The Hickensian

∞ Drew McLellan said 1539 days ago:

Man alive, Hicks! What are you doing to them?

∞ Jon Hicks said 1539 days ago:

I leave them by the fire overnight so that condensation doesn’t form – thats OK isn’t it?

∞ Geof Harries said 1539 days ago:

I just recently sold our home’s aging PowerMac G4 733 with 17” Studio Display on eBay. My plan is to replace it with a 17” iMac G5. But now after reading your post here and getting wind of other people I know with similar issues, I’m a little freaked out.

Has the quality of Macs gone downhill? My PowerMac never failed until just recently, after 3 years of solid service. But at work, my 12” Powerbook has seen a hard drive failure while various iBooks around the office have had catastrophic meltdowns. The list goes on and on.

What’s a Mac guy to do? Would you actually consider moving to a PC?

∞ Mark said 1539 days ago:

Maybe someday they’ll figure it out.

∞ Alex said 1539 days ago:

Sorry to hear about your troubles. My TiBook has been going strong for over three years now … will probably last as long. Your’s must be a lemon.

∞ Anthony Baker said 1539 days ago:

Lordy—sorry to hear about your woes, Jon. I think I’d go absolutely mad if this happened to me. Fortunately, has not. Did, however, have an instance with my Gateway laptop (my pre-PowerBook) where I spilled water on the keyboard. All keys came back working fine, save for the letter “A”, which also happened to be one of the letters in my login password.

Had to send the unit in to Gateway for care and was told it would take a week to fix. Nearly a week after dropping it off, I called to check in and they didn’t have much of an update and the person I spoke to, when told I was promised a week turnaround, LAUGHED.

Anyhow, it took over a month to get the sucker back. God awful, that. Hope the black pit of Apple Care is better than my experience with Gateway.

∞ Joshua Bryant said 1539 days ago:

Jon,

That’s frustrating. I feel for you. If it’s any consolation, I bought the same model as you from the store the day after they were announced (Apple stores here in the states carry the “ultimate” BTO model already pre-configured). Anway, after trucking all the way back up to Canada and getting home, 1 week later the hard drive starting whining and then died. Another 200 miles later and I had a replacement, but still, frustrating.

And in both models I got the Hitachi :( Loud as heck… at least you got the Seagate…

I would say try try again… you will get the model you wanted, it will work forever and you will forget all about this.

Cheer up I say! But that does suck.

Cheers,

Joshua

∞ Richard Earney said 1539 days ago:

Maybe you have excess static!!!

It is pretty rare for Mac lightning to strike twice!

∞ Jon Hicks said 1539 days ago:

Paul – they’re far too heavy to carry around!

∞ Neil said 1539 days ago:

Man, that sucks. I had the same issue with my G5 iMac but the 2nd one did the trick.

What exactly happened with the Powerbook, Jon?

∞ Alistair Holt said 1539 days ago:

John – If I were you I would consider carrying on using your old PowerBook and wait for the Intel PowerBooks to be released.

I wouldn’t actually buy any Mac equipment right now unless you are really desperate, the Intel iBooks and PowerBooks are going to be so much better!

∞ Jeff Clark said 1539 days ago:

First off, I’m not suggesting switching to Windows.

The only thing I’m going to say is that this just proves the point that a computer is a computer, regardless of what OS it’s running. Shi* happens whether it’s a “plastic brick” from Dell or a “titanium lovemaking machine” from Apple!

∞ Tim b said 1539 days ago:

Man, that is a major bummer.

I have wondered myself about Apple’s QC… I’ve had to return a G5 to them and even now, on my current PB 15” there is a dodgy pixel (but hey – I can live with that!)...

Jon – third time lucky right?!!

∞ Nick Harris said 1539 days ago:

ok… getting nervous now…

I’m currently anticipating the arrival of my new dual 2.3GHz Powermac (with dual 20” screens… no it’s not overkill, despite what the girl, and the credit card company say!)... if it goes the way of the pear… I’m totally gonna cry.

∞ Jon Hicks said 1539 days ago:

John, its ALWAYS time to do a backup.

∞ John said 1539 days ago:

Could we get an audio clip of you saying “I’ll by a bloody Dell then!!” I guess the .uk domain should have been a tip-off, but I never really thought about whether or not you have an accent. An audio clip would be smashing! Brilliant, even! :)

∞ Jason Kitcat said 1539 days ago:

I’ve had PowerBook problems when they were new on both a TiBook and AlBook but once I got over that they become more reliable and loved than any PC laptop I’ve ever owned. The TiBook has a new owner and still carries on strong.

