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Guess what? After years of being on the fence with the purchase of my *first* mac, I took the plunge today and went to the apple store only to be disappointed by my new iMac Quad core also being DOA.

I hear the drive spin up, the chime, but the screen remains totally blank. The store from which it was purchased agreed to swap it, but I have to schlep it back. Its a pretty box, pretty heavy ;)
 
Update #2

My replacement iMac will supposedly ship on or before Dec 1 "due to backorders". It just seems to me like someone who ordered this computer within a couple of hours of product release would get some better response than going to the back of the line when the product ordered arrives dead. I've had a mac for years but this experience has left me with a very negative feeling towards Apple. I don't know if that will change if/when a working computer arrives. We'll see. I'll post again once that happens.
 
Guess what? After years of being on the fence with the purchase of my *first* mac, I took the plunge today and went to the apple store only to be disappointed by my new iMac Quad core also being DOA.

I hear the drive spin up, the chime, but the screen remains totally blank. The store from which it was purchased agreed to swap it, but I have to schlep it back. Its a pretty box, pretty heavy ;)

No disrespect intended because I had this happen on my MBP several times over the years on bootup i.e, machine seemed to boot up but the display was black. Did you try tapping the brightness button on the keyboard? That worked for me.
 
Imagine this happening on Christmas day...

Occurred to a friend of mine with his new Amiga (many moons ago). All shops closed until the 27th. Not nice...
 
It's now a week since I received my DOA i7 and five days since it was picked up. The replacement hasn't even shipped yet.

Its been quite a disheartening experience especially as reviews and performance figures for the i7 have begun appearing on forums and news sites. Ever more so as I don't have the Mac or the very substantial amount of money already paid for it. All this has really proved to me is that I could probably live without such an extravagant expense.

I got the new iMac to take with me to a new house and gave the old model to my parents; right now I have just my work MacBook and (in a link to colmaclean's post) a 20 year old Amiga 2000, which continues to work better than my i7 Mac! :rolleyes:
 
Guess what? After years of being on the fence with the purchase of my *first* mac, I took the plunge today and went to the apple store only to be disappointed by my new iMac Quad core also being DOA.

I hear the drive spin up, the chime, but the screen remains totally blank. The store from which it was purchased agreed to swap it, but I have to schlep it back. Its a pretty box, pretty heavy ;)

Same thing happened to me. Dead display, brightness, PRAM, SMC, safe mode, etc.... no luck. It's back with fedex now, and it looks like it will be December until they ship a new unit.

Really spoils the weekend. I wonder if the DOA rates on these are higher than usual, or we are just unlucky??? That box seemed like it may be getting close to the upper limit for fedex, it sure is heavy. It must weigh twice what my white 24inch imac does.
 
Hello and thanks for the suggestion about the brightness being turned down. Unfortunately, that wasn't it.

I returned the unit to the Stanford Apple Store, where they verified that the unit was defective. They provided a new one, swapped over the AppleCare contract, and even carted it out to my car. I must say that the customer service is impeccable.

For now I'm all set. If you want to read more, I have a blog entry about the whole experience here. Thanks again for the suggestions. I like my new mac!
--tim
 
will i7s be available at apple stores?

I'm curious if anyone knows whether the game plan is for Apple to ever have i7s stocked in its stores? Seems to me that if Apple stores got the devices first, they could do a quality check before selling them to customers. That would minimize the chances of customers getting DOAs or cracked screens. Also, all things considered, there aren't that many hardware configurations available to choose from - seems to me Apple should stock at least four: i5 + 1TB, i5 + 2TB, i7 + 1TB, i7 + 2TB.
 
damaged i7

It seems now FedEx did me a favor by not delivering it. They stuck a tag on my door that said 'pkg is damaged' and i ended up making 2 phone calls to Apple. First one, Apple called FedEx with me on the line and set the return up, but I didn't get how the replacement was going to work. So I called back the next day and another Apple representative listened to my story and frustration and set up the order with the new one, which is now about a week away. Speakers for my troubles too. I like Apple and I'm sure it's going to be worth the wait. Maybe someone dropped a few palettes of i7s somewhere along the way to the plane.

99John, I was told by Apple when I was on the phone the 2nd time that the i7s will not be available in the stores, they're a special order. But it seems that would eventually change.
 
