Subject: Re: Advice on Apple warranties and an iBook?
From: dano (dano@well.com)
Date: Thu Nov 01 2001 - 21:27:23 MST
At 9:26 AM -0500 on 10/29/01, Matt Larson wrote:
>An Apple hardware related question, semi off-topic but not that far
>off: my iBook2 (500 mhz), which happily runs YDL, has developed a
>slight discoloration in one horizontal line on the screen. It's
>actually not that bad, but one problem leads to others, and I want
>the machine I paid for. What I'd like to know is if anyone has had
>to return a laptop to Apple, just to know what I'm in for. I'm very
>annoyed, because I have spent a lot of time setting up a nice triple
>boot (9, os10.1, YDL 2.0) and tweaking the YDL install (upgrading to
>KDE 2.2.1, Gnome 1.4, etc.) and I don't want to have to reinstall
>now. Will they send me a new one or repair my current one? Also,
>if there's a good Apple-specific computer store around, do they do
>Apple warranty repairs? The warranty card states that they are not
>responsible for data, of course, and I guess that's to be expected.
Matt,
I work for an Apple repair center. Only Apple does repairs on
PowerBooks or iBooks now, so if your machine is still under warranty
you are better off sending it in yourself. If you take it to an
authorized repair facility they will take the extra few days (in the
sending and receiving processes) to do exactly what you would do.
That being said, their turnaround (as noted by a previous poster)
should be quick, depending on whether you are close to a metropolitan
area or not. Slow only means an extra day or so *unless* they don't
have a replacement screen in stock. (It sounds like you have a bad
screen.) We recently had a TiG4/500 that was in Apple's shop for
about 3 weeks while they waited for a back-ordered screen.
The previous poster also recommended that you get the Apple extended
warranty (I forget what they call it). You're eligible to buy it for
up to one year following the new purchase, and it doesn't kick in
until you call or the end of the first year of ownership. (I think
that's right...)
IMHO the $200 we pay (I paid when I bought a PowerBook for my mom) is
worth it if the machine goes south.
And they will only replace the hard drive if it needs to be replaced.
Of course you should make a backup before sending the thing in. Leave
the thing to boot into 9.1 or 9.2.1, or even X, but remove any
password protection on those volumes. If they cannot start the
machine to "test", i.e. view the screen, they'll erase the drive to
get in to it.
If you have any sensitive files, remove them. It sounds like you can
see the screen just fine so I think you're right to take care of the
problem before it gets worse.
HTH,
(the other) Dan
-- Eddie would go...
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