Linkstew

I handed Hayward a check for $810 dollars, and Hayward handed me my PowerBook. I opened him and pushed his button and he made that sound he so distinctly wasn't making when I left him in Hayward's [adjective deleted] hands. And I smile crossed my face (but I made sure to not let Hayward see it) and I put my laptop in my backpack (and immediately wished I hadn't also have books in there today) and I went to a cafe and I just used my PowerBook for awhile.

I'm writing this from bed right now. God it feels so good. This is the way it's supposed to be. Aww yeah.

I'm sorry I hurt you. I won't do it again. I'll pay for the posh treatment next time.

So now I've now been without my PowerBook and I'm strangely having ergonomic issues. But to make matters worse, I called to get an update on the status of the repair today, and things ain't good.

When last we left our fearless Hayward... Wait, no, that's not quite right -- When last we left my fearless PowerBook in the hands of the adjective Hayward, a "replacement part" was going to take "a week" to order and cost me "$350." So it'd been two weeks, and no word. So I called back M.A.C. today to find out what was going on. My "replacement part" hadn't arrived yet, and Hayward promised to call and find out about the status of my "replacement part."

So I went to class, and after class, I had a voicemail message from Hayward. Here's a paraphrased version: "We sent your old daughtercard in to be repaired, but it turns out that the processor was also damaged and they're going to need to replace the whole thing, but that's going to cost $650 instead of the original $350 you were quoted."

Okay, what's wrong with this situation? Let's count:

1. After the first week on a one week estimate, I wasn't contacted, and M.A.C. didn't contact the whoever it is they're dealing with, and it was just left hanging. I gave them some slack, because I assumed their might be shipping issues in the wake of the attacks of the 11th, but it appears I should have been more diligent.
2. I was told I would be paying $350 for a "replacement part". This led me to believe that was the whole assembly, which in my mind included the processor. Apparently, that was $350 for just the daughtercard itself (with the memory controller and cache, etc)), but not the processor. It was assumed the processor would be in working order and ready to slap onto a new daughtercard.
3. If that $350 was for a repair operation and not just for a replacement daugthercard, then some of that must of have covered labor on the repair, leaving the daughtercard costing let's say $300. Now my replacement daughtercard+processor is going to cost me $650, which leaves a 400 mhz PowerPC G3 costing more than $300! Hmm...
4. It's probably now going to take another week to get this thing fixed, putting it at a month total that I've been without my laptop.
5. M.A.C. diagnosed my problem by replacing my daughtercard assembly (processor and all) with a known working daughtercard assembly. Now, what part of this process gave our adjective Hayward enough information to conclude that I would just need a daughtercard replacement? In other words, I was lied to and told that a "replacement" would cost me $350, when in actuality, a replacement was going to cost me $650, and that $350 was assuming the best case.
6. Why didn't M.A.C. tell me the worst case estimate and then surprise me if it had turned out to be only a $350 repair.

I could go on, but it's really that last point that irritates the dickens out of me. I had expected it to be expensive an expensive repair, and I was pretty much prepared to pay up to $700 for the repair without thinking twice. I was ready to pay for my mistake. If $650+labor had been their original estimate, then I would have said "Do it." But that wasn't their original estimate, and now I'm really bitter about this whole thing, and it's costing me two extra weeks without my PowerBook.

But as pissed as I am, I sighed, called Hayward back, and said "Just fix it as soon fucking as possible." Well, I didn't say "fucking," but I intoned it.

Why? Because as pissed as I am at M.A.C., it's still going to cost me $650 for the parts. Further, I would have to wait for the broken daughtercard assembly to be shipped back, and then I would have to take the PowerBook to another shop, where they would have to send the assembly back out, and then get another assembly back, which would take a long time. And I just want my fucking PowerBook back. Working. Now.

There are two morals here: First, don't shop at M.A.C., don't take your computer there for repair, and don't trust anything they say. Second, and more importantly, don't try to upgrade the RAM in your laptop yourself, avoiding getting yourself into this situation in the first place. Invest the $50 or so labor to take it to a store and have them install it, so if they fuck it up, they pay the price.

I've now been without my PowerBook for three weeks. And I've causally linked my lack of a laptop to the fact that my wrists have been killing me for the last week. It seems backwards that my laptop is what keeps me from having wrist issues, but that would appear to be the case. Without my laptop, I've been using my desktop computer something like 98% more than I did when I had my laptop, and apparently I don't type properly at my desk.

Or, I was just more mobile, and adjusted my position more often with my laptop. But with my desktop, I'm forced to use it the way it's set up, and I can't very easilly type while lying on my back with my wrists vertical (for example). Of course, this combined with the rigid ergonomic situation at work is probably what's aggravating the situation. So now it's not just a recovery of my computing mobility that's got me aching to have my laptop back. Speaking of which...

I left my poor PowerBook at M.A.C. on Friday, and today around noon I got my call back. Sure enough, 2-3 days.

"Somehow the processor card got fried I don't know how but when we put in a new card it worked fine and the rest of the system worked and the AC adapter isn't loose so that's not the problem." Hayward told me without any commas.

"I know how it got fried," I reminded myself.

"It's going to cost $350 for the replacement parts and $40 for the labor and $40 for the initial consultation." he informed me.

"Fine, do it." What was I going to do, say No?

