iMac G5 suddenly died - what now?

After having it less than four years, my iMac G5 died on me. It's never given me a single problem before. After doing everything I could think of, I took it to the Genius Bar today (at the Apple store in NYC) and they ran a bunch of tests on it. But they couldn't definitely diagnose the problem except that the logic board is probably dead. Is it worth trying to get it fixed? The technician said it would cost around $800 to replace the logic board. I am so disappointed! Less than 4 years! Is there anything I can do that is not going to cost me the price of a whole new computer?

Could you tell us exactly what the issues are with it? What exactly does it do or not do? Maybe we can figure something out for you. What are the specs also?

Hi - thanks. At this point it can't even get to the login screen. It just freezes at the blue startup screen (often - and the guy at the Genius Bar said he'd never seen this before - the blue screen will become black and blue striped!). When the problem began, I could log in and my programs would open up, and then at that point the computer would freeze. But even those days are over now.

Here are the specs for my model: http://support.apple.com/kb/SP69

The Genius Bar guy opened up the back of the computer to look at it, and said he couldn't see anything visibly wrong with any of the parts, but that based on the way it was acting it is probably the logic board. Unfortunately I don't know exactly what tests he ran to check the hard drive, but he did not think that was it.

Any help or thoughts are greatly appreciated.

Sorry let me try the link again: iMac G5 - Technical Specifications

That looks like the very first iMac G5 lineup. A lot of those suffered with the bad capacitor issue that at the time plagued many motherboards out there. If that is the issue it would either need a new Mainboard or a patient person to change out all the blown Electrolytic Capacitors which takes a lot of skill with soldering printed circuit boards.

It could be something else though. Have you tried putting in the Install DVD that came with the iMac and booting holding down the C key and see if the DVD will boot to the installer. If so let us know.

Hi. Thank you again for responding so quickly! What you say about the motherboard seems like the problem, although the Genius guy did not say this was a known issue with this model.

I did try putting an Install CD in there, but it didn't work. In fact the disk is still in there. Honestly I don't think the computer came with its own official Install CD though. I used the one that came with my Apple Care package. If the computer itself did come with one, then I don't have it (but I keep everything like that...).

Sounds like it's a goner. Is there anything I can do with Apple? $2,000 to last less than 4 years is a big bummer.