Logic Board Dead
I recent took in my 24" iMac that I purchased late 06 and was told that the logic board is the source me not being able to boot any longer. The repairs in total will cost close to $700.
A co-worker of mine says that it would make better sense to just buy a new iMac. I think it's better to repair what I have and save $700.
What's everyone else's opinion? Is the repair worth it? Do you think that I'll be seeing more ugly failures that would have made a new purchase the wiser decision?
A co-worker of mine says that it would make better sense to just buy a new iMac. I think it's better to repair what I have and save $700.
What's everyone else's opinion? Is the repair worth it? Do you think that I'll be seeing more ugly failures that would have made a new purchase the wiser decision?
Comments
Even the original 20" iMac screen can be as much as $900:
http://www.welovemacs.com/im20lcdresc.html
The new 20" ones are TN panels so shouldn't be that much but all the white ones were high end IPS displays.
This is why I personally have an objection to the iMac from a design point of view. The most expensive parts are your display and your logic board. The rest: PSU, HDD, Ram, isight, case are probably $300 tops.
So if your display goes, you have to spend at least $700 to get a new one and if your logic board goes, the same and the parts are often more adding on labor and tax.
With a setup like the Mini, it is a bit less powerful CPU-wise but you can put 4GB Ram in it, a decent size HDD and buy a separate high end display. This way, if your logic board goes in that, it's not going to be nearly as much. If your display goes, no problem get a cheap one until you can afford a good one or just stick with a cheap one.
For example, buy this refurb Mini for $699:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/FB...mco=MjE0NDk5Mw
and if you just need a big 24" screen ($229):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824009167
So for $930 you get a machine with 24" display, a full warranty and no risk of this happening again. Plus you can probably sell your 24" for $400-500 for parts.
Now, assuming you got $400 for the broken machine, you'd be talking $530 overall vs $700 for the logic board and the 24" iMac has a better display. There is still more risk in future if it breaks again in some way but that risk is unavoidable with the iMac.
If you can, shop around for a certified Apple technician who might do the repair cheaper.
You can even get a replacement on ebay for $935:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-iMac-24-2-...3A2%7C294%3A50
Then if you sell yours for $400, it's only cost $535 overall.
I would sell it for parts on eBay as the screen on it would be expensive for someone else to buy. Then with the money, buy one of the new Minis with a cheaper screen or a refurb new iMac.
Even the original 20" iMac screen can be as much as $900:
http://www.welovemacs.com/im20lcdresc.html
The new 20" ones are TN panels so shouldn't be that much but all the white ones were high end IPS displays.
This is why I personally have an objection to the iMac from a design point of view. The most expensive parts are your display and your logic board. The rest: PSU, HDD, Ram, isight, case are probably $300 tops.
So if your display goes, you have to spend at least $700 to get a new one and if your logic board goes, the same and the parts are often more adding on labor and tax.
With a setup like the Mini, it is a bit less powerful CPU-wise but you can put 4GB Ram in it, a decent size HDD and buy a separate high end display. This way, if your logic board goes in that, it's not going to be nearly as much. If your display goes, no problem get a cheap one until you can afford a good one or just stick with a cheap one.
For example, buy this refurb Mini for $699:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/FB...mco=MjE0NDk5Mw
and if you just need a big 24" screen ($229):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824009167
So for $930 you get a machine with 24" display, a full warranty and no risk of this happening again. Plus you can probably sell your 24" for $400-500 for parts.
Now, assuming you got $400 for the broken machine, you'd be talking $530 overall vs $700 for the logic board and the 24" iMac has a better display. There is still more risk in future if it breaks again in some way but that risk is unavoidable with the iMac.
If you can, shop around for a certified Apple technician who might do the repair cheaper.
You can even get a replacement on ebay for $935:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-iMac-24-2-...3A2%7C294%3A50
Then if you sell yours for $400, it's only cost $535 overall.
Unfortunately, I don't think getting a mini is an option because of the size of the files I often work with.
