Wednesday February 15, 2006

- Problems with Powermac G5: "the Big Bang" effect - Lionel - 14:35:37

Since a couple of days, we have received reports of problems with some Powermac G5. We have been waiting to get enough of similar reports before publishing this news. Hereafter are 3 of those reports:

Hello
I am contacting you because I recently had a bad experience with Powermacs G5. Being an Apple reseller, we are selling and installing many PMG5.
We have had a bad surprise with our last order.
Indeed, when booting the PMG5, instead of hearing the usual "bong", we have heard an explosion (without noticeable smell) originating from the PMG5.
This phenomenon was repeated with 5 PMG5!
Freshly installed, and immediately send back to AppleCare...
Quite surprised, I called an AppleCenter that informed me that it was not the first case reported to him: already 5 calls to mentioned similar problems in a single day. It seems that the problem is due to the 1000W PSU.

We have just bought 14 PMG5 dualcore 2.3GHz, and we have experienced many problems with the PSU of those machines.
Three of them have already been sent back to Apple for having their PSU + motherboard + CPU exchanged.
According to a technician, there are on the dualcore motherboard, several screws that are also there to provide electrical contacts; if there are not properly installed, the PSU might be destroyed. I am apparently not the only one having such problems.

The third report is originating from Holland and describe an identical problem:

Just to inform you of a strange problem we're having with our PM G5's dual core, purchased in November 2005.
Because it was time to upgrade our 12 G4's we bought the new dual core PM G5's, right after the introduction.
Now we've got 8 - 2.0Ghz and 2 – 2,3Ghz and on the break of buying 3 more... but one after another stop working after a static bang, screens go to black, no power and a strange smell from the G5 power supply.
One 2.0Ghz G5 is in repair for three weeks now, two are dead and waiting for transport and just 10 minutes ago a 2.3Ghz G5 went out with a bang. That's 4 machines already and we're still waiting for Apple to take some action.

We have also learned that there was no more 1000W PSU replacement unit in Apple Repair Centers. We think that there is indeed a problem with a PSU series. Is it again a problem affecting mostly 220V-based countries? Please report to information about serial numbers to us if you have experienced the same defect on your PMG5 recently purchased. The problem being that such voltage defect is usually leading to the replacement of the PSU + the motherboard + the CPUS... it might turn out to be a really expensive quality control problem for Apple.


[translation by Eric]

- PowerBook: so cold outside and still working... - Lionel - 14:12:26

If recently we have reported numerous issues/problems related to bug and/or quality control failure with Apple products, it does not imply that Cupertino-designed products are not reliable.
For AluBook owners, hereafter is a photo taken from the website of "L'odyssée Sibérienne" (Siberian Odyssey) (an adventure aiming to motivate people to preserve nature and environment, thanks to Lionel for the news).



The photo shows Nicolas Vanier testing the limits of his PowerBook in a industrial fridge in order to validate his notebook before bringing it with him towards Siberia and its polar temperatures. This is of course way below the official certifications provided by Apple (from 10°C).


[translation by xrissley]

- Some news from the web - Lionel - 11:48:34

- ToolsX, the famous maintenance utility, is now available in version 3.6.1:
http://toolsx.free.fr

- A new Mac reseller is born in Switzerland (website in both French and German):
www.nextway.ch.


[translation by Eric]

- The RefurbStore is full again - Lionel - 11:42:21

The Refurb store is full again:

- PowerBook G4 15" 1.67 GHz for 1559 Euros TTC (the last G4-based models with HD displays)
- PowerBook G4 17" 1.67 GHz for 2079 Euros TTC (the last G4-based models with HD displays)
- Powermac G5 dual 2.5 GHz for 2071 Euros TTC
- and the usual Xserves at 2092 and 2995 Euros TTC


[translation by Eric]

- Airport Express station: the curse of the 13th month - Lionel - 11:39:52

Here's an update to the previously-noted strange affliction affecting the Airport Express Base Station that seems to die after 13 months.

We keep gathering information about this problem in order to track and identify possible “faulty” series, or to point out a design flaw that seems to be leading to an unacceptably short life for such an electronic device.

Please keep sending us your reports (use the translator email address for this purpose, and mention APX problem in the subject). It seems that Apple tends to exchange some defective APX mostly when the APX dies couple of days after the end of the warranty.

[translation by Eric]

- 10.4.5 available - Hervé - 11:28:12

The Mac OS X 10.4.5update is available from the software update panel, or directly from est disponible via la mise à jour automatique et Apple website.
It concerns both PPC and Intel-based computers.
It fixes numerous issues, but it is still not known if the annoying audio problem in PBG4 or the wifi transfer speed of the iMacIntel Core Duo among others are fixed with this update. Please let us know.
Additional information available here

[translation by Eric]