Ok allow me to share my frustration:

I bought an Apple G5 Quad for my studio in January 2006. It never worked properly. After 2 weeks, it didn't start up. They replaced the CPU and motherboard. Parts weren't in stock so had to be ordered: Delay: 10 days. So I went picking it up but they said the CPU part they had received from apple was bad and made a strange noise and that they had ordered another set, the third, and once it arrived I'd better come over again to replace it.

Okay, so I did that, again a day no studio!
Once at home, started up the G5 Quad. After 3 hours: Crash! Fucccck! This behavior repeated itself constantly until it refused to boot at all! Okay, went back to the store. THey did Apple hardware tests. THey claimed nothing was wrong. Hmm. I convinced them to boot up the OS and let the damn thing run hard for a few hours. Indeed, it crashed. Well sir, the CPUs are bad.

Since yesterday, 9th may 2006, they are fitting the 3rd motherboard and 4th CPU set and they can't get it done! The fans keep on blowing full throttle!

Wait, it gets even better!
2 weeks ago I purchased a brand new G5 2,3 dual-core. We shipped it to a company who installs Pro Tools; They unboxed it and pushed the power button: Nothing!! Absolutely dead! So they ship it back, we unpack it, it works!! Now to be clear, the problem was the Mac, not the company as you'll find out later! (these guys have been installing PT for years so they know what they're doing).

The 2,3 had a dutch OSX installed and we wanted a UK or US version, and so we put in the OSX install CD and followed instructions: Ooops, it crashed. Okay, let's boot from CD ROM then. Oops: Kernel panics or a message saying that installing OSX failed. the store. They say: bring in the machine.

I bring both in, and demanded immediately a new machine for the 2,3 since it never worked in the first place. They say, sorry, can't do that since it is 14 days old and we can only replace within 10 days! fuuck them!

So now, 2 G5 Macs are down, as well as 2 studios!! Let's put it all together:

I purchased: 2 powerbooks, 2 G5 Quads and an iPod nano.
Both G5 are down, each of the powerbooks had a key from the keyboard that fell off, the iPod needed replacement due to scratches due to bad plastic (a known and acknowledged issue by apple)

At work we bought a G5 dual 2,7, it too crashed constantly and due the the size of this company, the shop did replace this machine after a LOT of hassle!

Another colleague from work bought an iMac, after 1 week, the CD refused coming out!

I am so pissed. I who once adored Apple, now say fuuck you Apple, I dfegad on apple, I really have to heh with their quality, and I really the shop I bought my stuff with.

ANy of you guys who have the same **** hitting the fan with Apple?

You guys have any problems with your Macs?

Thanks

Man. No complaints here. Sorry to hear though.

Find a G4. You won't be disappointed.

That sux ass.

Blows chunx even.

Sorry to hear. Seriously.

NOTHING annnoys me more than when something happens to my Mac.

Hope you resolve everything.

Makes me think: if it's working, DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING!!!

C HEat

[

That's because you'r a freedom of (fascist) speech champion and allah is punishing you. eheh...

Actually, an engineer I know had spent about 4 months trying to fix a client's G5. Fan issues, motherboard, etc. This was one of the first gen G5s.

My friend recently acquired my old studio's mix plus system (g4). That thing has never given me troubles in the 4 years that I have been using it.

Well a G4 isn't an option since it doesn't have PCI-e and my PT HD cards are PCI-e...

I had a G4 and sold it. Never had any problem with it.

I just called the shop and they have a brand new G5 2,3 waiting to be picked up so although I wonder why they couldn't do that yesterday when I spent 4 hours waiting there for nothing, I'm happy with that.

My Quad is also running but again, they feel the CPUs are not okay and will have to be replaced once more ==> THis will be the 5th CPU block they'll try!!! Can you frakkin' believe that???

I do love OSX and would really hate to go back to windoze but if my quad never gets repaired, I'll just have to buy me a bloody PC again... Or maybe when the G5 comes with intel processors, that will help a lot because I know that the IBM manufacturing process of CPUs really sucks, its a generally known issue and it appears to be true!

Cheers
Lawrence

My G3 and G4 machines were rock solid. Can't say so much for the G5. You CAN'T beat the Apple OS, but their G5 motherboards leave much to be desired... (as does IBMs lack of commitment towards the desktop G5)

It's a very good thing Intel will be building the CPUs and Mboards for Apple from now on!!

