Do I have the first new range iMac failure-potential issue??

I was the proud owner of a new i7 2.93 model. I received it last Tuesday and today after tech support failed to resolve my issue I'm getting a replacement.

The fan now refuses to go off, despite some diagnostics to try and reset matters it still refuses to go off and I'm left with a constant irritating loud hum.

I've asked if there is any history (short as it would be) of this problem-I'm just thinking new processor etc. However I am assured that I am alone.

Any thoughts on this?

Yes, I read a lot of mac sites like this one and yours is the first report of that particular problem.

I don't know that your machine is unique in the universe but its certainly not a common issue.

Any product that is mass-manufactured on the scale that Apple does is bound to have a few lemons squeak through the QA process; an even bigger risk is a component failure since they are hard to catch ahead of time.

But what's really important is what the company does when a defect is brought to their attention. Apple has generally been (and continues to be in my experience) the best in the biz on this front.

Apple currently sells over 37,000 Macs a day, 7 days a week.
It is impossible to have 37,000 units of any electronics roll out a day and expect a zero failure rate.

To even consider upon first blush, that an issue is inherent in some vast number of those 37,000 units a day that are shipping, is, well, silly.

Some percentage of purchasers of every piece of electronics, no matter from which manufacturer, are going to be the unlucky ones that got the lemon.

No I fully accept I've probably been unlucky.