[BurpetheadX]

Hey,

Power went off in my house two weeks ago, while my G5 was plugged into a nice surge protector / line conditioner.

Wouldn't turn on after. After it sitting at the Apple store for over a week, i get a call saying I have two dead processors, and a bad memory stick, and they will fix it for $1200, plus diagnostic charge.

First of all, I find this hard to believe, as in theory it should be the power supply. Secondly, why would this kill one memory stick out of the 6 in there? Surely an electric jolt that big didn't go through my board...

And finally, why does two processors cost as much as a whole iMac? I'm a student and expected this machine to last me all through college. Surely two processors doesn't cost as much as a G5 processor, plus case, motherboard, keyboard, mouse, RAM, powersupply, hard drive, and a widescreen display found in the iMac.

Apple is charging me $85 for diagnostics to pick up my dead machine. What terrible business.

[jaydon34]

Originally Posted by BurpetheadX

Hey,

Power went off in my house two weeks ago, while my G5 was plugged into a nice surge protector / line conditioner.

Wouldn't turn on after. After it sitting at the Apple store for over a week, i get a call saying I have two dead processors, and a bad memory stick, and they will fix it for $1200, plus diagnostic charge.

First of all, I find this hard to believe, as in theory it should be the power supply. Secondly, why would this kill one memory stick out of the 6 in there? Surely an electric jolt that big didn't go through my board...

And finally, why does two processors cost as much as a whole iMac? I'm a student, work for Apple as a Campus Rep, and expected this machine to last me all through college. Surely two processors doesn't cost as much as a G5 processor, plus case, motherboard, keyboard, mouse, RAM, powersupply, and a widescreen display found in the iMac.

Apple is charging me $85 for diagnostics to pick up my dead machine. What terrible business.

wow didnt know apple was in the raping business

[mduell]

Two processors cost as much as a whole machine because people will pay it.

Some surge protectors / line conditioners, espically the "nice" ones, include some sort of an equipment protection guarantee / warranty (I believe APC will reimburse you up to $25k if you have hardware damage due to their product failing).

[King_Rat]

Most computer companies (not just Apple) charge way too much for repairs. Also, it appears to me that they price repair parts when the computer is new and never change them; now $1k is a rip off for 2 G5 processors (unless they are dual core 2.7GHz) but it was less of a rip off when they are new. Because they never seem to devalue repair parts they always cost a huge amount.

As for the RAM, there are a number of possibilites. Often just a few address in a RAM chip will go bad, and it can not be noticed for quite some time, or just cause the occasional random crash. It could be that the one RAM chip went bad sometime ago and was never noticed until they tested it.

I am somewhat supprised that the power supply is not bad. When a power surge takes out a computer it will sometimes take out the power supply and some other stuff, but it is a little strange that it would take out the processor but not the power supply.

As for what to do, have you checked ebay for the needed parts? RAM is cheap, and I would bet that you can get the processors for a lot less there.

[discotronic]

Originally Posted by mduell

Two processors cost as much as a whole machine because people will pay it.

Some surge protectors / line conditioners, espically the "nice" ones, include some sort of an equipment protection guarantee / warranty (I believe APC will reimburse you up to $25k if you have hardware damage due to their product failing).

Try to collect that and see what happens. In order to collect you have to prove that your house is up to par in regards to having the proper ground and etc.

[seanc]

Was it a power surge or just the power coming back online?
I don't use a surge protector anymore as I used to use UPS's but the batteries failed and they took up the job of screeching at me daily.
We have a lot of power cuts due to something in our house or lightening tripping out the circuit breaker but no harm has ever come to any of our electronics.

[BurpetheadX]

Originally Posted by seanc

Was it a power surge or just the power coming back online?
I don't use a surge protector anymore as I used to use UPS's but the batteries failed and they took up the job of screeching at me daily.
We have a lot of power cuts due to something in our house or lightening tripping out the circuit breaker but no harm has ever come to any of our electronics.

The power went off, and came back on a couple seconds later.

[wowway1]

Don't forget to check with your insurance provider (assuming you don't live in a dorm and have renter's insurance). They should cover such a loss.