I feel your pain! (see my post in the "G5... blow chunks" thread from last week)

Once upon a time, many years ago I purchased a mac, because everybody said that's the way to go. After 1 and a half year 'sucking', I gave up. Never touched a mac till that point. Yes I'm a real pc fan, because they have never left me in **** in the middle of a session. I cannot tell the same about mac. Though I will never say something like mac sucks, but I really don't like them.
Regards Tamas Dragon

I can build a PC that will dust any PowerMac into the weeds with 4 GB of RAM, in about two hours from parts to booting XP. For le$$ than half of a Mac.

Rock solid.

Then again, I'm one of those non-professional Native DAW types.

Seems a lot of **** to eat just to run Beat Detective.

I'm a mac user and a mac fan, but a regular poster at the Adobe Photoshop forums has had this to say about the Quads...

http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/[email protected]/205 it's Post #201

Meanwhile, me and my little G4 just keep on rolling along.

My dual 2GHz G5 that I bought last summer has been the most stable Mac I've ever owned (in 14 years of owning them). Logic and PT|HD all day long everyday with nary a hiccup.

Sorry to hear of your problems because I have 4 Macs and they have been rock solid from day 1.The only problem I have had with my G5 was when I got the wrong memory before, that can be a nightmare.It is hard to try to convince you that it is an isolated case when you have had multiple problems.Overall, I believe that the Mac is a solid piece and sincerely hope you get yours worked out.The Apple store has always been great to me when I have had problems and in many cases have done tech work for me free.Hang in there, it will work out.

No problems here. My G5 1.8 runs smoothly. I surely hope it stays that way !!!

Sorry to hear about your trouble though. If my mac behaved like yours, I´d have a serious problem...

Good luck anyway !

Bill

sorry to hear your troubles.
FWIW
i have (2) g4 powerbooks, a 12" 1.5 and a 15" 1.0.
i also have a MDD dual 867 powermac G4,
a 20" cinema display and a 3 year old ipod. I have never (knocking wood) had a problem with any Apple product.

good luck

About this PC vs Mac thing, I must admit that in my 12 years of IT consultant, the PC hardware has let me down only once, a 4.500 dollar Dell Laptop broke down in 4 years and support from Dell is simply hell! Further, PC hardware has been very very stable.

Problem is wondows which is compared to OS X slow and not very productive. But it's not bad either. I guess it's what you like most. I just notice that when working on windows, I'm cursing within 15 minutes. On OS-x I never curse... So OS x is healthier for me

Anyway, I owned a Powermac 9600, very stable. It ran 5 years and never had any problem with it. Same for my G4 dual 1.42. Very stable. But if you read the internet, the G5s are very very problematic. I also think it's a good thing Apple will have Intel build stuff from now on.

I'll just hold on for a while and see what happens next. I alreasy told them that I would not accept another failure again. Another failure means:
- option 1: gimme a brand new machine.
- option 2: see you in court, prepare to pay me for all the time lost and studio down-time!

Cheers.

Yeah that really sucks!

I'm one of those passionate Mac users, and am probably loyal to the point of ignorance as to what else is out there.

I've never had a problem (touch wood), but sorry to hear about your frustrations.

Cheers - Rez

Tell them you want a whole new unit. if they refuse ask for the manager. I have owned 47 of those quads and only one has been bad.

not trying to be a stick in the mud, but you won't win $ for loss of stuido time...they're not legally responsible. it probably says this in the paper work that came with the mac.

on the other hand, i am VERY sorry to hear of your troubles--sucks when something like this happens!

yes they suck - my friend is a consultant - installes thousands of macs - 1 in 10 is bad by his numbers. I went through 3 lemons in a row - forget about it - only becuase I created a HUGE stink and demonstrated all the money time and effort trying to get one to work did they replace it.

My G4 Dual 500 is the best but obviouly not powerful enough for anything other than one of my VO editing rooms. The last gen of 2gig G5's are good but hit or miss..

I am finally in a good place after about a year of huge troubles - I will wait until they fall apart and then move to a more stable platform.....

Could all of this unreliability be contributing to the resurgence of dedicated recorders? Grapevine survey seems to indicate that dedicated-hardware (digital NL) RADAR, MX2424, etc. along with 2" are where DAW users flee to.

