Forgive the silly title — I had to send my 12-inch PB away to Tennessee (or wherever Apple does their heavy tech support), because the slot-load drive was locking up.
So this is my first Apple hardware issue…
In 4+ years with my Dell, the only hardware issue I ever had was my Dell Trinitron monitor (which went bad at 2 years, 11 months).
Is this an indication of what I can expect in the future?
I’ve had only one issue with Dell. Something was wrong with our server, not sure what, but Dell came to us the following day and installed a new motherboard on site. For free, of course. That’s when I decided to only buy Dell in the future.
(Except, I’m planning on getting an iBook soonish, but Dell doesn’t carry those.)
My 15-inch PB just went in for a new logic board last week. Service was speedy, though it didn’t solve my power-related problem. Sent it out on Wednesday morning (to Texas?), got it back Friday afternoon. I don’t think they did much diagnosis, but it was fast :)
Yea, Apple support is great IMHO - “when it breaks, send them a new one in 48 hours!” I had the same support experience with a 1G iPod with a bad wheel. However, I am concerned at the number of PB problems people have been reporting recently.
I work on a lot of new Macs at the newspaper office, and I notie they seem to become damaged quite easily. Several of the CD tray drives on a few dumb eMacs keep opening and closing on their own. But Dell? I’ve had 3 laptops from them, each never having a single issue.
I’ve been a Mac user for twenty years and it seems this current generation of Powerbooks is one of the worst products Apple has put out in a long time, in terms of service and quality with all the problems with batteries, white spots, and drives.
Before this I always considered Macs to be tanks.
I’ve had my Titanium Powerbook for a bit more than a year, and suffered countless problems… in the first 6 months alone my PB was on ‘vacation’ for 3 months! Still, now that the bugs have been ironed out it’s the best laptop I’ve ever used.
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You must have gotten lucky with the Dell. I can’t even count the problems at my old job with all the Dell desktops. In my Dell alone, I had the ethernet port die twice, which meant they had to replace the entire motherboard.
My fiance and I have had only one minor problem with our PowerBook, and that was just a bad battery. My dual G5 has performed beautifully since last September. My dad has dealt with Apple Support for his PowerBook, but he had no problems with their tech people.
Good luck!
Is it on permanent vacation?
No laptop is more prone to ghouls and ghosts and Compaq. Each board is built with “evil” and “pain.”
My gateway laptop works pretty well after 1 1/2 years, but the cd/dvd combo drive is sketchy at best
Original clamshell iBook, 300mhz. It’s 4 and a half years old and I still use it for IM, email and making sure my designs work in safari. I’ve never had to send it away or take it in for repairs. It just works. I wish more of my hardware was so easy to deal with…
I manage about 115 Macs for a catalog, including several PBs. In three years, I’ve rarely had to AppleCare a machine due to faulty design (bad motherboard on one; bad Display for another) – and not once for a PB. I’ve read all the reports of the new generation of PBs being faulty, but I chalk that up to fud; you don’t see many message boards where people post positive results. Just my 10,000 Yen.
-bd
> I’ve read all the reports of the new generation
> of PBs being faulty, but I chalk that up to fud;
> you don’t see many message boards where people
> post positive results.
it’s really disturbing that people feel the need to act as damage control for Apple. comments identical to yours are posted across every Mac message board i’ve been to. it’s almost as if Apple employs people to browse Mac forums at work and spread pro-Apple spin and downright irrational comments such as yours.
why is it irrational? because there are real people having real problems with their Macs. then someone like you comes along to say, “don’t worry guys, everything is ok.” well thanks a lot, my savior, i guess my problem will go away now. the only fear, uncertainty, and doubt involved with this issue is felt by those who have gone weeks or months without their computers while repairs or replacements take place. nearly every Apple product released in the past year has at least one major issue. iPod battery life is turning out to be a joke. iPod Mini headphone jacks are dying after a month or two. faulty G5 power supplies that can shock you, eMacs with bad CRTs, warped PowerBooks, etc, etc, etc, the list goes on.
your “ignore the negative” mentality is an attempt to focus on the specific, when the more important observations come from larger trends. if you use your Mac in a social vacuum and you have a problem, then you’ll almost definitely think it’s just you when your computer starts to misbehave… you’ll get Apple to fix it, it’ll keep breaking until the warranty runs out.
the very frequent occurrence of iBook logic board failure is a good example of this. Apple would have never started their iBook replacement program if people wouldn’t have come online and raised hell about the problem. when people started finding out that they were all having the same problem, there were murmurs of a class action suit ( http://www.google.com/search?&q=ibook+%22class+action%22&btnG=Google+Search ). as if by magic, Apple publicly confirmed that there was a problem and started a program to deal with the fallout. this is democracy at work, not FUD.
if you are having a problem with your machine, and you go online and see that hundreds or thousands of other people are having the same problem, then the evidence is clear: there is a very real, consistently occurring, quantifiable problem with the product line in question. it may not affect every user – which explains the “nothing wrong with my machine” mentality… but just because you don’t feel sick doesn’t mean i haven’t got the flu… got it?
with any given Apple hardware problem, you can check meta-patterns about faulty hardware by checking (at a minimum) http://discussions.info.apple.com and browsing to the forum for your product. you will probably find (as i have with several products) that your issue is not just an isolated occurrence.
i wish i could join you and the rest of the Zealot Militia in the happy world of Apple Computer, but there are problems with almost every recent Apple hardware offering. the more Apple becomes a media darling, the less they seem to care about their customers. there used to be a saying that Apple kept Microsoft honest – these days, i think it’s the other way around.