PowerBook PowerBroke
Thursday, September 8th, 2005My fist dependent, my fist little one to care for, my poor little PowerBook. The problem started three weeks ago I was helping my parents try to fix their Linksys wireless routers problems (it was dying more than an unlucky Buddhist). I lost my connection to the new network I had setup and none of the normal WiFi network tools were allowing me to rejoin, so I restarted the computer ‚ or so I thought. It turned out to be a permanent shutdown.
All the machine would do was chime, it wouldn’t boot. I tired removing my extra RAM, I tried resetting the PRAM, I tried removing the battery, nothing would get it too boot. I ended up wasting 30 minutes at the Apple store in Yorkdale before I gave it to CPUsed. They tried the same things and determined that it was the logic board (the-everything-in-the-laptop-except-the-screen-keyboard-harddrive-CDROM-and-RAM part of the computer) and a new one would be $1200 CDN. The best part of this story is the fact that though the date this happened was just short of a year from when I received my PowerBook from the stork mail it was over a year from when I purchased it. One year from purchase is the length of Apple’s complimentary care for their products unless you buy the $300 Apple Care.
My PowerBook is a 1.33GHz G4 with a 60GB hard drive and a 15′ screen, you can buy a new 12′ iBook with the same specs for around $1200 (at least you can with the educational discount). I decided to plead my case to Apple, after all, I don’t think they want to be known for creating a laptop that falls victim to a restart after one year. He asked for a few minutes to update his records, I told him to take all the time he wanted, he took five.