Keep the DAW for edit and mix, but capture performances on a trustworthy unit?

Wondering.

Karl

A freind of mine (her husband actually) works for Apple. She said that the policy is if after three attempts at repair they don't fix it they have to give you a new one. They may balk but they have to.

I've had a bunch of Macs over the years. Recently, since I bought my G5, I've had problems. The G5 Dual 2.7 had a bad hard drive. We knew this the first week. I got it replaced. Has been a dream machine ever since. I had a refurbished Powerbook 1.67 that also had a drive that went down the first week. I also got that replaced pronto. Those were my only problems. I've had the Dual 2.7 for almost 2 years now.. That long? I got it the day it was released. A year?

I have owned a g4 tower for almost 5 years now, no problems at all.
It is however, in the next year time for a new tower.

all this talk scares me.

If it is issues with CPUs and Mobos, hopefully the Intel switch will clear things up.
As intel towers will more than likely use a mobo from intel along with the CPU.
For the most part intel mobos have been the best boards out in the PC world. correct ?

lawrence_o,
I wish you better luck with macs or computers in general in the futre. No one should have to deal with all of that bull**** your going thru.

The repair folks here at the Apple store in Charlotte were good, but unfortunately the parts they replaced weren't.

I am on my 3rd Logic Board.. dual 1.8. My warranty runs out in a few weeks.. but the last repair seems to be doing fine.

It still bugs me though.. and I worry all the time doing big mixes. No crashes in a while, but it makes me uneasy. And that's why I droped $2000 for this dual 1.8. Peace of mind.

It pains me because my G4 was solid as a rock.

Yes, Apple's quality control has gone in the crapper big time. I'm very sorry to hear that they could not get their **** straight with the new quads, either. Usually it's not the processors.. it's the Logic boards.. but maybe this next gen with intel processors will be different.

Yeah you definitely need to stand on their heads, and not on the phone. In person is better. The Apple store managers DO have the power to grant you the new machine you deserve. 10 days? It takes 10 days to do the first repair.. so how could they know it's a lemon in 10 days? That's rediculous. They are feeding you bullcrap, and if anything happens with it again, demand a new machine, cite the lemon laws, and do it in the store.

All the more reason to buy Apple's "refreshed" (or whatever they call it) machines.. Essentially open boxes, tested and repackaged. Or the refurbished ones... This way, it's more likely that somebody has actually made sure it works.

And you get a discount to boot.

Meanwhile, I'm still running a Quicksilver G4 which has been running nearly constantly for years now. Rock solid.

-dave

I bought a G5 dual for the studio about 8 months ago, and it just never worked properly from the start... lots of crashes. After 3 return trips to the Apple store resulting in the replacement of absolutely everything (memory, HD, motherboard, etc.,..), I finally complained enough and they sent me a brand-new in-the-box G5 with a few nice little upgrades.

Other than that one G5, I have lots of other Apple products and have been really happy with them all...

yup, been real stable with G5 Dual 2.5 and TiBook 1GHz.

bad karma perhaps?

>> Keep the DAW for edit and mix, but capture performances on a trustworthy unit?

Absolutely. There are so many upsides to this approach. Reliable tracking (that's enough by itself). No latency problems. In the limit, you don't even need an inbound audio interface (from A/D -> computer), just a way to quickly transfer the tracks from the tracking recorder into the DAW.

With the capacity of a modern dedicated hard drive recorder, you can afford to turn it on in the morning and leave it on for an entire day of tracking, simply putting down location markers or noting times. It's a relaxing way to work. And you don't need to slog a computer around when recording on location.

-synthoid

I bought an imac a few years ago,and it never worked.
It crashed after i completed the install procedure with the "my first apple" cd rom.
It kept crashing a few times a day. Luckily it had a reset button on the side.......I switched to PC (windows xp) and never had any problems.

There's one great plus for apple computers :
they look very good.

Hans

I had a G5 that was a similar saga. They ultimately discovered (after replacing everything inside the machine twice) that the case was slightly warped. Yeah. Apparently this changed the airflow/freaked out the thermal control system enough to cause some lovely crashes. New case (and several weeks later) things were as good as new. And BTW, they was a refurb purchase.