Good thing I bought Applecare my iBook Died AGAIN

fellowship · July 30, 2003 10:42PM

I promise I am not trying to sound like a broken record with my iBook troubles but WOW... AGAIN!!!

No joking... Last time was the logicboard and I got it back hoping it would last but fearful I could not trust the hardware to last I purchased Applecare. Good thing I did because now the system crashed again only to boot into "safe boot". I lost all sound, could not boot from CD, lost my LAN over Air Port etc. I could boot in "safe mode" but the computer is all but useless and far from operating as it should. I took it into my Apple store and talked to the genious I have spent time with before with the last logic board death and he could not do a firmware reset or boot from CD. He feels it is the I/O "Input/Output" controller located on you guessed it....

The logic board...

I have been on the net looking over searches on Google etc. over the subject "iBook Problems" and iBook Logic Board issues" and the like and the returns on the subjects of iBook troubles are more than numerous.

I wish apple could repair my problem by resolving their issues rather than doing a repair with what seems to be more of the same faulty hardware parts.

I will get the iBook back in 5-7 days so they tell me.. I will let you know what the problem was. It has been only a handful of months since the last "death" and I am let down a bit that apple "seems" to be repairing the ibooks out there with more of the same faulty parts... Not just my iBook but countless others out there on the web.

Do any of you here at AI have similar experiences?

Coming at you from my trusty PC... I hate the software on this PC but at least it will get me by while my iBook is in the shop yet another time...

I hope this time they don't send it back scratched up and out of allignment like they did the last time. I lost about a month getting that resolved.

Your experiences?

I wish I had gotten a Powerbook or a tower now in retrospect. Seems the iBook has some history..

Fellows

pscates · July 30, 2003 11:18PM

I don't want to tell you your business, Dale, but I hear Dallas is home to a great number of lakes and rivers. Might I suggest taking said iBook and heartily flinging into the deepest, swiftest body of water of your choice and just starting over with something new?

fellowship · July 30, 2003 11:28PM

Quote:

Originally posted by pscates

I don't want to tell you your business, Dale, but I hear Dallas is home to a great number of lakes and rivers. Might I suggest taking said iBook and heartily flinging into the deepest, swiftest body of water of your choice and just starting over with something new?

Love your idea there pscates but I must admit my relationship with my iBook is a Love/Hate relationship. Sort of like all the hard working cuban people who spend hours of truble to keep their old 50's American cars running. They are a thing of passion

I love when the iBook works, I hate it when it is broken... I could learn a thing or two from those dedicated cuban individuals who spend hours working on their old American cars.

Thanks for the reply

Fellows

ast3r3x · July 30, 2003 11:37PM

i am curious what people like you do to your computers, perhaps you need one of the original iBooks...they were solid enough to shoot with a gun, stand on, through like a frisbee, freeze, even spill a coffee on it

audiopollution · July 31, 2003 12:00AM

Quote:

Originally posted by ast3r3x

i am curious what people like you do to your computers, perhaps you need one of the original iBooks...they were solid enough to shoot with a gun, stand on, through like a frisbee, freeze, even spill a coffee on it

Perhaps you should rephrase that question.

I think it's much more important to ask why Apple is producing such poor quality goods, when it is obvious (from your example) that they are capable of much better.

fellowship · July 31, 2003 12:40AM

Quote:

Originally posted by ast3r3x

i am curious what people like you do to your computers, perhaps you need one of the original iBooks...they were solid enough to shoot with a gun, stand on, through like a frisbee, freeze, even spill a coffee on it

I agree with what audiopollution said above....

The sad part is that 95% of the time my iBook sits nicely on a glass desk and never moves and I use external keyboard and mouse with it. This desk is in a home that is constantly kept at cool levels (air-conditioning) and connected to "clean" electricity.

I love apple OSX all the apps etc. I just wish I would have known the iBook was such a problem. I would have spent more and got a powerbook.

Fellowship

murbot · July 31, 2003 12:59AM

Quote:

Originally posted by FellowshipChurch iBook

I just wish I would have known the iBook was such a problem. I would have spent more and got a powerbook.

Fellowship

They should really put that in the iBook documentation, eh?

jeremiah rich · July 31, 2003 1:38AM

Quote:

Originally posted by murbot

They should really put that in the iBook documentation, eh?

Nice one! But ya, sorry about the problems you are having. I have seen your posts in the past about them, and this is just crazy. Hope it works out.

powerdoc · July 31, 2003 3:46AM

The powerbook have a quite better quality than the i book. Much less troubles.

Anyway i am glad to have paid for a three years Apple care warranty for my powerbook.

pscates · July 31, 2003 6:54AM

Is this iBooks in general, or just that particular model/vintage? I'm wanting to get my friend a nice 14" when she starts back to school here soon.

