Computer Woes
Yesterday afternoon, I was watching The Office on my computer when all of a sudden, I heard a little “pop” and my computer went dead. Nothing. No sounds, no fans, nothing. It wouldn’t turn on. It was like it was unplugged.
Computer specifics: I have a mid-2007 24” Intel iMac. I bought it in July/August of 2007. I didn’t get the AppleCare protection - which wouldn’t have saved me in this case, as it expires in three years, so I’d be out of warranty anyway. The only thing new I did was download the new Apple OS update and new version of iTunes earlier that day. I tried resetting the PRAM/PMU manually, but that didn’t work. Funny how things always seem to stop working right after they’d be out of warranty.
To say I was frustrated, sad, disappointed - that would be an understatement. I have a 500 GB hard drive and only portions of it were backed up. A lot of stuff on there isn’t backed up at all. Yes, I know I should start using Time Capsule or Carbon Copy Cloner to back-up my data. Lesson learned there.
I made an appointment with the Genius Bar for this evening in Rosedale Mall. I dreaded the thought of hauling my iMac through the mall in front of everyone and waiting at the Apple Store for some hipster to help me, so I started looking online for solutions. I finally found someone with the *exact* symptoms and model that I had. He took his iMac to the Genius Bar a few months ago and they told him it was a power supply/logic board problem that would be a few weeks and cost $772.00 to fix!!!
Needless to say, that wasn’t an option for me, so I cancelled my Genius Bar appointment after reading that. I found a YouTube video that walks you through how to replace the power management board and another video on how to remove the hard drive. With the iMacs, the only way into the computer is to remove the glass from the front. It’s held in place by powerful magnets. You use duct tape or suction cups to lift the glass and then it’s a pretty straightforward (about ten minutes) procedure to swap the board out.
I found a replacement board on eBay for $47.00. Much cheaper than the $772 that Apple quoted the guy with the same problem as me. If this replacement board doesn’t work, I’ll still need to open the iMac up to get at the hard drive regardless. I’m assuming the hard drive is fine - it’s just that the whole computer isn’t getting power. Once the hard drive is removed, I can pop it into an external hard drive shell and retrieve my data that way on a new computer. I’d probably still get another iMac. Despite this set-back, I love my machine. Apple doesn’t make iMacs in 24” anymore and the 27” ones look huge, so I’d probably just get a 20” model. Smaller but that’s okay.
Whichever the end result is (replacing the power board successfully or retrieving the hard drive data and getting a new iMac), I’ll definitely be backing up my data on a regular basis.