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A podcast about all things Macintosh. For Mac geeks, by Mac geeks. Show 276. Snow Leopard coming this Friday. Apple’s looks for slight growth this quarter. iTunes tops music sales charts. Continued speculation on September 9th music event. Apple responds to FCC. Tablet reportedly under the Eye of Sauron Steve. Macbook to get new look. Your expensive. Yeah? You have cooties. New Apple retail stores in NY and Germany. The what and where of hard drives. GPU and heat issues on 2006 iMacs. Time to rethink your Office suite. Pasting without formatting. A smarter iTunes delete. Adding relationships to your Address Book
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New music, When You Got A True Friend by Bert Deivert (iTunes)
EOL: DIY Wedding Photobooth. (via TUAW)
Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man. — J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904 – 1967)
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“Your expensive. Yeah? You have cooties.”
sounds interesting….
The iMac issues sound suspiciously similar to the NVidia graphics issues that have plagued MacBook Pros.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1727530&tstart=0
I had my MacBook Pro logic board replaced a month ago or so due to the NVidia issue. Actually, I had no idea what the problem was, other than that the display was completely unresponsive.
In the notes to the repair, it stated NVidia Video Issue REP. Interesting, right? Lo and behold it is a widespread issue, affecting all the OEMS – Apple, Dell, HP, Toshiba – because fundamentally the problem is with shoddy NVidia chip design.
To learn exactly why this problem occurs, check out the below Inquirer article:
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1004378/why-nvidia-chips-defective
To see the Inquirer’s confirmation that the “bad bumps” behind the hardware failures are actually present in the most recent MacBook Pros within the 9600 as well, follow this link:
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1049921/inquirer-confirms-apple-macbook-pros-have-nvidia-bad-bump-material
What disturbs me most of all is that right now THERE IS NO PERMANENT SOLUTION TO THIS PROBLEM. All Apple can do is replace the logic board if something goes wrong. This is because NVidia’s chipsets, 8600 and 9600 all have the same fundamental problem.
So, essentially, the only recourse I have, now that my board has been replaced, is to run the computer as hot as possible as frequently as possible until the chip breaks again, in the hopes that I can get a new board replacement just before my Apple Care runs out.
I plan to join the class action lawsuit against NVidia should it become available. I urge you all to do the same.
http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/05/11/nvidia.sued.over.graphics/
there’s a petition asking apple to acknowledge and something about the 2006 imac issue.
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/imacrecall
this issue affects imacs with either ATI Radeon or NVidia GeForce GPU’s. it may also affect imacs with intel GMA, but there haven’t been many reported cases for them.
it’s definitely heat related, and all things point to the logic board at the moment.
here’s what some of graphics glitches look like:
http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/8527/picture1xk3.png
http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/3607/picture6nke.png
http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/6916/picture9eem.png
http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/3332/imacline1.png
http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/8794/imacline2.png
http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/3671/attachment1f.jpg
http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/5743/attachmentmcj.jpg
http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/4262/attachment2e.jpg
http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/3430/attachment3e.jpg
http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/3103/attachment4.jpg
My iMac 24 Intel Care Duo with NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT (late 2006 model-manufactured in August 2007 in Shanghai, purchased late October 2007) would not power up at all August 2009 after light use, possibly around a hundred hours. I didn’t purchase Apple Care so took it to an Apple Certified Repair Center. After trying a new graphics card with no success, the technician removed it, then ordered and installed a new logic board. That worked and the computer seems fine now after an expensive repair. The technician found a swollen capacitor on the old board. From what I have read, capacitors are supposed to last about seven years. This doesn’t seem right to me. Even on an out of warranty car, defective parts are recalled.