There’s no denying it’s a pain but fundamentally they’re excellent machines.

∞ Eric Meyer said 1539 days ago:

Wow. I’ve been using a 15” PowerBook for almost a year now, and it’s gone with me everywhere (that’s about 45,000 miles worth of travel), been dropped, shoved under plane seats, pounded on by an infant, and generally abused to hell and back. It’s still going strong.

Of course, it’s a replacement for the previous PowerBook, whose hard drive started kernel-panicking my machine on the last night of SXSW. And then it took me almost six weeks to get a replacement—that’s a story I’ve never told, and frankly probably never will. Too much pain. As Chris says, Apple’s tech support does suck.

∞ jehiah said 1539 days ago:

(this story took place 2 years ago)

7 days after I purchased my 17” powerbook, I was clearing a swath of my desk to prominently display my powerbook. While I was under the desk moving some stuff around, I pulled on a cable. That cable went to a 21 inch monitor which I had set off to the side of the desk on a pile of stuff. (you can see whats going to happen already). The monitor fell over onto the powerbook, slamming the powerbook shut. I was devastated, but as I pulled off the massive monitor, I realized there was only a small dent on the top edge of the screen. As I opened the powerbook back up my glimmer of hope faded as I realized the screen was a spider web.

It cost me $1400 more all the way to the bank, but I’m glad I sucked it up. The past two years of having my powerbook have been great!

Somehow I actually manage to laugh at that incident now.

∞ Neil T. said 1539 days ago:

How about switching to FreeBSD? ;)

Hope you have some better luck with a new PowerBook – I switched to a Mac Mini in August and fell in love with the thing.

∞ Benvolio said 1539 days ago:

Hey there John,

I use a service ‘down under’ called http://flexirent.com.au/ which mean all repairs, updates etc are handled by them as they own the hardware.

The best thing is that it allows me to rent my powerbook and write it off as a monthly business expense and save a whole bunch of tax. I can also update to a newer model at any time.

I’m sure there must be a similar service in the uk.

∞ Andrea said 1539 days ago:

@ John: Ok, just for you, here it is

Hahahaha. That just made my day. :)

∞ Ben said 1539 days ago:

Better yet Meri, could we not just replace the Crazy Frog with Jon? I swear he was muttering about getting out of coding the other day, now his machine explodes, fronting Jamster ringtones could be a whole new start…

Sorry to hear about the PowerMac Jon. I’m just going to stroke lovingly my iBook and encourage it not to pull a similar stunt before I go home for Christmas.

∞ Gillo said 1538 days ago:

My 15” Alu is a great machine, love it. But then I’ve begun hearing no sound at startup and I got suspicious. It looked like my PB was slower… odd. Then by chance I went to System Profiler and found out it recognised only 512MB RAM instead of 1 GB.

Apparently this is a failure of the lower memlory slot and many people experienced it already (check Apple Discussions boards). Unfortunately it seems the issue is on the logic board so, if you have to live off the powerboook, it’s a pain in the… but I know this stuff can happen with other systems as well, even desktops.

So, better take this into account: computers are not reliable 100%, as cars aren’t. The more electronic parts you put into it, the higher the risks. Hard to admit, but true.

∞ Michael said 1538 days ago:

I had a Rev A version of the 17” Powerbook. It lasted me two years and broke through my inability to keep red wine in my glass.

I trotted off to the Apple Store, Regent Street to buy a new model. I took it home and it was broken, went back the same day, got a new one, guess what? Yup, it had a broken trackpad. I then went back the next day to return it and the next one had three keys missing! To cut a longer story short, after 8 new powerbooks, all from the Regent Street Store, I eventually found one that worked as it was supposed to. These broken PBs weren’t from the same shipment/stock either. Each time I went back I asked for one from a different batch.

I almost exploded when the last one broke as this was my seventh trip to the store. I waited for an hour on a Friday night and viewed about 10 different PBs before we actually found one without a fault.

I’ve owned 3 PBs over the years and this is the first time I’ve ever experienced these kinds of problems.

It was ridiculous.