Is Fellowship's situation rare, or does everyone have problems with the 14" iBooks?

der kopf · July 31, 2003 7:22AM

Quote:

Originally posted by pscates

Is this iBooks in general, or just that particular model/vintage? I'm wanting to get my friend a nice 14" when she starts back to school here soon.

Is Fellowship's situation rare, or does everyone have problems with the 14" iBooks?

I'm thinking Fellowship's gotten a lemon. You know how it goes, sometimes, it's just your number coming up in the great lottery of hardware nuisance. I have a 14" (and have had a minor problem with it, the trackpad going dead, but that got fixed). I have gotten two other people to go for a 14" (just by playing around with mine in front of them. I kid you not), and they haven't had any problems yet. Moreover, I have a first generation 14", if I can call it that. Anyway, I think:

a) Fellows' ibook was assembled on a monday.

b) Somebody wants to test his faith. Fellowship, ever thought of changing your nick to Fellowshipchurch Job?

ast3r3x · July 31, 2003 8:03AM

i was joking...perhaps i needed a smiley?

well this is a more rare thing, but the people who get problems really seem to get problems!

fellowship · July 31, 2003 8:39AM

Quote:

Originally posted by pscates

Is this iBooks in general, or just that particular model/vintage? I'm wanting to get my friend a nice 14" when she starts back to school here soon.

Is Fellowship's situation rare, or does everyone have problems with the 14" iBooks?

From what I understand iBooks in days past were great. I bought my iBook based on the reputation Apple had on the previous iBook. My mistake...

Here are a few clips I found off the net:

Quote:

Posted by: mrjamin

Dear all,

I'm hoping that someone will be able to shed some light on my problem before i get back in touch with Apple.

My 12" G3 800MHz iBook (combo) is suffering a bit at the moment. About a week ago, i turned it on, while OS X was booting (grey screen with the apple in the middle and weird swirly thing), the display started flickering, blaci 1px high lines jutted in from the right hand side of the screen and from the left side of the apple, then it froze (swirly thing stopped swirling). I ctrl+apple+power'd it to restart it and the same thing happened. Since then, the display doesn't even come on - the OS loads (the only way i know this is that the volume buttons make the 'pip' sound when you change it). I've tried resetting the PRAM, resetting the power managment and even tried plugging in an external display and there's no change, even my external display has no picture.

I'm thinking that my mainboard has died (again!) - anyone else had any similar problems? My main concern is backing up my data - filesharing is off and obviously i cant navigate system prefs to turn it on. Are there any keyboard shortcuts? I'd like to get my stuff backed up before i send it off to apple for obvious reasons and without being able to see the display this is somewhat challenging.

Thanks in advance,

Ben Lanc

Then this person:

Quote:

They are sleek and lightweight. I was so happy with my iBook, that I quickly bought another one for my fiance. Even though they were slow to respond when running anything more complex than a text editing program, the small size, top design, and ease of use won me over.

However, recently, I have serious doubts of ever owning an Apple again. Now, less than 6 months after making these two purchases, both iBooks are back with Apple technical support services for repair.

My troubles also appear to be related the common 'logic board' problem, that has caused hundreds of posts on the Apple support forums.

At this point, my only thoughts are how to unload these two systems for something that I can rely on

Then this person:

Quote:

I ordered my iBook 800 the day they came out and when its not in the shop I love it. Over Winter Break my iBook began having a weird problem. While running osx i would get these strange horizontal lines (the same as those shown below). So i called up AppleCare and they walked me thru reseting pRam, Power management and removing my aiport/extra ram. After all these things plus an erase and install nothing worked. So i sent it in and purchased applecare thinking better safe than sorry. They sent me a box and repalced my motherboard and sent it back on Jan 6. I booted up and everything was great. I ran safari and it was has worked since until today. (the previos system was running 10.2.3). Well today i was ichatting and my screen started to get vertical lines again it froze and now it won't boot. I'm really pissed off I mean how unlcik do i get. Did i buy a Lemon computer? Whats wrong any ideas? any help is usueful i've tried reseting pram/power management and i was running 10.2.4 before the major crash. I'm posting screen shots of what the lines looked like after i tired to reboot it but it froze on the reboot. I'm in urgent need of helping and my faith in apple is fleeding fast...and i'm back to windows 98 if you don't save me now i'm gonna have ot face facts and unswitch for lack of stablility, how ironic

I will spare you more examples but they go on and on.

Logic board, logic board, logic board, logic board, etc.

Does apple just continue to put the same old faulty logic boards in when they do repairs only buying a few more months each time? I would have hoped they would resolve the problem.

