As you know if you’ve somehow stumbled onto « sknoblog », I recently got a 20″ iMac. It’s a beautiful machine, with an absolutely stunning display. Unfortunately, so far, I’ve used it mainly to do some software localization work that requires the use of Virtual PC. Needless to say, the CPU has been going full blast and the machine has been straining at the seams for hours on end. And I quickly noticed an extremely annoying high-pitched whine from one of the three fans. Not loud, but a really grating frequency, somewhere between uuuuuuu and eeeeeeeee (technically speaking). And once it gets going, it won’t stop until I put the iMac to sleep.
My kids complained about the noise, my girlfriend complained about the noise, so I bit the bullet and called Apple support.
Now before you criticize this entry’s title as a cheap, sensationalist shot, you have to understand that a Mac isn’t just an appliance. It is an extension and amplifier of my mind and body in more ways than I can count. It plays music and instruments that I can imagine but could never play myself. It remembers every single sentence I have ever translated so that I never have to translate and / or type them more than once.
So coming to the realisation and accepting that my iMac was sick was a painful and wrenching process, just as it is when you have to face the fact that something is seriously wrong with your biological self…
Anyway, Apple quickly agreed to send me a new « Midplane Assembly » (Apple iMac G5 talk for motherboard). Indeed the iMac was engineered to allow end-users to service most of the parts. So I received the midplane yesterday, which came with detailed instructions and a couple of tools. I’m not a good handyman, and was quite nervous, but I dove in.
The process requires removing the optical drive, video inverter, power supply, Wi-Fi card, memory modules, and hard disk from the existing motherboard, then removing the motherboard, swapping in the new one, and connecting all of the above onto it.
Removing the 20 or so screws that fasten all of this hardware is fairly easy (although some are tucked away in hard to reach nooks and crannies). However, there are many cables and connectors, some of which are really tiny and extremely hard to reach and remove.
And indeed, during surgery, the very last step involved removing a tiny cable from a connector on the hard drive. Unfortunately, this connector was jammed. I broke two nails trying to pry it out, and then…I broke the connector.
That was it. I thought I had lost the patient (or at least that I would be without my new iMac for several days or weeks while I waited on a new blank hard disk). Standing in the middle of scattered computer entrails, thoughts of suicide and/or self-mutilation invaded my consciousness…
After calling my girlfriend and incoherently weeping and sobbing into the phone, I dried my tears and attempted to analyse the situation with a little more logic. It wasn’t immediately clear if the broken part came from the motherboard, which would be OK since I was changing it, or from the hard disk itself, which of course would have been a catastrophe. I called Apple, and they told me to call some authorized Apple service centers, which I promptly did. All of them are so pissed off at Apple for making their machines user-serviceable that they all sent me to hell before I could even tell them why I was calling.
I closely inspected the disk again. It seemed plausible that the broken connector came from the motherboard, and that what remained of the connecter could maybe be pried out of the hard disk plug.
So I dashed out to the pharmacy downstairs from my home, and bought a pair of eyebrow-removal tweezers from an intrigued pharmacist. I rushed back upstairs, and…managed to pry out the mangled connector!
What joy, what relief!
Now, working against the clock (having to pick up my daughter at school), I proceeded with the reassembly phase, which went pretty much without a hitch.
I closed up the iMac, plugged it in, turned it on and…it came alive.
So, what about the noise? The iMac now emits a low rumble at all times, which it didn’t before. Still, it is only noticeable when the kids are in bed, and the washing machine, TV or radio aren’t running. I then threw every power-hungry task that I could at the iMac. The fans kicked in, and revved up, and amid the fan noise, one can discern the dreaded frequency (although I could be imagining it), yet if it is indeed present, it is nowhere near as loud and annoying as before.
So was it all worth it? At this point in time, 24 hours after surgery, it seems that it was. But once paranoïa has reared its ugly head, one becomes hyper-sensitive to everything, and it is hard to relax and attain peace of mind. I intend to open up the iMac again and tighten some screws in case that might take care of the low rumble (although I doubt it).
But for now, it, and I, am/are convalescing.