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I bought it in June.

One day in November, it suddenly started getting slower and slower; I rebooted, and it got halfway through the boot (-v) and kept getting I/O errors. The next time, it got nowhere. The install DVD didn't even recognise that there was a drive in the machine.

So, that sounded like a dead drive. I decided that having a working computer today was worth the cost of a new drive, so I just bought one instead of getting Apple to replace it. But that didn't work: The installer DVD didn't recognise the new drive either. Great, now it sounds like a dead SATA controller. (That new disk is now in a different machine, so I know it was fine.)

I lugged the iMac down to the store, the guy took it in back and tried to boot it off a known-good drive; it didn't work. He wrote up a work order for "replace logic board".

Two days later, I got it back, and instead of replacing the logic board, they had just replaced the drive. Hmmmmmmm... I couldn't imagine why this worked, and waited for the other shoe to drop.

In February, it suddenly developed a habit of rebooting at random, about once a day. The log said only "SMU shutdown cause -122". As far as I can tell from googling, this maybe has something to do with the power supply overheating, but I'm not sure. The online support guy suggested I reset the SMU, but that did nothing. I resigned myself to having to take it in to the store again, but procrastinated (while starting a twice-daily backup regimen).

A week later, it got pokey, then wouldn't boot, exact same symptoms as in November. I took it in and said "so I get a new logic board for sure this time, right?" They told me 5 days, and 6 days later I spent an hour on the phone yelling at managers, and finally got it back on day 7. New logic board and new disk.

So, then when I got it back, all was well and good, except that it was as loud as a fucking jet engine! The fans seemed to be on high all the time. At first I thought, well maybe the reason it died the other two times was that the fans weren't on high enough before, and it melted. But then I reset the SMU again and now it's back to being gloriously quiet. Hmmmmmmm...

Update: I spoke too soon. Ten minutes later, and the fans are loud again, even though I'm not doing anything but iTunes and typing. Shit.

So what's this SMU business all about, anyway?

In summary:

• Apple's software: So awesome. The honeymoon is not yet over.
• Apple's hardware: Pissing me off. (But not nearly as much as PC hardware pisses me off.)
• Apple's support: Good for not trying to charge me for any of this. Pissing me off by being so slow, and for apparently not having fixed it right the first time.