[porter]

So I'm thinking about buying a iMac G5 over the summer and it seems like it has some reliability issues- fans going on full blast, burning smells, faulty power supply and mid-planes. MacinTouch and the Apple discussion boards make these problems out to be fairly common.

Does anybody have a problem free iMac?
Or once you replaced the power supply/mid-plane did it work fine after that?

[Wraven]

porter,
Those boards are populated with people who have problems, so these issues affecting the iMac G5 appear greater in their impact than they really are. That being said, go for the iMac, but get AppleCare (most people recommend it for laptops and iMacs).

[Noel]

Yes, the problem with going by what you hear is that you're gonna hear a lot from the people who have problems (either ranting or looking for help), while you'll hear basically nothing from all the perfectly content consumers with problem-free machines. Basically, the problems you hear about are nowhere near as common as they may seem.

[baaron]

"The mechanic sees 100% of the 0.01% of failures."

-Anonymous

[porter]

I know that people are most vocal when something is wrong. Yes you'll get a bunch of people complaining about different things- the iMac didn't even boot up when I took it out of the box, speakers are dead, I have 10 dead pixels, bluetooth doesn't work, etc. And these are really problems that come with any product and can't be blamed on reliability.

Notice in my first post that I did not whine about a dead pixel, or the odd iMac that shuts itself off, or needed its PRAM reset. Again, these are problems that come with buying a computer. I've seen a lot of complaints on the iMac and the random dud doesn't faze me.

I'm focusing specifically on the power supply and mid-plane components Why? Because more than one poster has had problems with this and Apple has sent them all a new power supply and/or mid-plane. I see a pattern.

Take this post from MacinTouch:

We have replaced approximately 10 PC's with the latest 17" iMacs. (Our decision maker's logic was simple: "If they don't *have* to be on a PC, then put 'em on Macs!"). These were purchased over a period of the last 2-4 months. Gorgeous machines, and the people really love 'em. Unfortunately, we have had to replace mid-plane assemblies on three of the machines, and this morning, our IT guy (a hardcore Windows guy) informs me with a grin that a fourth machine is starting to exhibit the same symptoms as the others. The symptom manifests itself upon startup, showing a gray"scrambled" screen--kind of hard to describe, sort of a repeating pattern-type scramble. Startup then proceeds no further. Bringing in the dead machines for service has resulted in mid-plane assemblies bring replaced. So far, all replacements are functioning OK. (note: the fan noise issue has never reared its head) Granted, only ten or so iMacs is not a large number--however, having to send in four of those quite new machines for major service is, IMO, appalling. (Could it be a bad batch of those dated NVidia 5200 cards on the mid-plane assembly?) I can only hope we are in the minority with regards to all iMacs sold.

So even the mechanic who sees 100% of the 0.01% of failures should realize when there is a common thread to a problem and maybe there might be an issue with the product.

I'll ask again, how is the iMac reliability, specific to these parts? Was this just a bad batch or something more serious?

[bassplayinMacFiend]

I've had my iMac since last September (first batch I believe) and I haven't had the "screen scrambling" issue. I plan on popping the back off at some point to see if I have the inflated caps that seems to go hand in hand with the screen scramble.

My fan was a little irritating (not the loudness, but the frequency) at first but that seems to have been cured in 10.3.7 and beyond.

[W. Gallagher]

Porter,

If you've been a member since June, you've seen a lot of that .001 percent.
And if you follow the time frame of new equipment introduction from all vendors, there are almost always something that needs to be fixed/replaced. That applies to Mac G5's and to Dell and to all of the other vendors.
What sets Apple apart is that they do respond and change/correct a defective part, in a reasonably timely manor. Something that is severly lacking from the PC world. Compared to *any* other vendor, Apples's reliability and support is the best I've seen. And when you factor in this and all of the other communities of people willing to help out, there is no comparison.

I bought my 1'st Mac, G5 1.8 dual in August, after my son bought his G5 2.0 dual in June of last year. Neither one of us has had any equipment problems. I suspect that if everyone else who didn't have a problem with a G5-1.8 were to respond, this board not survive the load.