Fellows

trumptman · July 31, 2003 9:05AM

Dale

I think they are right and you just happened upon an lemon. It happens with ALL brands. For some reason a small percentage just end up vexxed.

I like the Jeep brand a lot. I own two Cherokees. However before I owned either of the Cherokees including my nice Jeep with 221k miles on it, I bought a brand new 1993 Wrangler with all the fixings.

That things was an absolute lemon. It chewed u-joints like they were going out of style. The replaced them repeatedly. The dealer had a man come out from Chrysler because it was out of service so often that it was ready to fall under the lemon law. He had them replace the rear springs with stiffer ones saying the engine must have been twisting the rear-end with excessive torque. However it still kept chewing up the u-joints.

So who knows? Maybe your iBook has bad karma.

Get them to upgrade the motherboard with lots of complaints. Maybe the new upgraded (read faster) motherboard will not have bad karma and you will feel better about your book mistreatment as well.

Nick

matsu · July 31, 2003 9:11AM

Seems iBooks have their share of issues, with the price of the 12" baby Al nice and respectable, and the miserable G3 still plugging away in the iBook, I wouldn't touch an iBook untill it gets a G4 and better reliability, even though the prices are good, I'm not encouraged by what I hear.

Then again I heard that the 12" PB was a raging slab of twisting hot metal, and it's perfectly cool and useable in everyday office use, and the burner actually works at the advertised speed too!

Anyway, FCiB dude, I re-iterate my previous advice when confronted with a lemony machine. Hound Apple into replacing it. And by hound I mean ** write a nice polite letter/e-mail saying this has been the umpteenth repair and you believe your machine is a lemon and want Apple to replace it since it has become increasingly unreliable through no fault of your own.

If you do not think that anything will come of it -- see how long it took Fran to get satisfaction. Then eBay is your friend. By all means, get the machine repaired, then eBay it "in perfect condition, with Applecare Extended coverage untill _____"

If it sprouts more problems, let someone else deal with Apple and move on to another machine. Peace of mind, ethical considerations aside. But really, if you don't trust the machine, eBay it once it's repaired, if the repair is good enough for Apple, then it should be good enough for you to say "perfect condition"

imacfan · July 31, 2003 9:33AM

Quote:

Originally posted by trumptman

Dale

I bought a brand new 1993 Wrangler with all the fixings. That thing was an absolute lemon

But even a working Jeep Wrangler is a lemon!

David

serrano · July 31, 2003 11:15PM

heh... my usb/trackpad died, along w/my display, and my drive... almost diskwarrior saved the drive long enough for me to grab my files via firewire target diskmode... then she just died, won't boot past the grey screen, only targetdiskmode... off to the apple store i go, yay for my blueberry tower that's never given me one god damn problem...

fellowship · July 31, 2003 11:40PM

Quote:

Originally posted by serrano

heh... my usb/trackpad died, along w/my display, and my drive... almost diskwarrior saved the drive long enough for me to grab my files via firewire target diskmode... then she just died, won't boot past the grey screen, only targetdiskmode... off to the apple store i go, yay for my blueberry tower that's never given me one god damn problem...

It will be ok.. We have problems with computers. I hope you get all your problems solved

Best wishes

Fellowship

jon-e-orange · August 1, 2003 5:55AM

ibooks = c**p logic boards. I had four in my ibook before I swapped to my 12" powerbook and guess what I am still waiting for apple to reply to that issue!

Fellowship tell them you want a NEW mac or else. You have been more than patient with the repairs but if they cannot fix the ibook satisfactory you should have a replacement (then try for and upgrade like me LOL).

j-e-o

chych · August 1, 2003 10:12PM

Hmm we have two ibooks and they've been having a great beating and still work perfectly (one is 1.5 year old now, other is 0.5), however one of our friend's ibook, which is less than half a year old, already has a problematic monitor where the back light dies if the screen is bent too far and a broken AC adapter. Though I did break one of our AC adapters too. Fragile little things, why can't they use metal at that joint?!

Oh well, you're obviously doing something wrong

anders · August 13, 2003 3:43PM

Good lord FSiB. All those stories are mine too.

In for service after three month. Flickering horisontal lines and then a dead screen and VGA port not working. mother board replacement. Then the usual stuff (power adaptor replacement). Then horisontal line flicker again and dead screen. I have recieved the box and will sent it to Apple tomorrow.

I´ll put a letter asking for a PB 12" upgrade and me paying the difference if they are becoming tired of repairing my book.

One observation I did was that the only two times I have used an external screen the computer died witin a week.

May the powers of Fran be with me and may they come quicker to me than to him.

Good thing I bought Applecare my iBook Died AGAIN

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