PowerBook Disassembly Guide

kwiens writes "We've been slaving away for months to create the FixIt Guide Series-- a set of Free-As-In-Beer step by step PowerBook disassembly instructions. Maybe waiting another 6-18 months for those PowerBook G5's will be easier if you fix your old PowerBook now (or just use the Guides as a starting point for that killer PowerBook case mod). Guides are up now for the PowerBook G3 Wallstreet, Lombard, Pismo and Titanium PowerBook G4 Mercury, Onyx, DVI."

Urm

[BenBenBen]

a starting point for that killer PowerBook case mod

Metal case + mains electricity + "modders" = true in more ways than one?

Re:Warranty?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you really have to ask?

Re:Saving money is great - fraud is not.

[millahtime]

The funniest thing, I saw ALL of this on an iBook a while back. The customer said they hadn't touched it. There was a long blonde hair inside and one of "these manuals" on the hard drive.

Pssst: the customer has along haired blonde.

Hey, it was the little blonde computer troll. He has gotten inside my computers too. He comes out when there's sunlight cause that's when i scurry away to hind.

Re:Saving money is great - fraud is not.

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to repair Mercedes/Blaupunkt CD changers, which regularly came in with golf tees stuck in the mechanism. One guy cut his CD cartridge out with a hacksaw, welded the chassis back together and then took us to the brink of court action because he swore blind no-one had touched his unit since the day it came from Germany.

I *heart* users.

Re:Saving money is great - fraud is not.

[JayPee]

I get this shit all the time. I'm the sole Apple hardware guy at a laptop campus which currently has around 600 students with iBooks and 12" Powerbooks.

I've heard and seen just about everything.

Student: "I didn't spill anything on my iBook"

Me: "Oh yeah? What's this sticky shit that smells like a Gin and tonic?"

Then again, the guys that work on the HP/Compaq's have it worse. They've had two or three laptops that have been pissed on. I suspect it has something to do with lower customer satisfaction.

Re:Hmmm..

[millahtime]

That said, I love being an Apple tech.. I get these goodies within a week of the product being released.

So, your ipod mini broke before the rest of us even saw them?

That being said, I have a powerbook, ipod and more apple stuff.

Re:You think this will get shut down?

[jap]

Maybe Apple has asked for this site to be placed on /. - why hire expensive lawyers sending c&d's if a herd of clicking nerds with bandwith will give the same result.

or...

[Jon Proesel]

Or you could just go with CowboyNeal's method of disassembly. http://cowboyneal.org/ex-powerbook.jpg [cowboyneal.org]

Taking it to extremes

[caitsith01]

My girlfriend once used my computer for an evening. The next day, when I tried to type, pressing a key would produce something like:

#$F|||||||||||#@#$SSSDGF

instead of, say 'a'. So I find my girlfriend, who has an innocent look of concern on her face, and I ask her: did you download any strange software yesterday? No. Did you scan your floppy disk? Yes, no viruses. Did anything else weird happen while you were using my computer? No, nothing weird.

Hmmm... so after tapping away in frustration and checking the cables I decide there must be something loose inside the keyboard that is producing crazy input signals every time I press a key. I decide to check it out, so I go and get the trusty phillips head and go over to my computer. I pick up the keyboard, and as I turn it on its side, liquid starts pouring out. Lots of liquid... lots and lots of liquid... in fact, an entire cup of tea pours out all over the desk.

Using my Sherlock Holmes-like powers of deduction, followed by an appropriately Holmesian denoument in which I made my accusations, I discovered the following. She'd knocked her tea over with her hand, and it had fallen neatly and poured directly into the keyboard body. Then, realising how terrible her crime was (it was a nice keyboard), she quietly logged off using the mouse to select Start->Shut Down->Yes, quickly packed up her stuff, and weaseled away into the night without saying a word.

Things I discovered from this incident:
- keyboards are remarkably water-tight
- darjeeling tea with one sugar is very bad for circuit boards and contact-based switches like the ones inside a keyboard
- there is no limit to the optimism and weaseliness of people when they want to get out of trouble
- it will cost you more than the price of a new Logitech keyboard if you call your partner an evil keyboard murdering wench to her face

Re:Right...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ouch hey Tom I wonder if your laptop will even still be a laptop when it comes back

FS Guy: Here you go Mr St Denis [hands tom a keyboard]
Tom: What the hell is this were is my laptop?
FS Guy: What do you mean laptop?

On The news later that night

A local man bludgeoned a Future shop employee to death today using a keyboard he was apparently yelling "Where is my laptop!" He was described as a heavy set man who left a lingering odor of cheese.

Re:Taking it to extremes

[caitsith01]

Ah, slashdot, where people will trade a potential lifetime of sex and companionship for a new keyboard... ;)

I'm not so touchy as to break up with someone over such a trivial thing. I just used the broken keyboard to beat her for a while, then drank myself to sleep.

A thought I had

[INeededALogin]

No disassemble!!!! G4... is alive!

Re:I'm glad this exists

[theMerovingian]

With the replacement cost being out of my range, I've either got to live with it, fix it myself or find a good lawyer.

And you think hinges are expensive?

Where's the information on screws?

[DarkRecluse]

I never see anything about what type of screw goes where. I was taking apart a Pismo 400 the other day and while I thought I could remember where each screw went I later realized that I could not. Of course now I can seeing as how I had to take it apart a few times to make sure everything was seated correctly.

Needless to say, when you feel resistance on a screw and you're not quite sure where it goes, don't keep screwing it in. That goes for laptops and women.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Free as in beer

[JUSTONEMORELATTE]

See, the disassembly guide is Free as in Beer
The reassembly guide is where they make their profit.

--

NOOOOO!!!!

[ed1park]

G5 ALIVE! NO DISASSEMBLE!!!

How about reassembly?

[Anonymous Coward]

"a set of Free-As-In-Beer step by step PowerBook disassembly instructions."

Anyone can take something apart. Putting it back together is usually the tough part.