We are closing in on one whole year of Mac use. Yes, it has been nearly a year since my wife and I bought our first iMac both switched to Mac. Despite the challenges we have faced with our Apple products (see 75% of Apple Products I Bought Have Been Defective), overall our switch to Mac OS X has been a great experience and I feel like we have been more productive now than ever before.

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After the replacement of the fan assembly unit, power supply, and logic board, my wife’s iMac has worked great for the past week. It is running nice and quiet even after extended use, and the fan is no where near as loud as it used to be.

As much as I hate that fact that 75% of Apple Products I Bought Have Been Defective, I’m still hooked on the Mac OS and the flexibility it offers.

So as I try to figure out which laptop to buy, I was terribly disappointed to see this review saying it gets too hot - and that the excessive heat has ruined a potentially great laptop.

Update: Perhaps the overheating is from a packaging error whereby a vent cover was installed that does not allow the fans to properly cool the computer? This guy’s MacBook vent was blocked when he bought it.

My wife’s iMac got delivered by courier mid-day today.

We had hoped we could send the machine while we were away and that it would be repaired and waiting for us when we got back. The machine was ready last week with time to spare, but the Mac shop caused a six day delay by not shipping it out when I first asked.

On Tuesday morning, I called the store to discover the iMac was still sitting there and had not yet been sent out. Now, six days after I asked for them to send it back, my wife has had the machine for a few hours.

She says it is substantially better.

This time they replaced the power supply and logic board, in addition to the fan unit that was defective and replaced last time.

I’d like to point out that the technician originally diagnosed this problem as a “typical logic board failure” and yet did not replace the logic board when he had the machine.

Instead, he replaced just the fan unit - which, ultimately, has wasted even more of our time and required a second maintenance service where he cured the “typical logic board failure” he had originally diagnosed.

I’m hoping this is the last time I will have to send this machine in for service because my wife has gone nearly a month without her iMac. Now, more than six months after we bought her the machine, it actually runs as quiet as my 20″ iMac G5.

Thank goodness.

I’ve been on the road for nearly a week, but before I left I made sure I sent my wife’s iMac in for its second warranty repair service.

I also sent a nasty-gram to the retailer expressing our disappointment with the 17″ iMac and all of the issues it has had and asking what it would take to get a fully functional replacement computer. Their response was:

I have reviewed the history of your unit and it appears only the single part has been replaced which I replaced the last time your unit was serviced. Unfortunately, Apple will typically only replace a customer’s unit if 3 or more parts have been deemed defective, as well as replaced. If you call Customer Relations at Apple, you can explain your frustration and explain what you would like to see happen, as having your unit replaced is beyond our control or authority.

As per your described symptoms, when the iMac shuts down randomly, it is usually a case of a malfunctioning power supply over a case of the unit overheating. When I receive your iMac, I will confirm which issues it has, and which parts are faulty, and will keep you posted.

Obviously, I was not quite happy with that response. However, I have not had the chance to chase up this issue as I sent the iMac off last Friday and have been quite busy since.

I got an e-mail earlier today regarding the status of the repairs:

The repair of your iMac G5 is now complete. The logic board and power supply were replaced and the unit extensively tested thereafter. I can assure you that your unit is functioning fine now and will be when you come to pick it up. If, for any reason, the iMac G5 fails again in the future, the failure will not be relevant to work done today. This brings the total number of parts replaced in this unit to 3, which authorizes a replacement from Apple (based on their approval, of course), if it suffers a hardware failure again in the future.

I’m hoping that the third part’s a charm, but it will take several days both for me to get home and for the iMac to be shipped back. I hope to have my wife do a proper test sometime next week.