Apple
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Update: my lil’ Macbook
Posted by Michael on 17 Oct 2007 | Tagged as: Apple, Michael
Just for the records. I had a macbook in repair a while ago
They kept my precious for a month. Changed the logic board. No more light flickering, yay! Changed the topcase. It was so shiny, for a while. Now with my dirty hands it’s not.
I’m afraid on the long run it’ll break again, it already have marks where it broke the other time. I guess I’ll have to live with that.
Battery and AC adapter: THEY DIDN’T EVEN LOOK AT THEM.
The thing is that here in Italy we don’t get to have Apple Stores with Mac Geniuses, but private shops, often (not always, you’ll see) with Dumbasses™ working there.
Now the warranty is over (although for italian consumer law I should get 2 years. I’ll look into that).
The charger still have false contacts, and the battery was down to an astonishing 60% of capacity.
But here’s the good news. I walked into another service shop, because I was too lazy to cross the city and go where I bought the thing. Well, without a receipt, just by looking up the serial code of the machine, they checked if Apple had a warranty extension on my battery, and CHANGED IT, right on the money. Shiny new battery. I *love* when people do their job and they do it right. If only those suckers in the first shop cared to look into the problem (and they had a month to do it)…
Now, let’s go fighting my private war with the first shop over the battery charger. Should I have to shed 60€ + VAT, I’d rather do it for Leopard.
Stay tuned, more to come.
Macbook 1st gen
Posted by Michael on 04 Jul 2007 | Tagged as: Apple
I am the happy owner of a Macbook 1st ge (base model. 32 bit core duo 1.83 GHz, 60 Gig HD…etc)
I’m in love with my white cute little Macintosh, but I had my share of troubles that I decided to share with the world on this post. Please note that nobody should decide against buying a Mac based solely on these informations. As an “Apple Fanboy”, like it’s common to be named these days, I strongly encourage people to do the switch from Windows to Mac. It’s a hell of a leap forward. But I’ll leave this for another post.
My Mac had the whole lot of the 1st gen problems.But I’m picky
To name a few:
- Sudden Shutdown Syndrome (”Holy c**p, I was working you whiteish piece of plastic-and-circuits!”). Solved with a firmware upgrade. Thanks Apple.
- Decoloring of the wrist resting place (99% of the time known as “wash your hands when you get home, before laying your filthy claws on the mac”. Not sure if its the same issue other people had. My issue almost vanished with Blish and other glass cleaning chemicals)
- Noisy power plug: when the cpu is idle, this thing makes a whiny sound, but it’s barely noticeable. I don’t know if it’s related to the other power plug problem (see below)
- Screen Bezel cracking open near the iSight. This one happened a few days after purchase. Brought to service, they stated to have changed the screen bezel, now it’s as you see in the (sorry, bad) picture and not moving. I consider it a non-issue now.
- Power plug with stuck pin. It’s not simply stuck like most stories I read about on the net, where poking the pin with a needle makes it pop out. This is worse because it moves freely, looks like the spring inside got out of place, or broken. The symptoms are apparently not serious (charging/charged light on the plug not always working). I hope it doesn’t have something to do with the indicated capacity problem of my battery (between 75% and 85% after almost 12 months)
- Battery…well I said everything above.
On to the more serious issues
- Screen lamp flickering when working on battery and not at full brightness. Haven’t been able to reproduce this at will, but it’s happening more and more often and with greater effect.
- “Slice” of plastic coming off. The lid has 2 “things” (I have no idea of how to call them even in my mother language) that presses the wrist rest area, and the result is….see picture:
So I’m taking this baby to service again. Hope they won’t keep it away from his daddy for too long.
What did this story teach us? “Early adopters keep whiny blogs!”
Stay tuned, more to come.
