I walked into my local Apple store and picked up a 27" i5 iMac the day the store received their first shipment. After a few days of use, the new iMac came to exhibit a flickering issue. I searched online and saw other people were having the exact same issue (horizontal bars of video garbage flashing on the screen; < 1 second blackouts), which is impossible to reproduce on command. It always goes away after a restart.
I called Apple Care, was elevated to a senior technician, who had not heard of the problem. They made me jump through the usual hoops -- hardware test, reinstall system software. After the problem returned, they made me an appointment at my local store.
The Genius at the store couldn't reproduce the problem, but replaced my machine nonetheless. "Great," I thought, "problem solved."
Two days later, my replacement machine exhibited the exact same problem. I meticulously documented several occurrences of the issue with video, and took it back to the store. The Genius said, "oh this is definitely a hardware issue, yes this needs to be replaced," but changed his tune after he spoke to his manager. The manager was gruffly skeptical that I would have the same problem twice and not be at fault.
They offered to repair it by replacing the video card. "Great," I thought, "that really ought to fix it," although I was very put off by the amount of lost time I already had on this machine. I picked up the repaired machine last night.
Instead of replacing the video card, they replaced the display and cable it connects to (which they list as $800+ worth of parts). I believe they misdiagnosed the problem -- considered only the blacking out, not the garbage pixels. But, I have to give them the benefit of the doubt and wait and see.
I got my first 27" iMac very shortly after they were released. First one in the store. It's been working beautifully. Got another one just last week and have them connected via DisplayPort. The new one is flicker city. So, on my desk, we're looking at a 50% failure rate.
This is an important factor to consumers, while obviously 50% is not indicative of the true number of manufacturing defects (it's probably more in the 5.6% range that is the current industry average for large manufacturers), if a consumer buys two machines and one of them is defective, they are not going to have a high opinion of the quality of the product. Where perception is a large part of consumer purchasing habits, Apple needs to start stepping up their game and get their quality back under control. They've had several manufacturing defects show up with their product releases over the last couple of years, so someone in the quality control department is dropping the ball. Their customer service may be the best, but I want my machine to work out of the box. A fancy looking paper weight is still just a paper weight.
Too bad... I was going to order a CORE i5 before Christmas. I guess I will just have to wait for a little bit after they have fixed the problems in production.
Some of us who own the 24" LED Cinema displays are having the same problem with our monitors blinking off to a black screen and then back on for about 1sec. I've already had one monitor repaired in stages...changing the mini-display/USB/power cable, the LED array, and last the logic board/power supply. That didn't fix it. Apple did an exchange and replace the display. The new display started the blinking thing almost as soon as I powered it up.
I found out, by accident, if I disconnected and then reconnected the mini-display port plug, it sort of "reset" the whole situation. The display on my Macbook would go blue screen and the Cinema display would sort of fade on and off, still in blue screen, and come back on again. Usually I only have to do this once. Sometimes I need to do it again because within a few minutes it flashes again. But once I go thru my little ritual and it does not flash within a few minutes, the display will not flash again for the rest of the day. This is why I think it is some sort of software or firmware issue rather than hardware. But I am not any where near being some sort of computer expert. But I did sleep at a Holiday Inn Express once.
strangely i had something similar on my G4 Mini this weekend. i have an old 17" LCD with dual inputs. i switched to the analog one to install XP on someone's PC. After I was done i tried to switch the monitor back to the digital and it would flash and go to a black screen. unplugged and replugged the connector and i was good to go
In other words, they're still knowingly shipping out faulty iMacs? Not exactly the best news I could've gotten right now, seeing as I just ordered mine a few days ago.
This is an utter disappointment from Apple. But for some reason I've grown accustomed to that lately.
In other words, they're still knowingly shipping out faulty iMacs? Not exactly the best news I could've gotten right now, seeing as I just ordered mine a few days ago.
This is an utter disappointment from Apple. But for some reason I've grown accustomed to that lately.
In order to purchase Dell's "Complete Care" you must first purchase Dell's extended Hardware Warranty. Cost for a 3-year extended warranty: $300. Cost of the additional 3 year insurance $210.
