Macopinion

Power Supplied

by Marc Zeedar macopinion@designwrite.com

Last week I returned from my trip away to discover my G5 iMac had expired. That is, it was turned off and wouldn't turn back on. This is an important machine for me as it is my email center, used for handling all the correspondence for my businesses. It is vital it being running at all times.

At first I assumed this was merely an electrical issue. At one time I had that Mac plugged into a questionable UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) and I thought maybe that was the problem again. But when I crawled under the desk to check, I saw with surprise that the iMac was plugged directly into a wall socket -- it didn't even use a surge protector.

I tried a different power cord, hoping that was the problem, but no go. It was dead.

Finally I went to Google on my other Mac to see what advice about this problem I could find. I searched for something like "iMac G5 won't turn on" and got a number of useful hits. One of the first ones was this Apple Tech document.

The instructions were simple and clear, but when nothing fixed the problem, it quickly became apparent that my iMac needed a new power supply. I dreaded thinking what that would cost and how long it would take. Knowing that the local Apple Store is usually busy, I decided to check with a third-party Apple dealer. There's a company here in Oregon that sells Macs online and from several stores and has a large service department. I figured they might be more aggressive about service than Apple. After all, that's about the only area they can differentiate themselves.

Unfortunately, when I called, the technician told me it would take a day or so to diagnose the problem, five to seven working days to order and receive the replacement part, and more time to actually fix the computer. This was frustrating as I'd already been without the computer for a week and I really didn't want to delay things a another whole week.

Reluctantly I decided to call my local Apple Store (40 minutes away). I find Apple's support line awkward -- it rings at a central location, not at the actual store. Not too helpful if you want to know what's in stock or how long a repair might take.

To my surprise, I managed to get a hold of a store employee who quickly guided me to set up an appointment with a "Mac Genius" via Apple's website. Once a reservation was set, I just needed to bring my iMac in for confirmation of the problem. Unfortunately, the man I spoke with had no knowledge of turnaround time or cost.

Figuring that I'd be without my iMac for at least a few days, I worked on an alternative solution. A few years ago I'd looked into upgrading the iMac's internal hard drive only to find that flat-screen iMacs are difficult to upgrade. So instead I just hooked up an external Firewire drive. I copied all the data from the internal 80GB drive to the external drive and booted off of it. I've used it that way for years without a problem. My plan was to eventually erase the internal drive and use it for backup of important data, but I never got around to doing that.

Now, with the iMac itself out of commission, I realized my external boot drive was a handy solution. I repurposed my kitchen laptop, an old G3 iBook, and connected it to the external Firewire drive. It booted up just fine -- though it was slower than the G5, it worked: I was able to access all my data, answer emails, and manage my business. Very cool!

So off I went with the iMac to the Apple Store. Within seconds the Mac Genius had the back off and quickly confirmed my diagnosis: it needed a new power supply. He went to the back room to check to see if they had the replacement part and came back nodding. They had a new power supply in stock and they'd go ahead and put it into the iMac and it would be fixed in twenty minutes!

I was shocked at such a quick turnaround, nodding and signing the paper he handed me. I noticed the paper had a price of $0.00 on it, which was odd, but I figured it was some sort of standard form with the correct price to be filled in later. "How much will this cost me?" I asked.

"Nothing," he said.

I thought he was joking or I'd won some sort of customer service lottery or something. "Excuse me?"

He explained: it seemed that Apple had determined there was a manufacturing problem with the power supply of my iMac model and would fix any brought in for free!

So I wandered the mall for a bit and 30 minutes later came back to find my iMac ready. Well, not quite: there was a problem. "I've got bad news," said the Mac Genius.

Uh oh, I thought. This was not good.

"There's a problem with your internal hard drive. It's not booting right. We can't tell if it's a hardware issue or a directory problem with the software on the drive."

"Oh, that's not a problem," I said with relief. "I haven't used that internal drive for years. I boot it off an external Firewire drive. You can just reformat that drive if you want."

"Really? Wow, cool!"

The Mac Genius was back about ten minutes later with confirmation that the internal drive was just fine: a reformat had cleared up any problems and the computer was as good as new.

So in less than an hour my computer was fixed, and it didn't cost me a thing! I brought it home, replaced the iBook with the iMac, and everything worked perfectly. Oh, I did have to resize a few windows -- the iBook's screen is not as large as the iMac's. But other than that, everything was as good as new.

Your Apple support story may not have as good an ending as mine, but I thought I'd share this one: everyone always posts the negative stories and bad experiences but few write up the good ones. Apple isn't perfect, but occasionally they excel -- I was certainly delighted by the awesome service they gave me and my 2.5 year old iMac!

macopinion@designwrite.com