[Leonard]

One Word - APPLECARE

[Todd Madson]

Always always always have an extended service plan of some kind on very
expensive equipment.

It's not just Apple equipment. I used to work support for a company that made
very expensive hardware for the graphics industry and if you were out of warranty
and didn't have an extended service plan the amount of money you spent to fix an
item might come 75% of the way towards buying a new one.

In this case, though, since it was a power failure/fluctuation I'd suggest next time
get an uninterruptible power supply so in cases like this the machine will keep
running until the power goes back on.

Sounds like a terrible situation, that's a substantial amount of money no matter
what anyone says. $85 just to diagnose it too.

What are you going to do?

[BurpetheadX]

What are you going to do?

I am going to try claiming homeowners insurance on it, since it happened at home while over my winter break. If I can get an Apple technician to write down that a power outage caused it on the bill, hopefully I should be ok, minus the $500 deductible.

I will eventually get a new PowerMac I suppose...but it seems the new Intel iMacs are just as fast...but I had a TV card, two hard drives, etc. I'd wait for a Intel PowerMac, but that's probably at least 6 months down the line until they are released.

[Macpilot]

First of all, I feel for you dude.

Secondly, it is not smart to admit you are an Apple Rep while posting on a forum, especially when you are not speaking highly of them.

Third, why don't you have AppleCare? It is only $200 for students/educators for Power Macs, and that covers an Apple Display if you buy it with the Power Mac. A small price to pay for total repair costs covered and unlimited tech support for 3 years.

Now, as far as solutions.

Have it repaired and pay for it yourself, or...

get your credit card company to cover it (many CC companies extend the limited warranty if you don't have AppleCare), or...

get your renter's insurance to cover it, or...

get the Power Surge protector manufacturer to pay for it, or...

If none of that works, part it out on eBay.

Again, next time get AppleCare or Safeware or pay for it with a CC.

Good luck.

[lightusr]

My rev. A G5 is trash at the moment. It was at the local apple store for 2 weeks getting 1 processor replaced and the bill came to something like $625 for 1 CPU and $135 for the labor. This was covered by Applecare but the box is still hosed. It locks up during a fresh Tiger install and kernel panics AFTER a successful jaguar install.

[Leonard]

Originally Posted by Macpilot

Secondly, it is not smart to admit you are an Apple Rep while posting on a forum, especially when you are not speaking highly of them.

Him being an Apple rep doesn't make sense. If he means he's from Apple, people from Apple wouldn't post on this forum, they're not allowed to, and he would know more about Apple products. And he can't be a retailer of Apple products, he would know more about them and get a discount on the fix. Most likely he's the Mac "go-to guy" at the University.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by lightusr

My rev. A G5 is trash at the moment. It was at the local apple store for 2 weeks getting 1 processor replaced and the bill came to something like $625 for 1 CPU and $135 for the labor. This was covered by Applecare but the box is still hosed. It locks up during a fresh Tiger install and kernel panics AFTER a successful jaguar install.

Do you mean your AppleCare expired before you took it in for repairs or after? If it was still covered by AppleCare you should not have gotten a bill for the repair.

[Chinasaur]

Just for grins...did you ask them to verify the serial # on the machine they "think" is yours?

Might be somebody elses and your's is fixed and ready for pickup by someone else?

[lightusr]

Big Mac, no apple care didn't expire, those were just the charges listed which I didn't have to pay. I included it in my post just to show how outrageous charges are for a 2ghz cpu which costs about $150 max.

Chinasaur, yeah that's not an issue. Basically the other problem is showing up as a failed upper drive slot in diags and I noted that the cpu failure wasn't appearing during diags unless you unplugged the drive so I left it this way so they could fix the cpu issue first then move on. When I got it back the drive was still unplugged and the box still hosed in that it either kernel panics or locks up hard.

[Todd Madson]

Lightusr: time to bring it back to Apple - if Applecare is covering it it should be fixed
at no cost to you. They obviously did not fix it to your satisfaction so get to it before
your applecare runs out. Good luck!