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iMac Hardware Experts: A Call for Help

Posted by Ben Jackson Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:14:00 GMT

Hardware is complicated.

Hard drives corrupt. Power units short out. Pixels die. Time marches on.

But every now and then, a mystery comes along which makes one question whether or not the electrons shooting around underneath the shiny brushed aluminum have some sort of sinister, vengeful will of their own.

Case in point: one iMac G5 PPC. The machine in question is a bit more than two years old and is under Applecare. Over the last 4-5 months, it has begun to go into hibernation mode whenever the CPU is taxed above a certain level.

We took it to the helpful folks over at the Macstore Ipanema. After a matter of days, we received the machine back with a report that the techs were unable to reproduce the problem in the lab.

After some electrical problems with our Mac Pro, we did a complete restoration of the electrical infrastructure of the house. The Mac Pro which was shorting out its surge protector returned to its normal, functioning state, but the problems with the iMac continued.

Confused, we brought the machine back to the Macstore, which was again unable to reproduce the issue but proceeded to change the logic board and power management unit to eliminate them as potential problems.

The machine returned and almost immediately began acting up again.

At this point we sent the machine back to the techs and immediately called Apple in the US, who directed us to Applecare Brazil. We opened a case with them to replace the machine, and were informed after 4 days that the machine could not be replaced as the techs could not reproduce the issue and therefore could not determine which part was at fault.

Determined, we took the machine to another shop to have it looked at: Mac Business Experts in Copacabana. After 4 days of testing they reported that they, too, were unable to reproduce the problem. The only fault they found was a broken wire in the cooling system, which they seem to think is not a likely cause. ~~After it was replaced and returned today, the machine has already died.~~ We're still waiting on the replacement part.

We have tried plugging the machine into other wall sockets, and the other Macs are all running fine. We are pretty damn sure that the problem is not in our electricity.

If anyone reads this and can suggest what else might possibly be wrong, we will be very, very appreciative. Feel free to leave any ideas in the comments.

Update: We've uploaded a video of the machine crashing to YouTube for the record.

Microsoft Australia distributing iPods?

Posted by Ben Jackson Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:40:53 GMT

From the Brisbane Times:

But in what is perhaps a sign of desperation given Google's growing market share dominance, ninemsn is running a new Live Search promotion - Secret Search - offering surfers the chance to win prizes including the iPod Nano, Shuffle and Touch just for conducting searches. … Ninemsn's head of Live Search, Alex Parsons, said if the Zune music player was sold in Australia it would have been offered as a prize instead. "Where we don't have a great product or we don't have a product at all there's no internal edict that says we're not allowed to use competitor products," he said.

Could set off a trend in the other companies if it goes well (which it should).

Via macmagazine.

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Blogo: Windows Version

Posted by Ben Jackson Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:56:51 GMT

We've had more than a few requests for a version of Blogo for Windows. Rest assured that we are considering it, but we're holding out for a little while we evaluate the development platforms out there and wait to see if Apple releases any of the dev tools I know they have stashed away in Cupertino (fingers crossed).

For now, at least Blogger seems to think we're good enough to include in the Windows software section of their Third-party Apps page. So much so, in fact, that they didn't even include us in the list of Macintosh clients.

Before you direct me to the Google group, I've been there (+1 to Gatsby for responding my first post on the same day, sorry for not being clearer about the platform when I first requested the listing), and bumped the thread twice now. After it became clear that I was irritating some of the group members, I've decided to give up on that avenue for now and hope that someone at Blogger reads this post.

Yes, that's Blogger. Blogger, Blogger, Blogger. If any readers would like to link to this post, please make sure to use the word "Blogger" in the link title. Thank you.

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