Last weekend my Powerbook suddenly starting playing up, refusing to load and emitting three beeps whenever I hit the power switch. Apparently this means that the BIOS (or whatever Apples use) can’t detect any of the RAM on the motherboard – I don’t know why as the machine was on a flat surface all the time and can’t have been dislodged but there you go.
Anyway, I took the machine in to my nearest Apple Authorised Repair Centre (you can’t just get them fixed anywhere unfortunately if you want Apple to pick up the tab), which is on the other side of Manchester and therefore a bit of a pain to get to. I was told it would take up to five days to fix because of business contracts that were being worked on and they’re more important than I am (well, those weren’t quite the words used, but the implication was pretty clear). I had hoped that the problem would be fixed by tomorrow so I could make a bit of a roundabout trip on my home to Bury and pick up the laptop on the way, but the following email has just arrived in my inbox:
Hi unfortunately your powerbook is not ready and has not been diagnosed as yet, the normal turnaround at the moment is 5 days diagnostic and if parts are needed from Apple total turn around of approximately 2 weeks.
They’ve not even looked at it yet—even though I told them exactly what the issue was. Bugger. All I can hope for is that the problem is fairly simple (RAM dislodged or just some new memory, both of which shouldn’t require sending off for parts as I’d assume a repair centre would have at least some RAM knocking around), otherwise I could be stuck for a long time without what is now my main computer.
Problem is, I can’t take my business elsewhere because as far as I know there is only one authorised repair centre in the Manchester area (not sure if the Apple Store at the Trafford Centre does repairs, but trekking all the way over there isn’t my idea of fun), so I’m completely at their mercy until the laptop is fixed. 🙁
The little Apple store next to the department (not under it, the place I bought the RAM from for CompSoc) is a fully authorised repair center, or at least they say so in big letters on the front.
Sucks that you’re getting screwed over. When I got my laptop I managed to also get a 3 year business warranty from HP, which I have only had to use once. It took them 5 days from me reporting the fault to receving a fully working laptop back, it would have been 3 days but I couldn’t arange for a pickup for those first two days due to other commitments. Frankly laptops are the only computers I care about warranties on, everything else I am happy to hack to pieces and fix myself but when a laptop goes wrong there is very little that you can do.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen that place, and according to Apple my nearest repair centre is Apple Centre Manchester. Then again, my call was handled by a guy who genuinely thought I lived at 10 Downing Street, London so who knows if he gave me the right information. 🙂
They’re listed on here:
http://www.manchester2002-uk.com/shops/computers.html
As “Manchester Mac & PC Centre”, try giving them a call, they’re relatively friendly and the couple of times I’ve been in there they seemed pretty intelligent.
I’ll have to leave it this time because the Powerbook is already checked in at the Apple Centre. I might give the place you mention a call though just to see if they have a quicker turnaround time because if so I can go and get the Powerbook and take it there instead (plus it would mean I wouldn’t need to take as much time off work to pick it up).
PC’s are better.
But the Powerbook is so pretty! purrs quietly
That’s one thing I don’t like about Apple. Yeah, their OS is amazing and the design of all their products equally so, but from what I hear build quality isn’t their strong point.
I have an iBook. No complaints so far, but I’m very tempted to take out an AppleCare Protection Plan when my 1 year warranty runs out in March.
I don’t think I’ll bother with the protection plan, it was something like £279.99 for my Powerbook which is a bit ridiculous.
What annoys me about Apple is not that their products are of low build quality (although my Powerbook does feel a bit flimsy compared to my trusty Toshiba laptop which has survived everything bar being dropped out of a third storey window), but the fact that you have to go to one of their authorised repair centres which are few and far between. As a result they’re often very busy with other repairs and so it takes forever to get things fixed. I’ve also had no one from Apple contact me and offer even an apology for the fact that I’ll be without my laptop for at least a week.
I’m a bit bored (damn typhoon!) so I’ll post something pointless.
I think the Apple products are great, if you want what they have to offer. A bit of a stupid statement, but… most other companies offer quite a lot more variety than Apple. In terms of size, price (well…) and so on.
What I’m trying to say is… where is my Apple Vaio X505?
“where is my Apple Vaio X505”
Your laptop has SSE2 so you can quite easily install the leaked x86 OSX build on it.