iBreak (Again)
18 January 2006 @ 23:27 in Life
Hands up who remembers the iBook G3 logic board
problem? You can't see it, but my hand is up. That's
partly because the first laptop I bought was an iBook
G3. With that problem.
As was the one my brother bought.
Ditto my parents.
Ditto Nik.
Ditto many, many others.
The problem was this: Apple manufactured a batch of iBooks which later developed problems in their logic boards which caused them to fail. The affected computers suffered from:
How do I remember so clearly? Because Apple did finally admit the problem, and the FAQ about the logic board exchange problem – wherein, after interminable wrangling, the company will replace the faulty components in affected iBooks – and the information about the programme, which needed to be extended to deal with all the faulty models, is still online, here.
All well and good, you might say. But no.
Today, sick of all the interoperability problems around showing Mac-authored presentations on Windows computers, my wife took her iBook G4 (that's G4, mind, the next generation of iBooks) into work with her to present.
I got a panicked phone call this morning from her: “My Mac isn't working; the screen is just showing weird colours and lines.” I tried a few things – remote troubleshooting is always tricky – but it sounded ominously hardware-related. And tonight, when I examined the laptop, I was struck by the similarity of symptoms with the good old iBook G3 issue. I saw the scrambled video; I saw the computer starting up to a blank screen.
And what do I find with a little research on the problem? It's all happening all over again. (Also, see here)
The similarities are just too strong. The symptoms are identical, with a new addition; as with my wife's laptop, many users are reporting that on startup, there are no chimes, and the fans run at full. Pressing down on the left of the unit – something to do with the graphics card, apparently – can obviate the problem; many users are now running their 'portables' successfully by clamping it to the desk to apply this pressure. Go figure.
Consequently, and with a wry smile or irony, I currently have my PC sitting on top of her laptop – on the floor – as I make a backup of the information on the hard disk using FireWire Target Disk Mode.
But so what, right? If the logic board problem was fixed for the iBook G3s, Apple will do it for the G4s, right? Wrong. Apple has not yet admitted that there is an endemic problem, despite much evidence to the contrary.
In our house, this isn't disastrous. I have a few iterations of backups for my main Mac and her's, and computers are numerous enough that she will get work done without too much inconvenience. But what of the pleasure her iBookbrings brought? Internet
radio, blogging from the sofa, doing the weekly shop
in bed on a Sunday morning; all this is denied her by
an apparent intrinsic flaw in a piece of technology
she invested in, in good faith.
But dammit, even that's not the point. Speaking not as a journalist but as a customer of Apple's, I find it fantastical both that it can continue to manufacture products with apparent inherent flaws and that when such mistakes are made, not immediately and with no fuss do everything to rectify the problem and placate its customers.
After all, my own main computer is the same model – 12in 800MHz G4 – implicated in user reports, and it's surely only a matter of time before it too fails.
It's late, I have a hundred and one other things to do, and the last damned thing I need is for technology to fail. It's not fair on me, and it sure as hell ain't fair on my wife.
As was the one my brother bought.
Ditto my parents.
Ditto Nik.
Ditto many, many others.
The problem was this: Apple manufactured a batch of iBooks which later developed problems in their logic boards which caused them to fail. The affected computers suffered from:
- Scrambled or distorted video
- Appearance of unexpected lines on the screen
- Intermittent video image
- Video freeze
- Computer starts up to blank screen
How do I remember so clearly? Because Apple did finally admit the problem, and the FAQ about the logic board exchange problem – wherein, after interminable wrangling, the company will replace the faulty components in affected iBooks – and the information about the programme, which needed to be extended to deal with all the faulty models, is still online, here.
All well and good, you might say. But no.
Today, sick of all the interoperability problems around showing Mac-authored presentations on Windows computers, my wife took her iBook G4 (that's G4, mind, the next generation of iBooks) into work with her to present.
I got a panicked phone call this morning from her: “My Mac isn't working; the screen is just showing weird colours and lines.” I tried a few things – remote troubleshooting is always tricky – but it sounded ominously hardware-related. And tonight, when I examined the laptop, I was struck by the similarity of symptoms with the good old iBook G3 issue. I saw the scrambled video; I saw the computer starting up to a blank screen.
And what do I find with a little research on the problem? It's all happening all over again. (Also, see here)
The similarities are just too strong. The symptoms are identical, with a new addition; as with my wife's laptop, many users are reporting that on startup, there are no chimes, and the fans run at full. Pressing down on the left of the unit – something to do with the graphics card, apparently – can obviate the problem; many users are now running their 'portables' successfully by clamping it to the desk to apply this pressure. Go figure.
Consequently, and with a wry smile or irony, I currently have my PC sitting on top of her laptop – on the floor – as I make a backup of the information on the hard disk using FireWire Target Disk Mode.
But so what, right? If the logic board problem was fixed for the iBook G3s, Apple will do it for the G4s, right? Wrong. Apple has not yet admitted that there is an endemic problem, despite much evidence to the contrary.
In our house, this isn't disastrous. I have a few iterations of backups for my main Mac and her's, and computers are numerous enough that she will get work done without too much inconvenience. But what of the pleasure her iBook
But dammit, even that's not the point. Speaking not as a journalist but as a customer of Apple's, I find it fantastical both that it can continue to manufacture products with apparent inherent flaws and that when such mistakes are made, not immediately and with no fuss do everything to rectify the problem and placate its customers.
After all, my own main computer is the same model – 12in 800MHz G4 – implicated in user reports, and it's surely only a matter of time before it too fails.
It's late, I have a hundred and one other things to do, and the last damned thing I need is for technology to fail. It's not fair on me, and it sure as hell ain't fair on my wife.
