YIKES! help

[brobson]

My daughter was on her Aim page this morning along with firefox and itunes when the computer froze slightly then different colors and lines appeared on her page.
Is this serious?! She shut it down.

IMAC G5 1.2 Ghz

 

[headhammer]

never mind, just actually read the post and answered my own question.

thinking about it brobson, just a sec...

 

[Willis]

not heard of that before... have you turned it back on since?

EDIT: 1.2 G5? i dont think so

 

[barr08]

Sounds like the logic board to me, though these don't have the spotty LB history that some other macs have.

 

[headhammer]

just spoke with one of our techs, it's either the logic board or the graphics card, which happens to be stuck onto the logic board. if it's not under warranty, and if you lived in australia, and if you booked it in with us, you'd be looking at around $1000 australian for parts and labor.

for the record, the entry level imac here is $1549.

 

[brobson]

Now am I really cooked??!!

Thanks for the info
FYI:
I ran the applecare tecktool repair disk and it took ALL DAY.
Finally when it supposedly repaired something I couldn't get the disk out.
Restarted it by holding down power button and mouse and it ejected.
Got a kernal panic.
Booted from the Install disk and tried to run Disk Utility and it said
"Invalid B-tree nod size. 1 volume could not be repaired because of an error."
I am running the Apple Hardware Test and Logic Board has passed.
Of course I didn't back up my most recent work (I am a teacher and start next week).
Am I doomed? the motherboard was replaced right after I purchased it.
I think I am at the end of my warranty.
Will I lose my data?
It now is a gray screen saying I need to restart (which of course I can't without doing it manually)
Brenda

 

[Zwhaler]

OP, can you clairify what kind of machine you have? The slowest iMac G5 out there is a 1.6Ghz.

 

[headhammer]

post the serial number or pm it to me, and i'll check your warranty info out. if it's just out (within about 2 weeks) you can normally convince apple to help anyway.

 

[brobson]

OP, can you clairify what kind of machine you have? The slowest iMac G5 out there is a 1.6Ghz.

I think it's a 1.8 but I can't get in there to look. :-(

 

[brobson]

OK Bizarre

The memory was being tested as I said before and the whole thing went plaid with lines and colors then solid green, then blue then pink. Now it's violet blue!!! what is happening? Now it's solid white and then it's like a black shade is drawn and it's all black.
I push the space bar and it's solid white.
Now it's black/white striped
Is it supposed to do this?


UPDATE I see this is normal. Test came out that it all passed but it's stuck on the grayscreen. I guess it goes in the morning.

 

[brobson]

thanks Headhammer

It's under warranty till Sept. 24th

Whew

 

[brobson]

Even worse news

I had my photos on Kodak software and they told me they had to replace the logic board and the hard drive. That means 4 years of kids photos are gone.
I cannot beg for the harddrive back can I? They said it was not given back in cases of warranty.
I am just out of luck arent I?
Brenda


Please no helpful advice about how I should've backed up, it just adds insult to injury

 

[brobson]

Update-got the hard drive

They gave me the hard drive and are holding my computer "ransom".
Does anyone suggest how to go about retrieving the info.
I have a friend who says he can but if not could he mess it up? Should I go ahead and go with the up to $500 guys that the Apple store uses?
Is this time sensitive or is there anything else I need to think about to handle this? (then I am going to write about a good backup drive!)

Brenda

 

[rainydays]

As long as you are sure that your friend knows what he's doing it shouldn't be a problem. It's not hard really, but someone who doesn't know how to do it might just as well screw it up.
Just be careful and it will be OK.

And I hope you have learned your lesson now. Making backups of important data is very very important. Because sooner or later the hard drive will die and everything will be lost. If you keep it on two drives, chances are much better that you'll have it around longer.

Whats an even better solution in my opinion is to get an account at some internet backup service.
Unless you have large amounts of data to back up that's a really good option, because even if your equipment gets stolen or your house burns down all your personal photos and other things will be kept safely at a server somewhere.

 

[brobson]

Internet service

As long as you are sure that your friend knows what he's doing it shouldn't be a problem. It's not hard really, but someone who doesn't know how to do it might just as well screw it up.
Just be careful and it will be OK.

And I hope you have learned your lesson now. Making backups of important data is very very important. Because sooner or later the hard drive will die and everything will be lost. If you keep it on two drives, chances are much better that you'll have it around longer.

Whats an even better solution in my opinion is to get an account at some internet backup service.
Unless you have large amounts of data to back up that's a really good option, because even if your equipment gets stolen or your house burns down all your personal photos and other things will be kept safely at a server somewhere.

Is there one you recommend?

 

[rainydays]

Is there one you recommend?

I haven't used any of them for other than quick testing as I run my own server which I make backups to, so I don't need them personally.

There's two I can think of right now and one is Mozy which has a free 2GB service and the other one is .Mac which offers a trial.

But I think there's other people that can give you more info on them as I've only used them briefly.

 

[brobson]

Whew

Looks like it's gonna be ok
Data recovered and warranty covered my machine.
Thanks for all who helped me through this.
My mantra now is Back up, back up, back up!