Also, I doubt I'd get the price you stated as there is for some reason a slight warping of the display that is difficult to notice but is still there. It's not so bad that it inhibits the work on my photography but would definitely kill the resale.
At this point I really wish I'd have gotten Applecare with this iMac. It's more than paid for itself with my Macbook.
Unfortunately, I don't think getting a mini is an option because of the size of the files I often work with.
If you mean for storage, it's true you can only get at most 500GB internal but you can get 1TB external FW800 drives pretty cheap on top.
If you mean for processing, a lot of people assume the Mini is slow because of the older models or seeing them with not enough Ram. You can put 4GB in it and a 7200 rpm HDD if you like and it will run just fine. Compared to a new iMac, the processing will be 30% slower at worst but it should match the one you have.
Even the 5400 rpm stock drive gets about 45-50MB/s transfer rates. I can open 100MB HDR files in a few seconds and then save at the same rate.
Also, I doubt I'd get the price you stated as there is for some reason a slight warping of the display that is difficult to notice but is still there. It's not so bad that it inhibits the work on my photography but would definitely kill the resale.
That's not so good but you have to weigh that into what you decide to do. If you spend $700 fixing the logic board, you still end up with a machine with a warped display and no warranty (though the logic board probably comes with a 12 month warranty).
Whichever route you decide on, it will be expensive. Given that you have a laptop already, have you considered upgrading it and just buying a high quality screen and using it as your main machine?
The Macbooks are very easy to upgrade and you can drop in a 500GB 7200 rpm drive, 4GB Ram and just hook up an external 24" display. The 9400M graphics chips in them are pretty good.
Even the 5400 rpm stock drive gets about 45-50MB/s transfer rates. I can open 100MB HDR files in a few seconds and then save at the same rate.
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The Macbooks are very easy to upgrade and you can drop in a 500GB 7200 rpm drive, 4GB Ram and just hook up an external 24" display. The 9400M graphics chips in them are pretty good.
Storage really isn't the problem. Even 100MB being as huge as it is I have files that are massive.
The number of work and adjustment layers is substantial along with the dimensions I like to work in. I have a single image with all of it's adjustment and editing layers measures to 3GB. I have dozens that are as large as 1.5-2GB. I also have flattened versions that are much much smaller, but I like to keep these large files so I can reference the work I've done to them.
So the cpu and memory has to be able crunch all of this. I'd like to have a MacPro but it's not in the cards for me right now. The iMac until it's death handled all of this very admirably, even with multiple files of this nature open.
I don't think I have the 9400M chip, I have an older Macbook and I believe it's still an older Intel integrated graphics processor.
The number of work and adjustment layers is substantial along with the dimensions I like to work in. I have a single image with all of it's adjustment and editing layers measures to 3GB. I have dozens that are as large as 1.5-2GB. So the cpu and memory has to be able crunch all of this.
I see, those are pretty big. How long do those normally take to open? I would expect about a minute or so. But as I say, the Mini won't be any slower at this than the iMac if you get a 7200 rpm drive - the Mini actually has faster Ram. The CPU is the same as your current machine.
I'd like to have a MacPro but it's not in the cards for me right now. The iMac until it's death handled all of this very admirably, even with multiple files of this nature open.
The Mac Pro is very expensive right now and this is exactly one of those situations where a Mac Cube would be ideal. Separate display, Core 2 Quad, bays for 2 hard drives that can be setup in RAID-0 for faster file handling and a decent dedicated GPU but without the insane price tag of the Mac Pro.
I know Apple must think that it will take away sales of the Mac Pro but in reality, people are just struggling along with the dual core choices they offer and not buying Mac Pros anyway.
I don't think I have the 9400M chip, I have an older Macbook and I believe it's still an older Intel integrated graphics processor.
Yeah, that's not going to be particularly good and it has slower Ram. As I say though, for this type of work, pretty much any of the current consumer machines will give round about the same performance. If you give them all a 7200 rpm drive and 4GB Ram, there will be about 30% difference in raw processing time, which you wouldn't notice. It's like 1 minute on a new iMac vs 1 minute 20 secs on a new Mini.
