Looks like I’m not the only one whose Intel iMac 27″ beautiful screen is discoloured and dirty, with dark patches, stripes and bands.

I think Steve’s video is worth transcribing because what he said certainly casts a shadow over Apple’s legendary customer service.

—-
Hello everyone… Well, my name is Steven and I used to be a proud owner of an iMac 27″
A state of the art…. their flagship computer.
And basically after 90 days they invalidated my warranty and said that they’re not gonna fix it because it’s been used in a TOXIC ENVIRONMENT.
First of all, let me just take you on a journey… I’ll bring you over here…. to the environment that my iMac is used in.
Erm… let’s see, it’s almost like any normal person’s home office. maybe much smaller of course you know… but… well…

[Here he takes us on an impromptu tour of his humble, yet well kept, and might I say, well kitted… abode.
highlights include
microwave, plasma TV… iPhone and docking station…. and…. heaven forbid, he even has a Cup Noodle in to cupoard!!!!

It is during this tour that he shows us his iMac.

“
My iMac… My iMac… let me show you my iMac. I think you can see fairly well on the right hand side of the screen: Marks running from top to bottom. That’s actually… those seem to be getting worse. But even on a greyish background you can still see it fairly clearly. Bring it in….
Argh!… look at a that man! It’s disgusting!
But, erm… Apple have turned around an’ said I’ve been using the Mac in a TOXIC ENVIRONMENT.
YEAH. MY HOME OFFICE. YEAH. MY BLOODY HOME OFFICE!
Yeah, it might be attached to my kitchen…

”

[He continues the tour]

”
Look, my computer’s running absolutely bloody fine but…
The screen is a complete mess!
And Apple have said, “Go get stuffed, you’ve got a dirty house you’ve got a toxic bloody environment.”
And I will not accept that.
They want me to pay four hundred and seventeen frigging pounds for a new screen!
What? Because of this toxic environment? This toxic environment?
Jeezus! There’s millions upon millions of people around the world who have an office just like this…
Probably guys…. probably guys who have even small offices than this… Jeezus!

”

[Back on the tour]

”
Well. I’m afraid it’s over… You know like Apple… You know like…
Your firm… Steve Jobs….Your representative called my home a toxic environment!
And you need to get that sorted!
If you’re treating customers like this after 90 days… after 90 days… not even a year…
You are BREAKING THE LAW, sir… You are BREAKING THE LAW…
And you are breaking the covenant with he customer.
And I’ll not take…. I’ll not take it!

—-

I sincerely hope they see their stupidity and you get your problem sorted out as rapidly as I did.

I think I’m going to send this to The Register. They always seem to know what to do with material like this!

Intel iMac 27″ developing dirty, dark spots and patches on the screen : The zombie problem that just won’t die!

Like one of those nightmare zombies that never stays dead, the dreaded screen dirty dark patch screen problem has recurred….

Started with this:

My Intel ‘Aluminium’ iMac 24″ roasting with dark spots on screen

Admittedly, it did come  back from repairs in record time.

But that was only the beginning, Since this battle for a replacment continued for over a year!!

Then, my new iMac 27″ started to develop dark patches on the screen too.

FFS Apple, fix it.. I just had a new screen for my replacement iMac  in November!

I’m running it in a cool, clean dry environment.

As usual, the discolouration appears to be behind the glass. Or even behind the pixels themselves, in the underlying lighting panel. So there’s no way it could be dirt from regular use.

This time, the discolouration looks somewhat like hand prints…

Or, forget trying to describe it. Let me show you some pics…

Photos taken with an old D70, so vignetting and sensor dirt is a little bit of a problem.

Please note, that these marks only appeared last week so I’ve upped the contrast of the pictures. But I can assure you that within a month they will be quite visible without tweakage.

Ignore the yellow piss-like tinge at the bottom of the screen, although it’s there, it’s hardly noticeable at honest contrasts.

Here is a closeup of the left hand side. Note that I had to intentionally blur the picture when taking it since the moire effect of the pixels made the final image unviewable. What a mess of dots and a fine patina of blobs! Yuck!

