Old Imac repair

If Nomer doesn't have the parts, try to ask doods888 here at philmug if he has them...

 

I also have a big problem with my iMac G5. It's an older PPC Imac, the 20" variety. It was purchased at the Powermac Centre in Greenbelt 3 in early 2006 for PhP135,000.00

The speakers are defective.
The superDVD RW drive is also defective.
I already had the people at the Powermac Center in Greenbelt 3 replace a defective hard drive 2 years ago.
Now My LCD screen has gone kind of white and misty and there is one green line on the screen too.

I took it to the Powermac Center again in its original packaging with my original receipt and they wouldn't touch it and said it was vintage. I was and still am very pissed off about it.

I would like to get it repaired as I love it. It still boots fine and I can use it but it needs some TLC.

Any suggestions would be most welcome.

Thanks

 

powermac won't touch old macs??

 

They wouldn't take mine, even just to tell me what was wrong with it. The worst part was that I took it to the macstore in Robinsons Ermita first, (after calling and calling and having nobody answer the phone ) only to find out that it was closed for renovation (answer machine?) So then I had to take it to the Powermac Center in Mall of Asia only to be told by them to take it to the original store in Greenbelt. Bear in mind that in its packaging it weighs 17kg. Did I mention that I had to bring it to Manila from Puerto Galera?

When I was at Mall of Asia store they called Greenbelt store by phone who 'dismissed' it without even looking at it. Awful customer service, some of the worst I ever experienced in fact.

Suffice to say I will NEVER buy another apple product again in my life.

Customer service? Disgusting

 

^the above suggestions to go to Ynzal for service and doods888 for parts still apply to your case...

 

i heard that certain service centers outsource their repair work to ynzal

 

Try sencolink. Tried ynzal - paid service charge unfortunately wrong diagnostics as I had another take a look at it.

 

Oh really? That's a bit worrying? Any more info about that? (I just mailed Ynzal earlier)

 

Sorry to hear your terrible experience. I would be disgusted too if I was in your shoes.

There are many Apple service providers here in the Philippines. They all have varying degrees of service quality. My guess this "Macstore" you are talking about is a local reseller called PowerMac Center. These are not Apple Stores but Apple resellers. They do have a reputation of being inconsistent in terms of customer service. I suggest taking your business elsewhere like Digital Hub or like what the others suggest (since your Mac is out of warranty) Ynzal.

Although the way they handled you has left much to be desired to be fair, your iMac is 2006 thats more then half a decade old. In Macs or any computers, thats pretty ancient. So finding parts is not only difficult but very expensive because most of it are not anymore in production. I see that they do not want the hassle.

I tend to keep my Macs and PCs for many years so I have some experience with repair centres discouraging repair of an old computer. For example back in 2005 I brought my Toshiba Satellite (bought in 2001) to be repaired in their Tokyo service center and they advised me to just buy new laptop because replacing the parts are not available. Unfortunately, planned obsolescence is an industry standard practice, not just an Apple centred issue.

 

What eventually was the problem? How did Sencolink fix it?

@NellyRox: What you can do to ensure your unit gets properly attended to is to take down notes on what the technician says and what repairs/replacements need to be done. Ask for a list if possible. It also encourages the technician to review their diagnosis before letting you leave your unit with them. Make sure also that they specifically indicate when they're going to call you back for the diagnosis, and the cost involved.

I believe Ynzal has basic charges to be applied for certain troubleshooting tasks. Even for such mundane jobs like backing-up your hard-drive, formatting, and uninstalling/installing your OS and apps, they have various fees. For replacement parts of out-of-warranty Macs, they usually just charge you the cost + labor/service fee. And they give you an option to order the parts from third-party suppliers anyway so it's often a little cheaper than Apple parts.

Even if we trust Nomer and the boys with our gadgets, it's always good to ask him/them up front what the job entails and how fast/long they're going to take to find the solution.

 

First off locally there are only apple resellers/services.
Is that the white iMac? Apple performed a replacement of those a while back for the green line monitor issue.

Parts for that have pretty much dropped to manufacturing cost.
Bring it to the suggested options have them list down the problem parts and search for them in eBay.

You can also try and call up the apple hotline to express your dissapointment(s) or better yet write a letter and send via snailmail...(anybody know where best to address it to?)

you can always take a deep breath and say goodbye to your 6year old machine for lasting this long and move on to avoid the stress.

 

I still have two iMac 20 inch PPC 1.8ghz in use
also try Mark_17 for parts. Also search here as there is one person selling speakers and even power supply for this iMac

The iMac PPCs are still ok for office use and students' use. They are stuck at Leopard but the screen is quite nice and comfortable even for prolonged use. The only reason why I took it off my bedside is that it can no longer play the .mp4 TV shows I often watch

Ynzal is still my go to place for out of warranty and repairs I cant do myself.
I was at Ynzal yesterday as a favor to a friend whose Macbook LCD broke. Php3900.00 for a replacement LCD ( Gabb_Computer @TipidPC) and 1500.00 for labor from Ynzal. I was in and out of Ynzal in 30 minutes thanks to Nomer.

One of these iMac's board and power supply was also replace by Ynzal due to a recall years ago.
Ynzal is no longer an Apple recognized service provider but from my own personal experience, I can still recommend them for out of warranty job

If you can find a used decent screen for your iMac, go ahead and have it restored

 

I hope I didn't misunderstand but I wish to correct this. The price of old Mac/PC parts are actually higher. Try buying RAM for an old Powerbook or IDE hard disk and you will see that they are much more expensive then their modern equivalent.

 

Thank you all for your insight into this situation, Nomer emailed me already and has asked me to bring it there to them, I will do so next week, keep you posted.....

 

My own experience with ynzal was not so good. 24 inch Mac diagnosed as LCD problem. Was a bit unconvinced had a second opinion at sencolink. Problem is video card or logic. The Mac was White screening in less than 5 m. Sencolink link brought it up to 2 hours and problem is now repeatable at will. Not going back to ynzal for me. Sid of sencolink is who I would recommend.

 

^sencolink has been a reliable go-to for me as well. Digital Hub is another, except I live in salcedo village, & senco link's office in Legaspi is much nearer so it's mostly sencolink for me. plus, parking is never a problem. & I can always call in advance & they'll have someone attending to you right away.

 

I dropped the iMac off there at Ynzal on October 1st. I'm waiting for a diagnosis report until now. Methinks they probably haven't even looked at it yet...............hope im wrong