UK Late '15 iMac 27" powers itself down - please help

[Rmonster]

Afternoon All,

This is my Late 15 iMac.

Ordered 14/10/15, Dispatched 19/10/15

27-inch iMac with Retina 5K display
Configuration
• 4.0GHz quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 4.2GHz
• 16GB 1867MHz DDR3 SDRAM - two 8GB
• 1TB Flash Storage
• AMD Radeon R9 M395X with 4GB video memory
• Magic Mouse 2
• FINAL CUT PRO 065-C171 NONE
• LOGIC PRO 065-C172 NONE
• Magic Keyboard (British) & User’s Guide (English)
• Accessory Kit

Just shy of £3K.

For reasons that I won't go into, the iMac has been barely used in the near two years that I have owned it. I would estimate at less than 48 hours use.

My circumstances have changed recently meaning that I am now wanting to use the machine one a daily basis.

I had left it connected to the mains but powered down and when I went to turn on the machine, it would not power up at all, no fan noise, no chimes, just completely non-responsive to the power button.

I did a bit of googling and one solution for similar symptoms was to disconnect the power cord from the back of the machine for 10 seconds or more, reconnect it, wait for 5 seconds and then power up.

This worked, but the iMac powered down again before I had the chance to even type in my password.

I repeated the process several times and eventually was able to log in to the iMac. I turned of the screensaver and selected the option that the machine would not enter sleep/standby as I wanted to leave it on to see if it helped.

It did stay on much longer but eventually powered down. I repeated last night and started a 2 hour youtube video. I went into the room where I have my iMac to check on it and it had switched itself off after about 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Again, a brief search of the internet suggested things like logic board failure, overload protection etc.

I own literally dozens of active Apple devices, phones, laptops, iMacs, iPads and have hundreds of legacy devices in my collection. I do purchase AppleCare nowadays but ironically do not have it on this late 15 iMac which is mere days under 2 years old.

I purchased in the UK, directly from Apple as a BTO option and paid via PayPal Credit which is now paid off.

Obviously, I'm very disappointed that I have a £3K paperweight on my hands at the moment despite it barely being used and in mint physical condition. I appreciate that tech can go wrong and break down, but can anyone advise on the following:-

• Do I have any extra consumer protection being a UK customer?
• 
  
• Do I have any extra consumer protection by virtue of using PayPal Credit?
• 
  
• If not, are Apple likely to offer any goodwill gesture given the level of my purchases and that the iMac has hardly had any use at all?
• 
  
• Is this type of failure on the late '15 a known issue?
• 
  
• Are there any other possible reasons for the iMac powering down and any known fixes that the user can undertake themselves?
• 
  
• Any other advice will also be greatly appreciated but if the 2 years is significant in any way then I only have days to act

Many thanks in advance.

Cheers,
Rich

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Obviously, I'm very disappointed that I have a £3K paperweight on my hands at the moment despite it barely being used and in mint physical condition. I appreciate that tech can go wrong and break down, but can anyone advise on the following:-

• Do I have any extra consumer protection being a UK customer?
• 
  
• Do I have any extra consumer protection by virtue of using PayPal Credit?
• 
  
• If not, are Apple likely to offer any goodwill gesture given the level of my purchases and that the iMac has hardly had any use at all?
• 
  
• Is this type of failure on the late '15 a known issue?
• 
  
• Are there any other possible reasons for the iMac powering down and any known fixes that the user can undertake themselves?
• 
  
• Any other advice will also be greatly appreciated but if the 2 years is significant in any way then I only have days to act

Many thanks in advance.

Cheers,
Rich[/QUOTE]

Yes if its a defect in the computer then you have 6 years protection in England and 5 the rest of the UK, however it is your responsibility to prove that it is a defect and not down to your usage aor storage.

PayPal do give extra warranties but I suspect you are past that, some credit cards give an extra year warranty that may be worth looking into.

Not known issue but of course logic boards do just give up sometimes.

It could be due to heat or the fans not working, it could just be full of dust almost impossible to tell without playing around with the machine. Have you got a bootable back up that can be used to diagnose hard drive issues.

Just take it into apple and get it diagnosed thats free at least then you can worry about what to do about it warranties consumer rights etc when you know the scale of the problem.

 

[Rmonster]

Obviously, I'm very disappointed that I have a £3K paperweight on my hands at the moment despite it barely being used and in mint physical condition. I appreciate that tech can go wrong and break down, but can anyone advise on the following:-

• Do I have any extra consumer protection being a UK customer?
• 
  
• Do I have any extra consumer protection by virtue of using PayPal Credit?
• 
  
• If not, are Apple likely to offer any goodwill gesture given the level of my purchases and that the iMac has hardly had any use at all?
• 
  
• Is this type of failure on the late '15 a known issue?
• 
  
• Are there any other possible reasons for the iMac powering down and any known fixes that the user can undertake themselves?
• 
  
• Any other advice will also be greatly appreciated but if the 2 years is significant in any way then I only have days to act

Many thanks in advance.

Cheers,
Rich

Yes if its a defect in the computer then you have 6 years protection in England and 5 the rest of the UK, however it is your responsibility to prove that it is a defect and not down to your usage aor storage.

PayPal do give extra warranties but I suspect you are past that, some credit cards give an extra year warranty that may be worth looking into.

Not known issue but of course logic boards do just give up sometimes.

It could be due to heat or the fans not working, it could just be full of dust almost impossible to tell without playing around with the machine. Have you got a bootable back up that can be used to diagnose hard drive issues.

Just take it into apple and get it diagnosed thats free at least then you can worry about what to do about it warranties consumer rights etc when you know the scale of the problem.[/QUOTE]


Thanks for the advice - much appreciated and all noted.

My first action will be to follow your advice and book a diagnosis with Apple at Lakeside. As you've pointed out, it will tell me the extent of the problem and log the issue with Apple within the 2 year period which may or may not prove to be important, given your advice regarding the consumer protection, but I think it would be prudent to let them have a look at it sooner rather than later.

Fortunately, I had not got as far as even migrating my main data to the new machine such has been the minimal extent of use, so all important data is all preserved safely on multiple external sources and more recent work and data is live on my MBP.

My iMac is 1TB SSD but I will run diagnostics to see what results are produced.

The machine has barely been used so won't have drawn in much, if any, dust and has been kept under a lint-free fabric cover whilst powered down.

Thanks again.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Just a though it sounds like you did the SMC reset that helped it run for longer, have you tried an NVRAM reset as well??

just follow this guide it may well help.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063

My thoughts on the hard drive are that if you can boot the imac and run it from an external bootable drive with no issues it may well be SSD or SSD connections that are the issue.

Have you tried running it in safe mode??

Could also be the power supply sometimes they just die in an imac.

Also as you have no data on there a complete OS reinstall may fix your issues and maybe an upgrade to High Sierra.

 

[hfg]

You might also remove and reseat all the RAM modules. There may be some oxidation or corrosion on the contacts from non-use which will be cleaned off with this action.

Good luck ...