Mac Experts advice needed!

[mac66]

Hello All,

I'm not a Mac expert so have come here for advice on this one.

I sold an old iMac G5, which belonged to my sister, recently. It was sold without the hard drive for security. It had been sitting in a box and was working fine before then. Just wasn't used since she'd bought an Apple laptop.

Two and a half months after selling it the buyer says it won't connect to his home internet and saying it's therefore faulty and wants me to resolve it. He says it won't connect either on the airport card he's installed, on the USB wifi dongle I sent him or even the CAT5 connection.

Now I am a PC user and have built various PCs for a long while and do have some hardware/software experience. As far as I am concerned this has to be down to a software issue with his new set up. I can't believe that all 3 (USB, airport and cat5) can all be faulty or that there is some other hardware within the Mac that could cause them all not to allow internet connection.

Anyone have any experience of this?

Thanks a lot.

 

[MBHockey]

Agreed, sounds like his network setup more than faulty ethernet, airport , and USB ports. Had it been working fine for this new owner this whole time and suddenly stopped after 2 months?

 

[newlifer]

I suspect a software issue
maybe pirate software calling home?
format & reinstall os

 

[mac66]

Thanks. Unfortunately the customer believes he is right.

 

[Fishrrman]

My opinion only follows.

First, this was an OLD iMac.
There is no "warranty" to speak of with a private sale.
Once sold, it's pretty much the buyer's responsibility.

Secondly, when the buyer first received it, the internet connection WAS working, or at least that seems to be the gist of it per your report.
So... it worked for two+ months and then stopped working?

Sorry, that's the buyer's problem to resolve.

You might offer some suggestions (such as shutting down and restarting his cable/DSL setup, or whatever he has), but that's really the limit of what your involvement should be.

Suggest to the new owner that he visit this forum for tech assistance...

 

[mac66]

He hasn't said that he's ever got it working but it's just the notion that all three interfaces - airport card, wifi USB dongle and the wired Cat5 interface could all not be connecting to his home internet.

I do know that Apple can make operating systems that are not compatible with certain hardware and I'm wondering whether that is his issue.

Thanks for all your input.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

The buyer bought it second hand, that is always sold as seen, just tell them where to get off.