Check here:
http://forums.macrumors.com/archive/.../t-617838.html
Someone using an older iMac and moving to a newer Macbook to get it done.
The Macbook Pro would be more suitable as you could plug a RAID drive into your expresscard slot to get up to 300MB/s. Then your huge images would open in around 10 seconds, probably a bit more as it's hard to sustain that transfer rate. A significant part of dealing with these files is the I/O required to dump GBs of data to disk when you hit save.
The laptops are very easy to upgrade drives so you can even move up to SSD when the price comes down.
Additionally, how prevalent is Logic Board failure among iMacs from the 2006 time frame? I seem to see quite a number of complaints online about it.
Not sure, I don't think it was all that bad. I know it was very bad with the G3 ibooks. Unless Apple have an extended program for repairs, it's not that widespread.
What I would say is weigh up all your options that you can afford to do with all the absolute requirements. If your iMac handled the job, that's the minimum spec you need.
option 1: repair iMac
performance: baseline
cons: still outside warranty, still warped display, no high speed I/O, 3GB Ram limit.
cost: $700.
option 2: buy new iMac
performance: 30% faster raw CPU, faster Ram
pros: IPS screen
cons: glossy screen, can't access the hard drive
cost: $1199 for 20" minus a sale for spares of the old one. Wouldn't want to get the 20" though as it's a TN panel so minimum cost for a good display is $1499.
option 3: buy new Mini + good display
performance: slightly faster than the baseline iMac due to faster Ram.
pros: separate screen so no expensive repair again, can upgrade the machine without losing the display/re-calibrating
cons: kind of have to do the upgrade yourself to keep it cheaper
cost: Buy base one and upgrade it. $599 + 4GB Ram ($65) + 320GB 7200 rpm ($80) + 24" Dell Ultrasharp ($479) + $50 (keyboard & mouse) = $1270
option 4: buy Macbook
you'd want aluminum one so
performance: even with Mini
pros: you get portability, easy drive and Ram upgrades, cheap screen repair
cons: no firewire in aluminum version for external drives
cost: $1299 + 4GB Ram ($65) + 320GB 7200 rpm ($80) + 24" Dell Ultrasharp ($479) = $1923 minus being able to sell the old Macbook ($700) = £1223
option 5: buy MBP
I would only get a refurb as it's pretty expensive, which is a bit of an unfair comparison as you can get a refurb 24" iMac for $1200
Still refurb is $1700
pros: expresscard for fast I/O, none of the above have this, easy upgrades
cost: $1700 + 4GB Ram ($65) + 320GB 7200 rpm ($80) + 24" display ($479) minus $700 for old laptop = $1624
The laptops hold their value longer so that's something to take into consideration but to keep the price in line with the desktops requires selling the old laptop. The desktop routes let you have 2 machines, which is a good backup.
The repair is still a clear $500 less than any other option and you can still sell your iMac in a few months for an upgrade when new machines are out in September (possibly quad iMacs) so you get a full warranty again but you have to go glossy. None of the options are perfect - my preferred route for moving forward from your machine would be the Mini but it's not the easiest thing to upgrade if you're not comfortable with that sort of thing.
If you got the $1200 refurb 24" iMac, you should get $300 for your old one, which is $900 overall but as I say you go glossy. Full warranty though and only $200 more than your repair assuming you get $300 for yours as spares.
I recent took in my 24" iMac that I purchased late 06 and was told that the logic board is the source me not being able to boot any longer. The repairs in total will cost close to $700.
A co-worker of mine says that it would make better sense to just buy a new iMac. I think it's better to repair what I have and save $700.
What's everyone else's opinion? Is the repair worth it? Do you think that I'll be seeing more ugly failures that would have made a new purchase the wiser decision?
Uninstall MS Office and reboot. Your logic board will work again.