I'm curious where all the i7s are shipping from?

Sounds like it's a production/assembly issue.

Could be a shipping issue with the cracks also - but given the lack of external damage it seems unlikely.
 
cracked screen

I also suffered from the cracked screen DOA. Fortunately the machine works flawlessly, so I opted for the 'I'll use it while you ship me a new one' option. It's been 5 days since we got that set up, and it hasn't shipped yet.. some day

the crack is annoying!
 
I recieved my i7 yesterday, transfered everything from my time machine backup over last night and played with it a little this morning, everything seems to be fine with mine.

Mine was shipped from Shanghai China (for whomever wanted to know where they were coming from) last week, went through Anchorage, then to Tennessee and then over to Oregon.

And I highly doubt they loaded them on a plane, I am sure they went on a ship from China to Alaska.

Hope everyone gets everything squared away! The i7 is pretty sweet!
 
I have had a lot of experience with customer/tech support, being a multi-media artist. One thing I have learned is if somebody is not being helpful, thank them kindly and hang up. Call and speak to somebody else. There can be much friendlier people who will help you more than the one you get on first or second call.

I agree that it's wrong that you have to wait in line again. Call back and speak to somebody else. And don't let it be a tech support person. Ask for a costumer satisfaction person and be very polite but honest with them. You might get better treatment.

My replacement iMac will supposedly ship on or before Dec 1 "due to backorders". It just seems to me like someone who ordered this computer within a couple of hours of product release would get some better response than going to the back of the line when the product ordered arrives dead. I've had a mac for years but this experience has left me with a very negative feeling towards Apple. I don't know if that will change if/when a working computer arrives. We'll see. I'll post again once that happens.
 
Ah sh%t....

I saw this article when I was at work today, waiting for my i7 iMac to be delivered... I've just picked it up, unpacked it and it's dead as a dodo :mad:

Waiting WEEKS on this thing and it's going to have to go straight back.

Majorly peeved...
 
It's ALLLIIIIIIIVVVVVEEEEE!!!!

Okay I retract my previous statement... as usual as soon as I call Applecare it starts working - The agent asked me to reconnect the power cable and hold down the power button for 5-10 seconds. As soon as I did that it powered up!

Now that I've played with it a bit it's a problem with the power button. It clicks in nicely but it seems that I have to press it in just the right way for it to make contact and power up the computer. Now that I know the way to press it it works 100% every time, but just a light press until it clicks wasn't doing it. It seems like I have to press it in slightly harder and slightly downwards.

Either way, things are working great!
 
New i7 just ate it

Add me to the list. I got my i7 and happily installed some software on it. The next morning I tried to wake it up and it never came back.. fully alive in terms of power and disk, but no video. Tried PRAM, brightness, booting from cd - the works.

Errrrrrrr

afk
 
I was one of the lucky ones

I finally got my new iMac yesterday, and luckily all is well. Mine also shipped out of Shanghai last week. Sounds like somebody is dropping pallets along the way.
 
F*** this!

New i7 8 GB RAM arrived yesterday at my parents' house. I went up today to get ( I figured what's another day to wait after 3 weeks). Got it back to my apartment off-campus, and...DOA. So angry and disappointed as someone who's never had anything but a Mac.

I'm going to the store tomorrow to talk to my brother's friends who work there so that they can get me a new one that works like it should, maybe with something extra for free and expedited shipping. I want my pound of flesh dammit!:mad:
 
My replacement iMac will supposedly ship on or before Dec 1 "due to backorders". It just seems to me like someone who ordered this computer within a couple of hours of product release would get some better response than going to the back of the line when the product ordered arrives dead. I've had a mac for years but this experience has left me with a very negative feeling towards Apple. I don't know if that will change if/when a working computer arrives. We'll see. I'll post again once that happens.

I understand your frustration, I got my i7 imac Monday and it worked fine. Well yesterday the flickering issue started so now it has to go back, the new one won't be here until Dec. 3rd-9th.
 
Wow. So many DOA machines. I hope my replacement (loud HDD) has all the kinks worked out of it. Its taking them three weeks to make it.
 
Although I know only a minority of users are experiencing DOA issues, but it does make me wonder about the long-term reliability of the i7 iMacs.
 
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