Now for the right hand side:

This looks a little bit like the heel of someone’s hand, perhaps…?!?

What more can I add?… This is my second iMac 27″ screen and my 7th (or 8th) iMac screen in total. Grrrr Arrgh! As the phrase goes.

Apple’s quality control has not improved over the last three years.

I’ll keep you posted.

iMac 27″ screen repair complete

The new iMac 27" with LCD backlit screen.

 

My iMac 27″ came back from Apple after it developed dark patches on the screen and has had its screen repaired. It is now as good as new (well, technically better because I only actually bought a 24″ iMac, and this one was a replacement).

In any case, the machine is back and has been restored to its former glory.

My real worry is that, since it took 8 months for the patches manifest and suddenly, over the course of a month, spread to cover the whole screen, will I be in for another replacement in nine month’s time? I hope not because my guarantee runs out in March of 2011…. I think I’m going to have to get Apple Care, Again!

Fingers crossed.

iMac 27″ screen displays dark stains, spots and patches

My iMac 27″ which has performed flawlessly since I acquired it in March of 2009, has started to develop dark patches here and there, across its once pristine façade. And this pisses me off, mightily.

It all started in summer of 2008 when my first iMac (the new Intel Aluminium 24″ iMac) started to develop dark stains on the screen…

Mac 24″ roasting with dark patches on screen (12th August, 2008)

There were various theories bandied about, such as overheating, condensation leading to mould, dust sucked into the system, etc… But my  room is airconditioned and on the 9th floor of an apartment, above the majority of dust and grime. And although the room sometimes reached 35 degrees (right on the edge of operating spec) or so, there was never any condensation and I always used air conditioning when I with operating the computer.

Before discussing, let me fill you in on a little background with this post:

Aluminium iMac 24″ screen displays patches, uneven brightness and dark spots saga recap

So you can see that I have a history of nasty screenage.

The effects are not so great that the screen is unusable, but in my experience these things never improve with age.

So, here we go again, it is with a sense of deja vu and disdain that I contact Apple this afternoon to see what can be done.

Here’s the money shot:

 

This iMac 27" LED backlit screen has recently developed a mottled appearance

*edit* THIS WAS SHOT IN A PITCH BLACK ROOM, IT IS NOT A REFLECTION.

Rev. A iMac 17″ G5 1.6GHz doesn’t sleep or power up consistently

I’ve just been given a non functional iMac which wouldn’t switch on from a friend. It’s an iMac G5 17″ 1.6GHz first edition (Rev A) and on the assumption I could get it working, I offered her some free English lessons!

I opened her up and took a cursory look.

For those of you who have never owned a first ed. G5 iMac, they are a feat of user serviceable engineering. The interior design is as beautiful as the exterior, without a wire in sight.

Three screws and the back comes off, revealing a completely modular design. Practically every component is user serviceable and replaceable, which is a good thing since the Rev As were remarkably prone to failure, apparently!

The machine itself looked rather battered and yellowed with smoke (the previous user is a smoker) but was in really good condition considering its age, since she had thoughtfully opened it up once every few months to vacuum inside!

However, it just would not power up unless the power button was pressed repeatedly.

On plugging it in with the back off, the first of four status LEDs was on, showing a trickle current. But shorting out the power button connectors didn’t power it up like it should until a random number of presses.

Moreover, the machine would shut down the moment it was put to sleep.

After brief research, the main culprit appeared to be power supply, or more precisely a set of blown capacitors which came from a batch of fakes sold under a Japanese brand name to Dell, HP and Apple during 2004.

I pulled out the old soldering iron and replaced them with superior rated ones, one by one, testing in between.

All was hunky dory until I went to replace the final capacitor. In my excitement (!) , I forgot  to discharge the power supply, got a spark when I touched it with the soldering iron, and all was over. The thing was dead.

