Desktop Mac 3/4 years old 500 gb

A question about : Desktop Mac 3/4 years old 500 gb

This is the 21 1/2 inch screen one. It's on the White screen of death all the time. I've tried all the u tube fix its and sometimes they have worked. Always ends up going again. I've done a system repair and a permissions repair. Computer says the drive is working... In desparation I have left it with a local repair man who says the hard drive maybe corrupt.

How much should I be paying? Don't want to get ripped off? Or is this a case of how long is a piece of string?

Thanks everyone!

Gill

Best answers:

• That's down to how honest the repair man is. If he charges fairly for his time and whatever parts he uses then you'll be fine.
• Talk to the repair man and don't be mean about paying him for his time on top of the parts. Depending on the model it is non-trivial to open iMacs and takes time. (At least you have one that has a replaceable drive.) And he has rent and bills to pay.
  Also ask about a fusion drive or ssd and whether that would be worth upgrading to - cost difference will be small.
• It also depends if he has to use a genuine apple part, Apple spares are not cheap if they have to be sourced from Apple
• What version of OSx are you running and at what point does it hang?
  I don't think you should rush into assuming it's a hardware problem as there are so many software problems that can cause your issue.
• shortchanged - you've made your point multiple times on any Mac related thread with your one liners. If someone is asking what computer to buy, sure, give your opinion, but wading into every thread where someone has a problem with one, is just getting boring. Go to some kiddie komputer forum if you want to pick sides and throw mud.
  The white flat iMacs are easier to take apart than the newer ones. I take it we're talking about a graphics chip problem?
  Are we talking about a Core2Duo or what? Depending on what model it is, it mightn't be worth fixing.
• I'm just balancing out the how wonderful apple products are posts.
• I agree, I've never heard anyone claim in all seriousness that macs never go wrong - don't feed the troll.
  Back on topic - I assume the white screen is appearing at boot up and if that's correct I suspect a corrupted plist file somewhere is the system. This isn't always fixed by a permissions repair or system restore but it's not difficult to sort out if you know what you're doing.
  The problem will likely go away if the repairer replaces the hard drive and / or does a full rebuild but that's the nuclear option in my opinion and probably unnecessary.
• A new hard drive will cost exactly the same as one for a Windows PC-there's nothing Apple-specific about them.
  Any competent repair shop will do the fault-finding process and then contact you with a price for the repair needed. You then choose either to go with the repair or not, if not you'll pay for the fault finding only, a price which you should have been quoted when you took it in.
  If it is the drive, the cost will vary according to the capacity of the replacement you specify, you'll probably want to go up to 1TB.
• Don't panic
  You can diagnose this yourself very easily.
  But you will need either a cloned backup of your drive or a copy of the OS on DVD or USB.
  Then simply shut down the machine and then start it up and boot from the external drive/disk
  If it starts up ok then it's your hard disk that has failed and a replacement drive is in order
  Also have you checked your serial number with Apple as they had an out of warranty replacement program for iMacs of your age due to a faulty batch of Seagate drives
  I had mine changed without issue
• The repair man will know you have spent a fortune buying it in the first place so will be happy to pay a lot for the repair. People say that Audi owners are charged far more for the same repair than Skoda drivers.
• It's worth a try with Apple first. I've a problem with the display on a 4 year old Mac book pro. Made an appointment in the Apple Store ( I had the three year aftercare but that's expired too )
  The guy looked at it without charge, asked me a few questions, saw his manager , and then came back to say they would repair without charge under consumer rights legislation. There are a number of reports about faults in these early Mac book pros but they seem to be taking care of it
• shortchanged:
  Quote:
• Those who rave about Apple products that 'just work' are generally referring to the operating system and application software, not the hardware. Under the skin, the components are the same as a Windows PC (although the build quality and finish is much superior). Or to put it another way, I wouldn't want to run Windows 8.1 on an iMac, but I'd be fairly OK with running OSX on a PC.