Total cost: $510
Dell does not fully replace the computer unless necessary. The warranty states it will repair or replace.
I used to have a dell with the 3-year warranty. 3 months later it was dead. Dell would not fix it. The reason the support team gave me was...
"only the first 3 weeks of the warranty cover any type of repair or replacement."
Apple was much more reasonable when my iMacs video started messing up and Wifi stopped working a year after I got it.
What disappoints me a bit is that, after following Apple in the last year and a half (and noticing problems with so many new releases), I actually feel that real news would be 27" iMac having no common problems at all. \
The article title "Apple delays iMac orders as reports of display issues rise" and the forum thread title "Apple to delay iMac orders, citing display issues? is wrong. Apple never said it was delaying shipments BECAUSE of display issues, you did. But you said [Apple] was cited. You took a forum where SOME people were having a problem and matched it with a comment made about supply chain and wrote an article without merit or fact but cited Apple as the source.
I got my iMac 27? i7 Quad-core today and ordered it a week ago with free shipping.
Again, you think your journalists for a news blog but your nothing but amateur writers on a geek tabloid.
In other words, they're still knowingly shipping out faulty iMacs? Not exactly the best news I could've gotten right now, seeing as I just ordered mine a few days ago.
This is an utter disappointment from Apple. But for some reason I've grown accustomed to that lately.
OR
The failure rate is within the industry standard of 3%. Apple resellers have not been told that the delay is because of a technical problem with the 27" displays. Its a supply chain issue and as always Apple sees to their own online sales and stores before supplying resellers.
This is a case of resellers bumping their gums because Apple have failed to supply them with kit and won't be making any great effort to supply them until the new year.
Me, I walked into an Apple store on Monday and picked up a 27" quad core i5 iMac. Apparently the stores have plenty of stock.
(The iMac didn't look that big in the store but once on my desk its fookin huge)
No - if it is not sold to a consumer it is never refurbished.
Yes, they are.
They don't simply toss all bad, unsold products into the trash.
It says "pre-owned Apple products" only because a very, very, very high percentage of the refurbs have been sold to the end user. Some were found bad prior to actual sale/delivery and some were found bad as store/display unit.
If it has not been sold, it will not be discovered bad, except perhaps through a QA process checking products after they are built since no one can tell they are bad when thery are just sitting there.
I place my order on Dec 31 and I am still waiting for it to change from prepared for shipment to Merge to shipment, or what ever is the next step. I mean Prepared for shipment means that it should be ready and heading out of the ware house what ever it is, I don´t like the idea that its going to take a whole month for me in order to get a computer.
Comments
I called Apple Care, was elevated to a senior technician, who had not heard of the problem. They made me jump through the usual hoops -- hardware test, reinstall system software. After the problem returned, they made me an appointment at my local store.
The Genius at the store couldn't reproduce the problem, but replaced my machine nonetheless. "Great," I thought, "problem solved."
Two days later, my replacement machine exhibited the exact same problem. I meticulously documented several occurrences of the issue with video, and took it back to the store. The Genius said, "oh this is definitely a hardware issue, yes this needs to be replaced," but changed his tune after he spoke to his manager. The manager was gruffly skeptical that I would have the same problem twice and not be at fault.
They offered to repair it by replacing the video card. "Great," I thought, "that really ought to fix it," although I was very put off by the amount of lost time I already had on this machine. I picked up the repaired machine last night.
Instead of replacing the video card, they replaced the display and cable it connects to (which they list as $800+ worth of parts). I believe they misdiagnosed the problem -- considered only the blacking out, not the garbage pixels. But, I have to give them the benefit of the doubt and wait and see.
I got my first 27" iMac very shortly after they were released. First one in the store. It's been working beautifully. Got another one just last week and have them connected via DisplayPort. The new one is flicker city. So, on my desk, we're looking at a 50% failure rate.
