"Ask not what your iMac can do for you, ask what you can do for your iMac."
- President John F. Kennedy
iMac aluminum shutting down unexpectedly
iMac aluminum randomly shuts down
iMac aluminum power supply
Those sentences are for the benefit of someone who could be experiencing the same iMac issues as me, and is looking for answers via a Google search.
Simply put, my 20” iMac Aluminum has been randomly shutting down as of late. These shut-downs first were noticed in the summer of ’08 and occurred very infrequently, maybe one ever other week. However, lately, the frequency has ramped up to daily, twice a day in some cases. I performed every maintenance task known to mankind for the iMac, in addition to monitoring my system through the iStat Nano dashboard widget.
This led me to a regimen of Google searches. After considerable reading of similar stories, and there were many, the common theme that stands out is the power supply. This is the same issue that plagued the iMac G5 to the point of Apple pursuing a product recall. There is no such recall for the iMac aluminum.
Having identified the most likely cause of pain, now the problem is how to get it fixed? This comes down to a choice between two options:
(1) Take it to your local Apple service centre. There are a couple of issues with this option. First is the cost of labour, $95 / hour in the case of the closest place to my locale. Secondly, the cost of the part is not likely to be competitive.
(2) Fix it yourself. This approach would be cheaper both with labour cost (free) and part cost (internet). However, you’d have to be comfortable with dismantling a tightly engineered piece of technology.
Back in ’06, I took apart my PowerBook G4 to upgrade the hard drive. I’ve also spent many an hour tinkering with PC desktop components. Based on this, I’ve decided on option #2: fix it myself.
The next thing is to narrow down the part number. In my case, I referred back to the email confirmation when I first purchased my iMac to get my model number. With model number in hand, I googled “iMac parts” to see what I’d get. PRESTO! Plenty of places. I chose “Sunset Mac” based purely on cost.
No now I await my order and prepare for D-Day (the “d” standing for “disassembly"). So far, great service from Sunset Mac!
Stand by, more updates as they unfold.....
iMac aluminum randomly shuts down
iMac aluminum power supply
Those sentences are for the benefit of someone who could be experiencing the same iMac issues as me, and is looking for answers via a Google search.
Simply put, my 20” iMac Aluminum has been randomly shutting down as of late. These shut-downs first were noticed in the summer of ’08 and occurred very infrequently, maybe one ever other week. However, lately, the frequency has ramped up to daily, twice a day in some cases. I performed every maintenance task known to mankind for the iMac, in addition to monitoring my system through the iStat Nano dashboard widget.
This led me to a regimen of Google searches. After considerable reading of similar stories, and there were many, the common theme that stands out is the power supply. This is the same issue that plagued the iMac G5 to the point of Apple pursuing a product recall. There is no such recall for the iMac aluminum.
Having identified the most likely cause of pain, now the problem is how to get it fixed? This comes down to a choice between two options:
(1) Take it to your local Apple service centre. There are a couple of issues with this option. First is the cost of labour, $95 / hour in the case of the closest place to my locale. Secondly, the cost of the part is not likely to be competitive.
(2) Fix it yourself. This approach would be cheaper both with labour cost (free) and part cost (internet). However, you’d have to be comfortable with dismantling a tightly engineered piece of technology.
Back in ’06, I took apart my PowerBook G4 to upgrade the hard drive. I’ve also spent many an hour tinkering with PC desktop components. Based on this, I’ve decided on option #2: fix it myself.
The next thing is to narrow down the part number. In my case, I referred back to the email confirmation when I first purchased my iMac to get my model number. With model number in hand, I googled “iMac parts” to see what I’d get. PRESTO! Plenty of places. I chose “Sunset Mac” based purely on cost.
No now I await my order and prepare for D-Day (the “d” standing for “disassembly"). So far, great service from Sunset Mac!
Stand by, more updates as they unfold.....
4 comments:
I call BS on the JFK quote! :P
I tried to get the machine to shut off randomly last night, no luck.
iStat nano calculates up-time, lets see how high she goes before the next random shutdown.
make sure you put on some Depends, you don't want any 'accidents' while you're taking that baby apart.
It's been a week, and we're still "shut down" free.
The only variable we could think of was that I installed "Carbonite" on my Mac, where my backup took about 4 days to upload. During that 4 day period, my Mac was rife with random shut-downs.
The mystery continues.
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