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Refurb iMac - Hit the Jackpot...

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ShadeTreeDan

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A few weeks back my 20" Core Duo iMac died on me. The diagnosis from the Mac Genius was a bad Logic Board, which would cost close to $900 to fix. Thinking this was an opportunity to upgrade a little, I pulled my RAM, tore the machine apart, removed the hard drive and mounted it in an external USB case, then started shopping. I am not a big fan of the glossy screens on the new iMacs, so I checked out the refurbs on the Apple Store online. After much consideration, I decided to pop $1399 for a refurbished 24" White Core 2 Duo 2.16 ghz with nVidea 7300 board, and paid an extra $33 for 2-3 day shipping. It arrived today (in two days) and I wasted no time setting the machine up. It booted successfully from the old drive, now in its USB case, and I started testing things out. I was very pleasantly surprised to discover from System Profiler that I didn't get the 2.16 ghz model with 7300 board, but rather, the 2.33 ghz machine with the 7600 board. And that 24" LCD is awesome.
 
While copying files from the old startup to the internal on the 24, I opened the window for the new drive and discovered that instead of the 250gb drive I had ordered, the computer came with a 500gb internal. Checking a bit further, I was again pleasantly surprised to find that rather than two 512mb RAM modules, the machine has a single 1 gb module, with the other slot empty. Since I had 1.5 gb in the old machine, I will now have 2gb of RAM.

I think I'll run out and play the lottery now.
 
Wow! You must be living right to benefit from that much Karma! By the way, I have never had any success booting any OS X machine from a USB 2.0 drive. Did it just boot right up? It's not supposed to. But I have heard that if you clone a drive using SuperDuper and make it bootable, that you can make OS X boot from USB, albeit slowly.

--
Only my opinion. It's worth what you paid for it. Your mileage may vary! ;-}
http://www.dougwigton.com/
 
Apple didn't send you exactly what you ordered. I wouldn't put up with such sloppiness. Also, demand that they send you a system with the slower CPU & GPU and half the HD space & RAM. Be firm! :)

Enjoy your turbo iMac,
Steven
--
Just having fun with my cams:
http://www.pbase.com/swhatleys/

 
So ...... Clete ........ exactly what about his story do you find so unlikely. Out of 2 refurbed systems I have purchased from Apple, both have arrived with significantly more options than what was listed on the Apple store. Sounds like Dan hit the jackpot, and kudos to him. I was equally pleased recently when my Mac Pro came with a 512mb video card vs the $300 cheaper 256mb it was advertised with. Apple ships the refurbs the way they were originally ordered in a lot of cases.
 
Such 'silent upgrades' are fairly common. I bought a white 20" iMac 2.16 - and got a larger HD & more video ram.

Congratulations on your new machine!
 
I've gotten lucky like OP before. I orderd a Philips 107S CRT (Standard model which max res of 1280x1024) on-line from Best Buy for in-store pickup. I few days later after getting it, I noticed that the model I got was the 107P which was the professional model that had a max res of 1920x1440 That is pretty good for a 17" CRT.

BTW, I was kidding about sending the iMac back. :)

Enjoy life!
Steven
--
Just having fun with my cams:
http://www.pbase.com/swhatleys/

 
Clete,

I didn't necessarily need anybody to say anything, although I do enjoy reading that others have had similar pleasant surprises with Apple refurbs. I was just a bit excited about my good fortune and thought others might find it of some interest. And it does seem an unlikely story, even to me, especially since these sort of things usually happen to other people, not me. I had been lamenting that I didn't have the option of ordering the build-to-order system with the 7600 card on a refurb, and was blown away by the system I actually received.

Dan
 
So apparently you do get occasional bonuses.

I just bought a MacBook refurb, my first Apple refurb, and it had 2GB RAM instead of 1GB.
 
I had been worried about whether I could boot from USB, but I couldn't find a Firewire case for the SATA drive locally. I didn't have any problem booting the first time. Just held down the option key at startup and selected the external drive and everything worked. When I rebooted with the option, the external didn't show up until I powered it down and back up again. Then it worked fine. It does boot slowly from the USB external, though.
 
Can you run and retrieve those boxes? You'll need them if you ever need to ship the computer to Apple, or sell it and ship it some day.

BTW, congratulations your good luck. In your shoes I would definitely splurge $1 in a lottery ticket. :)
 
steelslider said:
You'll have us all ...wondering ..."what if"...;-)
Click to expand...
Exactly. I have fantasies about ordering a 2GHz 20" and discovering that Apple decided to send me a 2.8GHz 24". Wait, the dream continues: the box turns out to be mislabeled and inside was a new yet-to-be-announced 30" iMac. :)
 
Apple typically lists the base configurations as the refurbished specs, anything built to order (BTO) that gets refurbished gives someone a pleasant surprise...........
 
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