Major bummer! My iMac just bit the dust, I think. I started to notice an acrid, burning smell from my iMac. So I shut it down, let it cool some, then restarted. After a few minutes, there was a loud "snap" and the screen went black. I'm afraid I am looking at the black screen of death! Thankfully I also have the MacBook Pro that I'm typing this on. • The upside is that I have all my iMac stuff on both CD and flash drive backups. • The down side is that the very basic software I do my website with (Freeway Express for Mac) doesn't seem to work on my Intel-based MacBook Pro. I'll pursue that further with their tech support. A question for you hardware-savvy techies — do the symptoms I described above suggest that the iMac is history? Thanks for any input.
Can't recall the design of that model. What you describe sounds like a power supply or monitor death. If the PS can be replaced you might get off fairly cheaply. Once that smoke escapes it is hard to get it back into the unit.
Sorry to hear! I know it feels like a real death. My went out during christmas holiday and have to buy a brand new one.
Sounds like a power supply rectifier could have slowly melted away until you finally zapped it with second power application.
Colbyt, your suspecting the power supply agrees with what the Apple dealer told me over the phone. They suspect the same, based on the symptoms. If so, she said for the iMac G5 there may even be an extension of the warranty on that problem. Thanks for the input. BTW, over the past week or so before it died, the backups to my flash drive also were becoming faulty. Perhaps related? Moving back to Anchorage next week, so I'll have to wait to get it looked at up there.
Hopefully so (see above reply to Colbyt). May be under extended warranty. Thanks. EDIT: Good news! I just checked the Apple site. There is a known problem with the iMac power supply. My serial number falls in the range of the computers covered by a two-year warranty extension specifically to fix this problem. Whew!
Feedback for colbyt and SFOD. You were dead right. I moved to Alaska and took the dead iMac with me. The Apple store here trouble-shot it, and your suspicions about it being a fried power supply were correct. It was fixed under warranty! Thanks for the advice. The computer is back in action.
That happened to me, all except the snap. The problem for me was the graphics card, perhaps that's why the screen went blank?
If you read the above post carefully you would've known that. It said "It was fixed under warranty! ". Try to do some reading mate Why are you sorry when he got it fixed without paying anything? Maybe a try to increase your post count?
Although the iMac's power supply was replaced free under warranty, another problem developed after the repair that bears mentioning. I was getting a weak to nonexistent wireless signal to my iMac. My MacBook Pro laptop a couple of feet away got a great wireless signal. Well, I troubleshot it, read Mac forums, called my ISP tech support, Googled for hints. Nothing seemed to work. I even bought a booster antenna to plug into the base station. No improvement on the wireless signal to the iMac. Then I had a strong hunch to pop open the case and check inside to see if the Airport card was properly installed. Sure enough, the Airport card antenna was not securely plugged in! Perhaps the Apple tech had messed with it during the power supply replacement; I don't know. But I reinserted the antenna firmly, and immediately after I closed it up and rebooted, ... you guessed it, great wireless signal! So if any of you are grappling with the dreaded weak wireless signal issue, don't forget first to check your wireless card's antenna connection.