NZMac.com - Supporting the New Zealand Mac community

So i purchased my shiny new aluminum iMac just around xmas time cos i got a awesome deal and was drooling over the 24" screens.

Then came across some issues

Check out the photos - www.flickr.com/photos/cameocreams

First one had a dead pixel (dead, not fixed as it was BLACK!) - Renaissance replaced it for me cos i just went straight to them instead of going through work.

2nd one arrived couriered to my door - turned it on and CONDENSATION!!!
Since it rained that day thought it was just from the cold environment in the courier van.

3rd one replaced that afternoon - CONDENSATION AGAIN!! wth.. went to Renaissance to pick it up and was so disappointed. (16/1/08 photo)

4th one now and have had it for 2-3 months, going strong no probs until a few days ago... CONDENSATION not once, but TWICE. Switched off the machine and soon it went away. Turned it back on and BAM it came back!!! (see 28/4/08 photo)
Two days later it came back AGAIN >:/ (See 30/4/08 photo)

Emailed the lady i was dealing with who said "Apple have said to leave your computer turned on for 1-2 hours til it disappears and this item is not to be serviced or exchanged"

Rather annoyed not at the lady but at Apple.

Decided to email steve jobs as i have heard a few success stories since i really had nothing to lose.

Friday afternoon got a phone call on my cell from an Australian number - it was an Apple representative who deals with the asia pacific region!!! We had a chat and stuff but would rather not discuss what we talked about yet but will update when things come to a conclusion!

Just wondering if anyone else has had any problems??? It seems pretty common as im on a few other forums such as macrumors.com

You need to stop drooling over your iMac so much!

cameocreams wrote:
2nd one arrived couriered to my door - turned it on and CONDENSATION!!!
Since it rained that day thought it was just from the cold environment in the courier van.
Cold seems like it shouldn't have anything to do with it, unless Apple has reduced the amount of internal packaging? They used to wrap the iMac (thinking of the white intel models) reasonably well.

What's the environment you have the iMac in? Standard house hold/office/greenhouse (don't laugh, I've heard of it)? Heated? Air conditioned?

cameocreams wrote:
Emailed the lady i was dealing with who said "Apple have said to leave your computer turned on for 1-2 hours til it disappears and this item is not to be serviced or exchanged"

That sounds like Apple think it's your environment (cold or damp, possibly outside the operating conditions in the apple documentation) than with the hardware...

Good luck, and hope something gets sorted out in your favour.

What's the environment you have the iMac in? Standard house hold/office/greenhouse (don't laugh, I've heard of it)? Heated? Air conditioned? I use my iMac at home, 1960's brick and tile lol we have a dehumidifier running too. I did test the 3rd mac at my partners place and the same thing happened.. that was Jan 08 SUMMERTIME!!

That sounds like Apple think it's your environment (cold or damp, possibly outside the operating conditions in the apple documentation) than with the hardware...

Good luck, and hope something gets sorted out in your favour.Yeah, sounds like they just want us to wait out till the steam disappears which is kinda annoying.
Received an email back from the Apple dude in Australia saying he will give me a call tomorrow yay

Sam Clarkson wrote:
You need to stop drooling over your iMac so much!
Hahaha but its so shiny and awesome Beats my 14" G4 ibook anyday!!

As rough as it may seem you do need to be patient. There are a few things that could be the cause and you have to allow time to try and diagnose the problem.

It makes sense that environment could have been an issue as it was happening on a number of machines but there could also be a design flaw that is bought to light in certain environments. The fact that the same thing was happening at your partner's place could mean the area you live is borderline on the safe operating environment.

Where are the other people having this problem located? Is it specific to NZ or to other countries? Are the other countries cool and/or moist environments? Does the problem occur only in winter or is it year around? Do you switch the computer off at night? Does the problem occur if you leave the machine on all the time?

As you can see it's not going to be a straightforward diagnosis as there are many things that can cause this problem.

I can understand your frustration but speaking as a computer tech I can assure you diagnosis is not a simple thing all the time. Things that seem like the cause more often than not have no bearing on the problem.

I have seen this sort of thing with CRTs and it ended up being the environment. Basically the fix was to leave the machine on all the time (sleep mode is fine) during winter to stop the machine from cooling down too much.

Actually it's never a good idea to switch your machine off at night if you use the machine everyday. A problem called dry-solder occurs where the cooling of the machine overnight is then quickly heated up when the machine is turned on in the morning. Over time this leads to the solder cracking and causing more problems. Don't worry about power because iMacs don't use that much power, in fact the entire machine would use a quarter of the power of a CRT TV.

Thanks for that lowededwookie.

I work in retail where im selling these machines and i havent had heard of anyone else experiencing the same problems. Ive been reading following and contributing to a few threads over in the macrumors.com forums. A number of people are also experiencing the same issues i am around the world in different seasons and different times since the release in Aug 07.

Im not in too much of a hurry to get this problem resolved, nor am i one of those angry consumers saying that apple has let me down etc and wont be using their products ever again.
I simply emailed them to ask if an official statement was to be released or something. I don't know if its an environment issue or a design flaw, but it would be nice if Apple addressed it thats all. I can also understand that it may take time since this is the 1st generation of the aluminum iMacs.

The 2nd and 3rd iMacs steamed up during Jan this year - summertime
The 4th one i have had since the 18th of jan and haven't had any problems til last week when it appeared 3 times.. machine was turning on just after lunchtime and shortly the issues came back.
I use my computer pretty much all afternoon/night after uni. I work til around 12-1am in the morning the switch it off.

But thanks again for your input I don't know too much about the technical side of things and appreciate your informative opinion and experience. Im gonna put it into sleep mode from now on cheers

Just wondering, what number/email address have you been using to contact renaissance? I have been having a few problems with my MBP.

Hello fellow House Fan

I emailed steve@apple.com.

If you wanna talk to Renaissance directly, best to call them as you will get a much faster reply than an email! I think i just phoned the number on the Apple NZ website, under contact i think.

Is you MBP overheating?? Our old demo models at work (generation before multi-touch) were and i installed a program called smcfancontrol (google it - its free!) to speed up the fans, which cooled the laptop down dramatically.

I would also suggest downloading the widget istat pro if you haven't already as it displays the temperatures for the hard drive etc.

Best of luck!!