I have an early 2008 Imac. 2.8ghz, 500 gig drive, 8800gs graphics, originally 2 gigs of ram, but I upgraded myself to 4 gigs of ram.
About August 20th or so, my graphics card died. No previous symptoms, the screen just flickered, and was dead. There is no Apple store around. I called apple, and they told me to either take it to a store or an authorized repair center. They dont ship the 24" Imac. The closest Authorized Repair center is about 2 1/2 hours away one way. The nearest Apple Store is 5 hours away. I called the repair center, they arent open on weekends, only 8am-5pm Monday thru Friday. I cant get off during those times, so I chose to drive the 5 hours to the nearest store since they are open on Saturdays. It was 600 miles round trip to drop it off. They kept it a week, and then said it was ready and to come pick it up. I drove another 600 miles round trip to pick it up. They said they just replaced the graphics card.
I got home, and used it for 2 days before the graphics card died again. I was furious. I called apple, and they escalated it to a second level rep. He said he could have a tech come out to my house to fix since it is so far away. So he sent a tech out. He replaced the graphics card, and the motherboard. It worked for a few hours, and then my cpu fan started kicking in. It got up to around 3600 rpms with only safari open. I did an smc reset, and rebooted. It fixed the problem for about an hour. Then the rpms cranked up again, and wouldnt shut off. I called the same tech back and told him what was going on. He told me to run the Apple Hardware Test. It came back with an error code, and said was pointing to a faulty motherboard again. He scheduled another tech to come out.
This tech just about 7 hours ago. I wasnt home but my wife was. She tested it while he was here, and she said the Imac was silent while he was here. She didnt think to look at Istat Pro.... I got home and pulled up Istat Pro, and my hard drive fan is now running at 5900rpms. My cpu fan went down and was normal at 1200 rpms. I shut the machine off and let it rest, and did an smc reset again. I turned it back on, and the fans were screaming again. I pulled up Istat Pro again, and the hard drive fan was back at 5900 rpms, and the cpu fan was now back up to 3600rpms. I just got done running the apple hardware test again, and it is throwing up a different code now.
With all of this trouble, along with apple having to replace my dvd drive last year, do you think its time to ask for another machine? My applecare is going to run out this next may, and with them trying to fix it 3 times now and failing, Im not to confident anymore in the machine. I just want a functional quiet machine after almost 2 months of putting up with this...
What would ya'll do?
About August 20th or so, my graphics card died. No previous symptoms, the screen just flickered, and was dead. There is no Apple store around. I called apple, and they told me to either take it to a store or an authorized repair center. They dont ship the 24" Imac. The closest Authorized Repair center is about 2 1/2 hours away one way. The nearest Apple Store is 5 hours away. I called the repair center, they arent open on weekends, only 8am-5pm Monday thru Friday. I cant get off during those times, so I chose to drive the 5 hours to the nearest store since they are open on Saturdays. It was 600 miles round trip to drop it off. They kept it a week, and then said it was ready and to come pick it up. I drove another 600 miles round trip to pick it up. They said they just replaced the graphics card.
I got home, and used it for 2 days before the graphics card died again. I was furious. I called apple, and they escalated it to a second level rep. He said he could have a tech come out to my house to fix since it is so far away. So he sent a tech out. He replaced the graphics card, and the motherboard. It worked for a few hours, and then my cpu fan started kicking in. It got up to around 3600 rpms with only safari open. I did an smc reset, and rebooted. It fixed the problem for about an hour. Then the rpms cranked up again, and wouldnt shut off. I called the same tech back and told him what was going on. He told me to run the Apple Hardware Test. It came back with an error code, and said was pointing to a faulty motherboard again. He scheduled another tech to come out.
This tech just about 7 hours ago. I wasnt home but my wife was. She tested it while he was here, and she said the Imac was silent while he was here. She didnt think to look at Istat Pro.... I got home and pulled up Istat Pro, and my hard drive fan is now running at 5900rpms. My cpu fan went down and was normal at 1200 rpms. I shut the machine off and let it rest, and did an smc reset again. I turned it back on, and the fans were screaming again. I pulled up Istat Pro again, and the hard drive fan was back at 5900 rpms, and the cpu fan was now back up to 3600rpms. I just got done running the apple hardware test again, and it is throwing up a different code now.
With all of this trouble, along with apple having to replace my dvd drive last year, do you think its time to ask for another machine? My applecare is going to run out this next may, and with them trying to fix it 3 times now and failing, Im not to confident anymore in the machine. I just want a functional quiet machine after almost 2 months of putting up with this...
What would ya'll do?