Buy the Mac. Life's too short to live in the MS world any longer.

Cheers,
Bill Gallagher
Chicago

[Paul]

Yeah... my iMac had the "scrambling" problem in late January which was fixed with a mid-plane assembly replacement. See my thread for a running commentary on the iMac's repair status since I have had the machine.

FWIW it is working great now.

[bassplayinMacFiend]

Originally Posted by Paul Yeah... my iMac had the "scrambling" problem in late January which was fixed with a mid-plane assembly replacement. See my thread for a running commentary on the iMac's repair status since I have had the machine. FWIW it is working great now.

It was the link in your thread that I originally followed to get more info on the video scrambling problem.

[Franz Josef]

Originally Posted by W. Gallagher Buy the Mac. Life's too short to live in the MS world any longer.

Porter - advice doesn't come any wiser than that. Buy the Mac.

[Paul]

Inflated caps?

[Chinney]

What is a mid-plane assembly? As a soon to be iMac G5 owner (I hope), I am curious. Is it attached to the fuselage? Actually, seriously, what the heck is it?

[Paul]

basically everything minus the HD, optical, Power Supply, and screen.

[bassplayinMacFiend]

Originally Posted by Paul Inflated caps?

Capacitors. In the link you posted in your iMac thread, many people have noticed that two capacitors are bloated/leaking yellow powder. The bloated capacitor is a classic symptom of the capacitor running beyond its capacity. Heck, when I was a kid I used to connect electrolytic capacitors to 120VAC and shoot them at the neighbor's house.

[LudwigVan]

Originally Posted by bassplayinMacFiend Capacitors. In the link you posted in your iMac thread, many people have noticed that two capacitors are bloated/leaking yellow powder. The bloated capacitor is a classic symptom of the capacitor running beyond its capacity.

MacInTouch included some articles today (Tuesday 15 March 2004) on that capacitor problem. Turns out it is the result of some industrial espionage.

[bassplayinMacFiend]

Originally Posted by LudwigVan MacInTouch included some articles today (Tuesday 15 March 2004) on that capacitor problem. Turns out it is the result of some industrial espionage.

Wow, check out this link (found in MacInTouch article)! --> http://www.badcaps.net/causes/

Pretty crazy huh?

I do think it's funny that someone has actually set up a site specifically for bad cap(acitor)s. Witness teh powa of teh intarweb web web.

[bostongeek]

Buy the Mac. Life's too short to live in the MS world any longer

Build a cheap PC and install Debian... life's too short to enslave yourself to megacorporations. :P

(I hope my tongue-in-cheekness comes through)

[porter]

Well I use a Power Mac at home (family computer), but I'll be going off to grad school this fall. So I've narrowed my choices down to a iMac or an iBook. Power vs. portability. I've owned some laptops before and I feel like they're less reliable than desktops, even when used strictly as a desktop replacement. But those have all been Windows machines.

Basically I'm waiting to see what revisions and price drops will be coming out.

Oh and since I'll be nowhere near an Apple store this fall, I don't want to have to deal with any power supplies or leaky capacitors. Right now if that were to happen, it wouldn't be a problems since an Apple store is 15min away from my school. In grad school, the nearest Apple store would be about 2hrs away.

[bassplayinMacFiend]

Originally Posted by porter [snip] Oh and since I'll be nowhere near an Apple store this fall, I don't want to have to deal with any power supplies or leaky capacitors. Right now if that were to happen, it wouldn't be a problems since an Apple store is 15min away from my school. In grad school, the nearest Apple store would be about 2hrs away.

Apple has been mailing out replacement parts for the faulty iMac mainboards along with the tool and instructions on how to replace it. So you wouldn't have to go to an Apple store. From the rumors flying about, the capacitor problem has been addressed in new units. So when you go to buy, see if you can get the manufacturing date (from the serial number on the outside of the box) before you buy. Hopefully whomever sells you your computer can find out the build date from the serial number.