PowerBook Disassembly Guide 226
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."
You think this will get shut down? (Score:5, Interesting)
What do you think the odds are that this site will have the same kind of problems?
Saving money is great - fraud is not. (Score:3, Interesting)
That said, what i don't like is novices that "cheapskates" that buy these things, use them, screw up their computer while they are still under warranty, then take them to a service provider (me, others) and then have the units fixed for free - it's no less than fraud - because usually someone that messes their unit up after doing something like this doesn't disclose that information.
I have had many a customer tell me that NO ONE has ever opened their computer (including them) - I open it up and there are screws missing, the magnetic sheild has fingerprints on it, etc etc.
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.
Or Worse (Score:5, Interesting)
Likely much worse when they sell them on Ebay [ebay.com] after messing with them. Obviously not all powerbooks on Ebay have been modded, but some of them might have been. Caveat Emptor.
Can't get to the site... (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple's manuals are generally OK if you need to disassemble stuff but their diagnosis flow charts SUCK.
Wow, I actually got a little nostalgic :) two months ago I was up to my elbows in broken Macintosh, now I'm sitting in front of a MDD and flanked by a bunch of PC's in my cushy corporate job :)
wallstree pb g3 (Score:4, Interesting)
Danke Danke Danke (Score:4, Interesting)
I can't believe it! (Score:5, Interesting)
Compared to Dell (Score:5, Interesting)
When I bought my current X300, I considered a 12" powerbook as well, but the 3 year warranty period on the Dell made the difference.
OTOH, when the hard disk died the on-site engineer that came to fix it was so clumsy that I had to do some of the taking apart myself (that included finding the howto's on the site).
So, what exactly am I trying to say here..?
Similar information for non-Apple products? (Score:3, Interesting)
Two recent examples I have had: a Panasonic VCR, for which I could not find anything at all, and the wiring in a 1990 Mitsubishi, which I did eventually locate on some acid-induced Japanese website.
Reassembling a PowerBook tip (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's a tip:
Draw 4 diagrams of the iBook or PowerBook. Make them neat pictures (maybe even use Photoshop.)
Print them out. Places the screws on the places on the picture where they go.
This is what I've done. When I get a PowerBook or iBook in for repair I just print out the four different sides of screw removal:
Outer shell bottom
Outer shell top/display
Inside logic board/magnetic sheild bottom
Inside logic board/ top
You can also draw places where cables go too.
Once you have it on your computer you can print them out again in the future.
Yes, Yes... that is very nice but (Score:4, Interesting)
He found this method of disassembling the powerbook after a long battle with his failing hardrive, and less than helpful Apple technicians.
Before the disassembly, Cowboyneal was heard to say [cowboyneal.org]:
"I got my PowerBook back today, but it's not nearly as nice as I'd hoped. The technician where I brought it failed to image the drive (like he said he would) before shipping it to Apple so now while the hard drive works perfectly again, I've lost all my files. The point of catching the hard drive failure early before losing any data has now been completely negated. Looking at my PowerBook which is now clean as a slate makes me just want to smash it, knowing the hours of work I've lost." (emphasis mine)
I asked pudge about it and his response was:
"It deserved it"
Re:Compared to Dell (Score:3, Interesting)
I dunno, but I bought a Dell øaptop from a friend that does Dell service. He thre in a cracked screen spare laptop that "trust me, it'll bee needed", as he said. And sure enough. After one week, the notch that holds the screen to the casing (That thingy that locks the computer) broke. Dell sent a new one in metal, to replace the flimsy platic thing. B fixed it. Soon, the CD drive went, one from spare. The plastic aroud the screen cracked, replace. The keybaord went south, replaced. The battery was worse than a mistreated iPod, one half year of service fom that one. Replaced. The floppy chocked, el replaco! The spare laptop was functional to some degree, with an external screen, but the the logic baord went. And the the logic board went on the other one as well, and I bought an Apple.
Re:Warranty? (Score:1, Interesting)
BS... there are many parts inside of laptops that a certain subset of users can fix without difficulty. I definitely don't do it regularly, but I've been inside my laptop to resolder broken points. The only difficulty I had was keeping track of all the screws.
Additionally with more and more laptops coming with built in wireless cards, there's more reason for an individual to be inside their laptop.
TWO mouse button mod for powerbook? (Score:2, Interesting)
i really like apple's laptops but the single mouse button is the insurmountable barrier to entry. if i could get two mouse buttons a powerbook would be my next machine.
G4 Powerbook frustation story -- topper (Score:3, Interesting)
Around the 2 year point, the top third of all the scan lines started to become intermittent. As the weeks went on, intermittent turned into off, and now the middle third started going intermittent. With the thing far out of warranty, knowing full well it'd make more sense to get a new one (vs. get it serviced), I decided to roll the dice and assume it was a (fixable) loose connection somewhere in the screen to the main board...
Weeelll... It turns out the back plate of the screen is *glued* and *snapped* to the front side, making disassembly of the screen a one-way process...
Unfortunately, firmly reconnecting everything has no effect, leaving me with the bad screen, and a mass of back-paneling that no longer can attach to the front side. Seeing there was no point in having the screen at this point (after a couple weeks, the middle third of the scanlines was off, and now the bottom third was intermittent), I simply removed the screen completely...
Thus, I now have a "headless" G4 TiBook w/ a monitor attached to serve stuff--it's not so portable anymore!
Re:Warranty? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Right... (Score:4, Interesting)
I called Apple up a couple months later and told them I had to send them my laptop to fix the screen, and it had also (a few times, maybe one time in ten) turned itself off when I unplugged the DVI cable. The next day I got the box. Two weeks later I got a call saying, 'Uh, we don't have your computer yet, are you sure you sent it?' Well, er, actually, I hadn't been able to live without it for long enough to send it in. But it was nice of them to call.
I eventually took a friday and a monday off. On thursday evening at 5:30 I dropped the box off at an Airborne Express location and went home. On monday at 10 AM I got a call from one of my coworkers asking if I wanted to come in and pick up my laptop. So they got it on Friday around noon (according to the tracking number) and sent it back out on Friday sometime later in the day. And not only was the screen flawless, but it has never turned itself off when disconnecting the DVI connector since.
Got to admit, as hard as I am to impress, that impressed me.
-fred