I decided to give up on the repair and contacted Apple to see if they would sell me a new one. No dice. In Japan, Apple is not obliged to supply user replacement parts since consumer rights are non existent. Instead I would have to ship it to them, looked at, have random parts replaced, all at my expense. They warned me that the cost would be a minimum of 48,000 yen or about 500 dollars.

Pay that? Not on your nellie.

Instead, I ordered one from http://www.macproonline.com for $120+postage on Thursday night at 2am and it arrived at lunchtime on Monday.

A five minute swap later (details available on Aples’s G5 iMac support site) and the thing has worked perfectly since!

A little disappointing, but still cheap.

My Cheapest iMac Yet

Just bought an iMac for our school. It’s a second hand but pristine G4 iMac 15″ 700MHz machine, just like the one I bought last February. It still even had the wrapping on the vertical tube supporting the screen and the little pair of ball speakers.

The shop assistant told me that it would run for about 30 minutes before shutting down. Curious, I asked if I could plug it in. He left me to it and I switched it on. Immediately, I saw the problem. The fan was rotating so slowly the blades were visible.

I’ll buy it! I said and walked home with a ¥3,980 (A shade over 20 quid) iMac.

Not wanting to open my currently working iMac again, I decided to check on line for the required fan replacement. A quick check of http://www5.plala.or.jp/kdreview/imac_g4_17.html showed the fan to be a 92mm x 25mm Superred part.  I remembered it from the one I opened last year, so even though it’s not the same machine, I bought it with confidence, along with an old 512mb PC133 stick of RAM.

I opened her up, replaced the fan and RAM,put her back together (a thirty minute job) and an hour after switching on later, the machine is still running.

Nice. I’ll have something to run iTunes on in our café section, now.

Apple Aluminium Keyboard, Unresponsive Keys. (aka, Apple can’t even make a reliable keyboard any more.)

In This Post I talked about Apple products failing and it saddens me to say that my selection of products are continuing to play up.

I have three desktop Macs, my aluminium iMac, an intel Mac Mini and a G4 Cube. Of these, the iMac is the only one with the new aluminium keyboard. All of the others come with one of the more “traditional”, long throw keyboards.

Now, I originally raved about the keyboard, and still do. It’s beautifully ergonomic, and I swear my typing speed has increased by about 50% since starting using it. But unfortunately, for all its ergonomics, the reliability has been questionable.

Back in September, the left control key started to play up and became unresponsive.

I blew compressed air over the thing and even removed the key to see what was up, all to no avail.

I ordered a replacement keyboard on Apple Care. They very kindly sent me new one and I sent the old one back immediately.

So, you’re wondering if I’ve stooped to talking a faulty key on a keyboard and thinking, you’re really scraping the barrel.

But, bear with me…

WIthin weeks, the new one started to play up, with the “2” key becoming unresponsive and I ordered another replacement keyboard on Apple Care. Again, they very kindly sent me new one and I sent the old one back immediately.

This one has arrived and it has a spongey Return Key, that is only responsive on the bottom half, unlike the crisp Return keys of my previous ones.

So now I’ve ordered yet another keyboard. Let’s see if this is any better than the previous three.

For God’s Sake, Apple, it’s a bloody keyboard! You’re trying to tell me I can trust you to make precision built laptops with thousands of parts for the luxury market when you can’t even make a keyboard where every key works? On a keyboard, most is not enough!

Argh! Apple, sort yourself out.

My iMac 24″ comes back from repairs in record time.

My iMac has come back from repairs in record time!

I called Apple on Wednesday and they sent a man around to pick it up on Thursday morning.

Unfortunately, no one was in so we asked him to come Saturday morning when one of us was guaranteed to be in. He came and picked up the computer on Saturday morning.

On Sunday, I checked the Applecare website to see if the thing had been received. It said, “Repaired – In transit”. I was expecting a week or two, at least, but the computer was back on my desk Monday morning!

Quite remarkable.

Also, the screen has been repaired and is gloriously bright and clean. I’ll upload a photo as soon as available.

They get 9/10 for handling (the computer shouldn’t have gone wrong in the first case so I can’t give them a ten on principle).