∞ Rutger Zandman said 1538 days ago:

Wow, that soundbite….never knew you’d sound so ehm…British! I expected more of a lager-drenched voice…

Good luck with the Dell, I had one up until last week, when I spilled coffee over it. Now the thing is as good as dead! Can you believe that? I guess standards are slipping everywhere around us :)

∞ Steve said 1538 days ago:

Jon, I just had to send the same machine – specs wise – as you back to Computer Warehouse. It’s currently ‘on test’. I figured an upgrade from my (faultless) 12” was a good idea. Since then I have spoken to a guy on the Apple forums who is on his 4th 15” Powerbook.

Keep going and you might break his record!

Chin up old chap.

PS You could do a voiceover series where we give you classic British phrases to say in your classic British voice, it’d be a hit ;)

∞ Robin Wright said 1538 days ago:

Sorry to hear about your laptop, Jon. Hope you will get a new one.

∞ Jon Hicks said 1538 days ago:

While its crap that so many of you have had similar, if not far, far, worse problems than I have – it is reassuring. You see, I’ve used Macs for 16 years now, and owned them for 5. I’ve never had issues until these new powerbooks, never. All my macs have been rock solid, with any problems arising from my own extreme stupidity.

Ack. What to do. I wish there was a widescreen iBook available right now. Waiting until next year for intels isn’t really an option, no matter how good they are.

∞ shmuel said 1537 days ago:

I would love to know what your back system includes. What tools/hardware are you using to back your system up? I’d be especially curious to hear how your system works as you move from a desktop system (which I always find easier to schedule backups for) to a portable system.

∞ Loz said 1537 days ago:

In my experience, I just don’t think they are designed for all day everyday use. Mine is an old 15 inch TiBook from a few years back. It’s chipped as hell, the cd drive doesn’t work properly, and the battery lasts for ten minutes. I also can’t have it on my lap cos it gets so hot (even in the ten minutes). Oh and its’ also on its second replacement hard drive, and about to bury that one.

I did however get good usage out of it, and due to the size of my flat it was my main machine, so I probably thrashed it more than I should.

Having said that, I don’t think I would buy a powerbook again to be honest. Might get a little iBook in a few years, but not a powerbook.

At the moment I am very content with my new iMac G5 20 inch. I would recommend those on a tight budget to get one without question.

∞ Thomas David Baker said 1536 days ago:

With iPods outselling Macs by at least 5:1 I’d say the iPod could be called their core market now.

How this reflects on hardware quality or customer support I’m not qualified to comment.

∞ Mark said 1536 days ago:

I have been fortunate. I have been using my 15” powerbook as my home and work computer for 3 years now. My 1st 15” lasted two years and then I sold it and bought a faster one with more ram etc and had it for a year. All I can say though as you covered before Apple Care is important! Apple is usually pretty good with it too refunds/exchanges. Hope you have better luck with the next one.

∞ Jon Hicks said 1536 days ago:

Hi Rakesh, I didn’t expand on that comment, but I should’ve.

The problem was two-fold.

First there seemed to be a time delay, which caused communication problems.

Secondly, and most importantly, we couldn’t understand each other. I had to get the person to repeat a lot of what he said, and I certainly had to repeat myself too much. It was a painful 2 hours of my life that I won’t get back. Its nothing to with India per-say, and I’m certainly not riding any ant-india sentiment (I wasn’t aware of this sentiment either), but the conversation was excruciatingly difficult. If someone from the US was put through to a tech support chap with the broadest of Glasgow accents, I dare say they would have an equally hard time conversing too.

∞ zo said 1535 days ago:

I can’t remember how many times my TiBook 400 was replaced, refitted, motherboard, CD, you name it. Yeah, buying the first release of any hardware is dicey. . .but this is also not predictable game. I’ve been on Powerbooks since the day I saw my first, in 1992-if you get a bad break with a series of what seem like lemons, just focus on getting the problem really fixed-any and all time spent with first tier people is wasted. They cannot help you, not on this continent or any other.

Too many nervous-making conclusions being drawn, when really, it’s just luck, karma and persistence. And if you happen to know someone who is, even the loosest sense, an Apple “consultant,” whoo do they listen to him!

∞ Jon said 1534 days ago:

Damn! I knew I shouldn’t have read this post whilst thinking “my powerbook is rock solid”. Two days later and my hard drive is making weird noises and the S.M.A.R.T. status says “failing”................