I received an e-mail from Apple stating that my 27 inch iMac may fail and the hard drive will be replaced free of charge.

Has anyone else had such an e-mail?

Is this a hoax?

I bought my iMac in Australia and am now living here in LOS, the nearest Service Provider is in Bangkok, and anyone familiar with the 27" iMac knows that it is quite heavy and not something one wishes to lug around Bankok.

Should I worry about my iMac failing or just forget about it?

I have attempted to provide the link (this is the first time I have tried this, so not sure if it works)

Thanks in advance for any advice, as computers are not my forte', I still know how to use a slide-rule, if you get my drift.

http://www.apple.com/au/support/imac-harddrive/?cid=CDM-AU-DM-P0013590&cp=em-P0013590-192431&sr=em

I also received that email. I checked with the Apple store at Paragon and was told to bring my iMac to the Apple Service Center at Amarin Plaza, 3rd Floor. I haven't done so yet but plan to in the next several days.

Ok thanks for that bdevaux.....would appreciate if you can find out more info while you are in the store.

I live 3 hours drive from BKK and am not keen on driving myself in the city, so a bit of a hassle for me to get my computer to the store.

Ok thanks for that bdevaux.....would appreciate if you can find out more info while you are in the store.

I live 3 hours drive from BKK and am not keen on driving myself in the city, so a bit of a hassle for me to get my computer to the store.

The program will probably run for a while - just make sure you do your daily backups and hope for the best. If you're not doing backups... well maybe you're OK with suddenly losing all your data, pictures, etc...

For iMacs in Thailand, I'd use SMCFanControl. This program lets you set the minimum fan speed higher - set it to 2400 RPM instead of the default 2000 RPM and your machine will run much much cooler. This, in turn, preserves the hard disk. At 2400 the fans are still very quiet.

iMacs are set up to use the back of the chassis as a heatsink so it's normal for them to get hot. But they seem to be tuned for use in an air conditioned office, or in a place that's 25 degrees C, not for 30 - 40 degrees we have over here. Making the fans run a little faster does wonders.

Ok thanks nikster, will try that with the fan speed, as I don't have AC and my computer does get hot at times.

I am guilty of not doing daily backups......so an external hard drive is the way to do backups? As you can guess I am not very computer savvy.

Cheers.