Poor hardware reliability

[DMcCoy]

I'm starting to get rather depressed with the mac side of things here again.

Macs *are* expensive, despite what some people say, they certainly cost more than any other machines around here.

The problem I have is that our machines have gone into meltdown from a hardware reliability point of view.

Today I discovered that due to the first batch of Intel imacs, I'm going to have to spend many thousands of pounds getting screens replaced. The machines are nearly 2 years old, so no warranty now

In one suite of 20, I've now had 4 screens fail within the last 2 months, and the speed of failures is accelerating! After some searching I find that I'm not the only one and that it affects certain serial numbers, it came as no surprise to find that all of mine were in that range.

If you have an imac with serials in the range W860xxxxU2N then prepare yourself!

4 Original macbook pros, 1 dead, 1 replaced logic board and 4 replaced batteries. One was stolen before the board could be replaced

35 iMacs, 4 dead screens and counting, 1 psu, 1 board.

So thats 75% failure rate on the Macbook Pros and 17% on the iMacs. They just work... Until they don't.

[TechMonkey]

Within 2 years I would say means it isn't fit for purpose so stuff the warranty, moan loudly. It defintely looks like a fault if you have had many go and others have had the same problem.
I'd have to dig up the actual act but I think it is Sales of goods act (though I'm sure someone can correct or confirm me).

[localzuk]

We buy AppleCare packs for every mac we buy, so are covered for 3 years - same as with every other PC - we get 3 year warranties on everything.

[ZeroHour]

Within 2 years I would say means it isn't fit for purpose so stuff the warranty, moan loudly. It defintely looks like a fault if you have had many go and others have had the same problem.
I'd have to dig up the actual act but I think it is Sales of goods act (though I'm sure someone can correct or confirm me).

If we were in Norway you would have a 2 year warranty by law but I doubt you would win in the UK with the sales of goods act. Look at the ipod battery fiasco for example. We still have to pay after a year for batteries.

[ICT_GUY]

Sale of goods act,

Yes you have a good case for some compensation here.

Simply put, the goods must be free from defects for a reasonable period. In effect, an expensive item such as a PC should be free from defects for a reasonable period of time, 5 years or so could be given as a reasonable period.

If an item fails, out of warranty but within a reasonable period you can claim back a portion of the cost of replacement or repair.

Bad design good info > http://www.monikie.org.uk/yourrights.htm

[Sirbendy]

My Missus works in a design firm that love Mac...she insisted on a Dual Core Dell PC instead when her Mac G4 tower failed...boy, was her boss surprised at the cost/performance difference.

He's going to get more PCs now.

We had a situation like that with Dell not so long back...out of 90 PCs we bought, we had about 10% failure rate on 17" TFTs, and all but 5 have had replacement PSUs under warranty universally due to failed capacitors.

Dell denied any such issue until I tore all the PSUs apart, photographed and sent it in, and cited various docs I found on the net detailing the "bad caps" situation of the time. They then came back with "any PSU with serial beginning TH is a failure or potential fail...we'll replace them for CN series."

Seemed to affect the GX60/260/270 range..

[K.C.Leblanc]

It could be worse, we've got some Digimate TFTs. Just RMAed my 13th out of 21 today and they're less then 6 months old.

[Rozzer]

I had a issue with the first batch of Intel iMacs. I found running the latest firmware back 1 year ago seemed to of fixed it.

I find apple seem to say its always the logic board at fault its quite annoying. Atleast with a PC you can pin point it to which component is causing problems.

Another crazy idea i would suggest is with remote desktop send a startup command to install a image and see if the display comes back to life. Crazy as it sounds but it saved me getting 10 macs new logic boards.

Ross

[DMcCoy]

I had a issue with the first batch of Intel iMacs. I found running the latest firmware back 1 year ago seemed to of fixed it.

I find apple seem to say its always the logic board at fault its quite annoying. Atleast with a PC you can pin point it to which component is causing problems.

Another crazy idea i would suggest is with remote desktop send a startup command to install a image and see if the display comes back to life. Crazy as it sounds but it saved me getting 10 macs new logic boards.

Ross

The line is visible from the moment the power is turned on, unfortunately it's a known (but unacknowledged) hardware fault. Dell are doing a replacement scheme for similarly affected laptops and workstations.