This is an important factor to consumers, while obviously 50% is not indicative of the true number of manufacturing defects (it's probably more in the 5.6% range that is the current industry average for large manufacturers), if a consumer buys two machines and one of them is defective, they are not going to have a high opinion of the quality of the product. Where perception is a large part of consumer purchasing habits, Apple needs to start stepping up their game and get their quality back under control. They've had several manufacturing defects show up with their product releases over the last couple of years, so someone in the quality control department is dropping the ball. Their customer service may be the best, but I want my machine to work out of the box. A fancy looking paper weight is still just a paper weight.
I found out, by accident, if I disconnected and then reconnected the mini-display port plug, it sort of "reset" the whole situation. The display on my Macbook would go blue screen and the Cinema display would sort of fade on and off, still in blue screen, and come back on again. Usually I only have to do this once. Sometimes I need to do it again because within a few minutes it flashes again. But once I go thru my little ritual and it does not flash within a few minutes, the display will not flash again for the rest of the day. This is why I think it is some sort of software or firmware issue rather than hardware. But I am not any where near being some sort of computer expert. But I did sleep at a Holiday Inn Express once.
Not rumored. I know it's unusual for Apple but they have admitted a problem. They should have taken the further step and recalled all 27" iMac's.
That is common for Apple to handle it through warranty rather than having it hit the press.
But I don't see any official statement from Apple.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10...ag=mncol;title
It says no comment about why they are delayed.
This is an utter disappointment from Apple. But for some reason I've grown accustomed to that lately.
In other words, they're still knowingly shipping out faulty iMacs? Not exactly the best news I could've gotten right now, seeing as I just ordered mine a few days ago.
This is an utter disappointment from Apple. But for some reason I've grown accustomed to that lately.
Yeah.. That's what bugs me the most about this.
In order to purchase Dell's "Complete Care" you must first purchase Dell's extended Hardware Warranty. Cost for a 3-year extended warranty: $300. Cost of the additional 3 year insurance $210.
Total cost: $510
Dell does not fully replace the computer unless necessary. The warranty states it will repair or replace.
I used to have a dell with the 3-year warranty. 3 months later it was dead. Dell would not fix it. The reason the support team gave me was...
"only the first 3 weeks of the warranty cover any type of repair or replacement."
Apple was much more reasonable when my iMacs video started messing up and Wifi stopped working a year after I got it.
I used to have a dell with the 3-year warranty. 3 months later it was dead. Dell would not fix it. The reason the support team gave me was...
"only the first 3 weeks of the warranty cover any type of repair or replacement."
Apple was much more reasonable when my iMacs video started messing up and Wifi stopped working a year after I got it.
That is really hard to believe. You sure you didn't misunderstand each other?
If only first 3 weeks out of 3 years of warranty are covering for repairs... then what are remaining 153 weeks covering..?
I got my iMac 27? i7 Quad-core today and ordered it a week ago with free shipping.
Again, you think your journalists for a news blog but your nothing but amateur writers on a geek tabloid.
In other words, they're still knowingly shipping out faulty iMacs? Not exactly the best news I could've gotten right now, seeing as I just ordered mine a few days ago.
This is an utter disappointment from Apple. But for some reason I've grown accustomed to that lately.
OR
The failure rate is within the industry standard of 3%. Apple resellers have not been told that the delay is because of a technical problem with the 27" displays. Its a supply chain issue and as always Apple sees to their own online sales and stores before supplying resellers.
This is a case of resellers bumping their gums because Apple have failed to supply them with kit and won't be making any great effort to supply them until the new year.
Me, I walked into an Apple store on Monday and picked up a 27" quad core i5 iMac. Apparently the stores have plenty of stock.
(The iMac didn't look that big in the store but once on my desk its fookin huge)
No - if it is not sold to a consumer it is never refurbished.
Yes, they are.
They don't simply toss all bad, unsold products into the trash.
It says "pre-owned Apple products" only because a very, very, very high percentage of the refurbs have been sold to the end user. Some were found bad prior to actual sale/delivery and some were found bad as store/display unit.
If it has not been sold, it will not be discovered bad, except perhaps through a QA process checking products after they are built since no one can tell they are bad when thery are just sitting there.