My iMac 24″ goes back for inspection / a chance to play with Tiger

My iMac has gone back to Apple for an inspection and hopefully, a new screen.

I backed up my 24″ iMac using Time Machine and formatted and secure erased the HDD, reinstalled the factory supplied Tiger install before sending it back to Apple.

Just for old time’s sake, and just scientific curiosity, I played with the Tiger installation (10.4.9) for an hour or two before switching it off and shipping it back.

I’ll state my final impression right up:

I could not believe how much progress Leopard has made and how much a retrograde step it was moving back to Tiger!

There, I said it. For all the (all the? a bit of an overstatement, perhaps, when compared to Vista) bad press that Leopard received, Tiger is a bit of a dog to use compared to Leopard for all the things I tend to do, and I have gained a new level of respect for the newest, occasionally troubled OS.

Finder

The old sidebar is much less useful than the new one, and the dynamically scaling icons to fit extra stuff in appears a bit unnecessary. As for speed. Crikey, it was much slower than I remembered, often beachballing when performing a task.

Networking

It seems that every time I double clicked on a network share the computer would beachball. How did I live with that?

Then up would come the prompt for the computer I was connecting to. After entering the password, The drive mount selector would appear. I’d double click on that only to have the icon mount on the desktop, the finder.

Repeat for each mount and with eight mounts, things start to get out of hand!

Tiresome, tedious and not at all intuitive.

Then there’s the strange Network icon that appear with an alias to my server that when you click on it throw an error saying the original file cannot be found etc. etc. do I want to fix it…

Stability

As for stability, I’d forgotten how finicky the Disk Utility was when it came to mounting my four drive raid combi on Firewire. It locked up immediately and permanently on opening and preventing me from logging out. It then required me to forcibly turn off the computer and restart, with the Firewire drive switched off.

Nearly a year after launch, Leopard is rock solid. OK, so a few apps have memory leaks, but I can now leave my Leopard Server running 24/7 only restarting for updates and patches.

There was some good bits to Tiger though

The lighter, more translucent appearance of Tiger was fresh and bright, like an Apple Store, after the dull grey of Leopard and the blue apple and rounded corners of the menu bar are much softer and more gentle.

Also, shadows subtly handled in Tiger, with delicate, subtle shadows rather than the the crazy-arsed SHADOW!!! that surrounds each window in Leopard.

There was less memory usage off the bat.

The Calendar application had its sticky inspector panel, which required only one click to edit each entry. The thrice damned Leopard Calendar drives me up the wall! Bring back the drawer is what I say!

All in all, I’d give Tiger a respectable 8 and Leopard a superb 9 out of 10!

 

iMac 24″ just stops short of catching fire

I contacted Apple Support and got straight through to an operator. Within ten minutes, we’d talked our way through the explanation and he put me on hold and transferred me to a “specialist”.

I had explained the temperature of the case and the funny, plasticy smell that was emanating from the back of the machine. I also explained SMC Fan Control and Temperature Monitor, two programs which he’d heard of.

I explained that within 30 minutes of using the computer, the temperature of the PSU went up to 80 degrees and the surface aluminium of the iMac became too hot to touch.

Here’s the output from Temperature Monitor, an excellent utility that does what it says on the tin.

I started a full disk backup with Time Machine and after 30 minutes, here’s the list of temperatures:

If you’re wondering what all the lines mean, here’s the legend.

And there it is, an ambient temperature of roughly 30 degrees pushes the computer to 80 within 30 minutes. As I’m sure you can understand, having my hard disk threatening to reach 60 degrees was a bit too much to takes, so I throttled up the fans to about 3000 RPM for the main CPU fan and HDD and 2000 for the optical drive, pushing the temperature of the PSU down to about 60. Very high, but less likely to set fire to my house.

I think there may be a hidden recall going on, since I spoke to the guy on the phone yesterday at 3pm and he told me he’d send someone over this morning!!!

Now that’s a fast response time.

I’ll keep you posted.