Panic! Panic!
With just 9 days before I have to submit my thesis, my pride and joy, my Powerbook, dies. Ahhhh! Panic! Panic!
She did not suffer, she just went to sleep and wouldn't wake back up again, instead making a spine chilling beeping noise every time I tried to start her. Panic.
Took the morning off work to take her to the Apple shop. Man in shop says, without looking at it, "it's a memory card slot problem".
He checks the serial number and says that the slots on a batch made around 2 years ago, are prone to this kind've meltdown at around this point in their life, and it will be fixed free of charge, even though the warranty has expired. Result! It'll take 3 weeks though - Boo!
I explain that although I (of course) have 10,000 back-up copies of my thesis, (OK, a slight exaggeration) it is a major inconvenience not to have a computer for the next 9 days.
He inspects my 'puter and says I have 2 memory card slots and that moving the memory to the other slot, should be a temporary fix for a month or so.
So, my computer is working again, and in a couple of weeks I can take it in and have a new board fitted for free. Gratis. Nowt.
Can you imagine a PC supplier replacing a part that had worn out after 2 years, for free! Not a chance.
My Mac is Dead! Long Live the Mac!
6 comments:
Wahey! Macs are great. If mine died I'd be inconsolable - God bless the Apple store and its crack team of expert fixer-uppers.
Busy 9 days ahead?
Me too, I was on the verge of tears last night.
And then I wanted to hug the man in the store.
Thankfully I managed to maintain my masculinity and did neither.
Next 9 days shouldn't be too bad. Supervisor was pretty complimentary, just suggested a couple of things to make it better.
Macs are great, it is true.
My powerbook breaks all the time but I manage to fix it by turning it off and on again. Have you tried that?
I don't like the Apple store though. I've only been there once. It was full of silhouettes with ipods on, dancing around like tossers. Rubbish.
Macs are over-rated and over-priced. Of course they will fix Free Of Charge a known problem caused by shoddy manufacturing/ design , it's not like it was caused by "user-misuse"
Oh and I'm not a PC-Wintel Freak either, I just find modern day computers a sad necessity of life. Otherwise I could not read blogs, could I?
Macs are expensive, but overpriced? I dunno. For what you get for your money I'd say they are pretty good value. They very rarely breakdown in my experience.
The computer support team in my department is 5 guys. 4 of them are for the PCs and one for the Macs. Yet the numbers of computers in the department is about 50:50. PC's just have four times more problems.
My point about the free repair though is that Apple acknowlege a shoddy part and will fix it. Any PC company would deny it's a crap part and tell you that the life expectancy is only two years anyway.
i'm still using an 8 year old powermac g3 400 and it can out work and outplay the brand new HPs at school, and by the way, ive never had a problem that wasn't magically fixed the next morning when i turned it back on. And if you're looking for shoddy parts, buy a Dell.
Long Live Apple!
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