My PowerBook is Dead...Again

Another Apple Computer myth bites the dust. Apple hardware is ultimately just like any other computer company's hardware--flawed.

Two years ago next week I dropped $1600 on a PowerBook. It's a great machine and I love it to death. However, it hasn't been without it's problems.

For those of you who may not remember or haven't been around ThePete.Com long enough to know this, the PB was a replacement for an iBook that had more things wrong with it than any computer should ever have. It literally couldn't go 3 months without dying on me (logic board twice, hard drive once, Apple lost it in shipping in the end).

Finally, after a LOT of ups and downs, convincing and teeth pulling, I managed to get a refund from Apple for it. I added $200 to their check and got the PowerBook. One year ago, three days before the warranty expired, the hard drive took a dive. A year later (today, in fact) something else went wrong.

I don't know what.

The machine just shut off--though it didn't lose power. The screen was on, but nothing displayed on it and none of the buttons did anything aside from the power button, that is, which I used to do a forced shut down (not that there was much to shut down). Then, when I pressed it again, I did NOT hear the familiar DONG of OSX powering up, but instead heard 3 beeps and then the sleep-light flashed rapidly until I pressed and held the power button down again.

After some research on the Apple support boards, I discovered others who have had this problem (big surprise). It turns out the 3 beeps means I have bad RAM. Which is odd since it was working just earlier today. Regardless, I popped the 1 gig RAM chip I added out of the machine. Tried again, relying on the built in RAM.

This time I got my dong (yes, I know, but that's what it sounds like) only to have it followed by 3 beeps, the flashing sleep light and then nothing.

The funny thing is that I am typing this entry on my Toshiba Satellite 2065CDS--a Windows 98 machine I bought in 1998.

I've replaced the hard drive twice and the battery won't hold a charge, but the damn thing still runs.

What am I going to do about the PowerBook carion? Well, I already took the whole thing apart (thanks to ifixit.com) and put it back together again with no luck waiting for me at the end.

So, now, the only option seems to be to bring it into an Apple store and shell out the big bucks to have it fixed. It'll probably run me about $500 or so, unless prices have gone up since my iBook problems. So, let's add this to the list of crap I've been dealing with:

illegal lawsuit
my minicam breaks
my scooter dies
my PowerBook dies

Did I mention that I'm broke, my part time gig as a projectionist has retreated into being VERY part time and I turned down a scooter-driving gig in favor of a hopeful and more stable temp worker gig that ended up fizzling?

Sure, there are other temp gigs, but how do I get to them with my scooter dead?

Sheesh...