing but superb reliability from all the Macs I've owned.

 

[biggd]

If your blowing through harddrives I doubt it's apples fault. Harddrives fail after 3-4 years.
A 4 year iMac? Sell it for some $ and buy new.
If you want real problems, buy a PC and then you'll have reason to complain.

 

[unconncious]

this might sound like a stupid question, but do you usually run "disk utility" and repair permissions and verify disk every so often that tends to keep the HHD in check. I've had a powerpc PowerMac which is 8y and a 6y iBook and they've never fail me. I attribute it to running disk utility once in a while.

 

[robgendreau]

That's a rather high hard drive failure rate. I sometimes suspect, however, that Apple is prone to blaming the drives and slapping new ones in when it's really something else that is going wrong.

If you suspect it's the machine itself, bail on it. It's not worth repairing a four-year old iMac if it's critical to your work.

 

[RedReplicant]

If your blowing through harddrives I doubt it's apples fault. Harddrives fail after 3-4 years.

Haha, what? The iMacs run hot inside, which contributes to early failure.

 

[Ubuntu]

If your blowing through harddrives I doubt it's apples fault. Harddrives fail after 3-4 years.
A 4 year iMac? Sell it for some $ and buy new.
If you want real problems, buy a PC and then you'll have reason to complain.

Oh come on. While macs are probably more reliable generally you can't just say that these aren't real problems. Most of the computers I've had have been PCs and while some have broken (as has one mac) it's never been this bad.

Where's the proof that macs are significantly more reliable anyway? Apple "makes both the hardware and the software" apparently, but out of various components from other manufacturers that are then assembled by another company in china... for a PC of a similar price to a mac I'm sure the components are of the same quality, thus leaving only a marginal difference.