"Okay it'll probably take about a week for the parts to come in and I'll call you when it's done."

"Can I have the card you used to test it with?" I wanted to ask. But I didn't. I just smiled and said Thank You. This is just the price I pay for trying to do it myself, I remind myself. And it's a good thing I worked overtime last month, because this is aparently the karmic balance to make up for all those hours. I'm just taking the blows on this one as they hit. What else am I supposed to do?

And it still looks like I'll get it back before 10.1 comes out, so I can't complain too much.

Leaving my PowerBook on the floor for a week did not make it magically get better. Its case did get kind of linty, though. So today, I took the poor little fella into a local Mac Store, and I left him there to be pampered and cared for.

"We'll call you in two to three days to give you an estimate, and get your approval if it'll cost more than $80." he informed me.

"Yes, yes, that's fine, thank you." I told him somewhat impatiently. "Can I just pre-approve anything up to $300?"

"No."

You see, I just want the thing back in action (preferably before OS X 10.1 comes out) as soon as possible.

That my posting volume has decreased in the week since my PowerBook has been out of commission is not at all a coincidence. Without my laptop, my writing routine has been seriously disrupted. Normally, I wrote post from bed right before I go to sleep, or from the couch while I'm watching TV, or from any random spot where I happend to have my laptop that wasn't work or my desk. But because the only computers I've been using in the last week are at work and at my desk, I just haven't been writing posts I was planning to write. Generally speaking, my laptop is where I write, and my desktop is where I code.

So until I get my PowerBook back, writing is a pretty forced endeaver, and infrequent updates and crappy posts should be expected. I'm just not at all in the right frame of mind to write when I'm sitting at a desk.

Hi. I'm feeling very helpless and kind of depressed at the moment.

You see, today I got 512 megs of RAM for the lower slot in my PowerBook, and I quickly put it in, and my PowerBook quickly did not boot up. Not even a chime or a crash. Just silence. Nothing.

I was pretty calm about it the first time. I've had plenty of things not work the first time. So I pulled everything back apart, and double checked some instructions, and I put everything together again, and my PowerBook didn't boot again. Rinse and Repeat, several times.

It quickly came to be 2 o'clock, and I had class, so I left my laptop in pieces in the office. I felt naked walking around campus because my backpack was seven pounds lighter than normal. And for three hours I sat in class, growing more and more anxious about my PowerBook. For the last hour of 170 I could barely stay focused (That the lecturer is hard to understand doesn't help. That the lecturer is going over the exact same thing as last semester when I didn't get into the class, but attended for three weeks, helps even less).

I hurried back to the office, and I renewed my attempts to make my poor little PowerBook boot. I found this page of links to official Apple Service Manuals (the same manuals that an official repair-person would use). I tried the trouble-shooting tactics that I was capable of with my limited resources (I don't have a whole spare PowerBook of parts to drop in as a replacement), but it was all for naught.

And then there was a breakthrough! For three hours I'd been trying to make my PowerBook boot, but the processor card hadn't been seated. I felt like a fool -- I should have noticed that the card was freely coming out, but that I'd had to really tug to actually remove it in the first place -- I'd just been afraid to apply enough pressure to get it back in. With relief, I put everything back together, put in my batteries, hit the power button, and listened to the beautiful sound of

Nothing.

Nothing, nothing, nothing. I took it apart and put it back together a few more times, trying all the permutations of the RAM. I made sure to actually seat the processor card each time. And each time, nothing. So I gave up and walked home, planning to try using my AC power adapter instead of my batteries.

But when I got home and pulled the PowerBook out of my backpack, it was warm, bordering on hot. It felt like it normally feels after several hours of constant use. I quickly took the batteries out and pulled off the keyboard, and found the insides very hot. So I let it cool down for awhile while I cooked dinner. After dinner, I plugged in the AC adapter, but it still didn't power on, and it started heating up just like it had with the batteries in my backpack.

So I unplugged it and removed the batteries and put it in the bag. I'm going to take it to the Mac Store on Saturday, since I'm booked solid with meetings and class tomorrow. I hope they'll be able to do something. At the very least, they should have the resources to run more tests and narrow down what the problem is. And if the Mac Store can't help, I'll try calling Apple.

And if it can't be fixed? Well, I already skimmed eBay looking at used Pismo PowerBooks. I already have lots of accessories for this PowerBook that are incompatible with new Apple Portables (an extra battery and an extra power adapter, for starters). I also like the design of the Pismo better than the new Apple portables, and I happen to like having a dual of batteries. And for that matter, even if they can fix my laptop, I'm seriously considering picking up a used Pismo in six months or a year as a backup, because I like it that much and I want spare parts.

But without my PowerBook, I'm feeling very... out of sorts. In fact, I'm feeling kind of powerless. I can't work in class, and my freedom of work at home is seriously impaired. I wasn't able to watch TV without getting really upset, because I always have my PowerBook with me when I'm watching TV. And tonight I'm using my desktop (for more than five minutes) for the first time in months. Basically, I've become totally dependent on a laptop instead of a desktop, and I'm going to have to get some sort of working laptop in the next month or I'm going to get really cranky.

And for that matter, I better have a working mac by the time OS X 10.1 comes out. Bah, it looks like paying to fix my stupid mistake is going to be karmic balance for working 60 hours of overtime this pay period.