It all started when Gracy the Grey cat knocked coffee into my Mac Book Pro...
potatohead
Posts: 10,261
She's a cutie, but she never did learn what Zozo knew automatically, and that was we don't mess with the coffee. Gracy actually likes coffee and will knock one over to get at some when she's in the mood. Great cat otherwise, just not around coffee.
I wanted to just pull the battery quick and perform triage and first aid on the Mac, but of course, there are 9 screws, and one has to hold the power button down for a seemingly endless amount of time... I did the latter, waiting it out, hoping the coffee didn't get anywhere too serious.
Then I went for the almost pure alcohol + air can to get as much out as I could quick, then I took the back off this Mac for the first time...
For one, Apple is amazing! The level of manufacturing is much higher than anything else I've ever owned. This Mac is one of the machined unibody ones, and that right there is very cool, but a quick look see on the inside told me two things: One, the keyboard is buried underneath a lot of very delicate circuts, flexible PCBs, etc... Two, it was going to be the better part of a day to get it disassembled properly before I could really attack the potential problems. And there was no blasting it from inside to push material back out without that disassembly. So three things.
Powered it back up, and the keyboard was borked, but the computer was fine otherwise. Not OK.
Took it all apart, and there it was! The keyboard was basically part of the mainbody assembly, held there by something like 50 little screws, and it was layered with printed circuits and isolated by some plastic shield that sealed it. That shield was nice, because nothing got into the really expensive parts of the computer, but taking that keyboard out to service it was going to be extremely painful.
A quick chat with Apple revealed they wanted nothing to do with it. At. All. They wouldn't even sell me parts. So I hopped onto some sites and quickly found a few sellers out of Hong Kong who would sell me an entirely new body with keyboard and a few of the flexible circuits already mounted and tested. $100. Perfect.
Took me a considerable amount of time to get where I wanted to spend the day moving all the stuff from the old body to the new one. Last weekend I decided to take the plunge and did it with 95 percent success!
Got it all but for some part of the wireless antenna system that was soldered to a plate which was glued down, pretty much impossible to move, and that was all soldered to a PCB that was impossible to get at without first doing damage to the little cable...
If you buy a main body like I did, you can buy them with more of the work done. Be sure and do that so you can get the glued on parts.
The other part I could not get moved was some metallic foam, looked nickel plated or maybe just was nickle foam strips near the fans. Was able to get one, so I just moved on. Other glued parts were the magnets that keep the machine closed. And I was kind of surprised at the liberal use of magnets. Do not bring old media near a Mac! Tapes, floppy disks, etc... I really had no idea.
Finally some shielding strips were glued on, but possible to move.
The rest was more or less uneventful. With all parts back in, minus that part of the wireless, I fired it up and it's running great. The wireless appears to perform well still. Since I didn't benchmark it before, and I don't have all the network options to test, I don't know what is missing, but it's not much. Just not going to talk about that going forward.
Great machine, but oh man! Not really user servicable at all, and mine is a 2012. The newer ones are even more difficult. YMMV! Beautiful, elegant hardware. Love it. But, you really do need to be careful with it.
From here, I'm going to get a second disk, clone the one in the machine, and then upgrade it to Mavricks so I can boot the new OS and continue running the old Snow Leopard for GCC builds and some other old things that may come up. Osgood the Mac is now back and running, but I'm a bit shocked at just how much time and attention it really took to get there.
If money were not a factor, my usual rule for deciding when to spend and when not to would have been out the window half way through! Problem is, these machines just are not cheap at all! I'm a little gun shy now about taking it "in the field", which I will get over soon...
Lastly, the screws are very small, and you need a variety of well made, fine tipped tools to deal with this machine. Cheap knock off kits will wear quickly and make the job painful. Spent twice on that too, just not ready for how Apple chose to manufacture this machine.
Well, not lastly. For all the negatives, I really was in awe at the advanced manufacturing. The main logic board on this machine is small, and the connectors and cables moving signals to the various parts even smaller! Very cool and well engineered to optimize performance, noise and space. I'm impressed and it was a lot of fun to just look it all over, appreciating how they solved so many little, painful problems in reasonable ways, so long as too much service isn't needed.
Oh, and I didn't know it before, but the panel I'm looking through to see the LCD is glass! One of the disassembly videos I watched showed how to remove it and I was just unaware. No wonder the display looks awesome no matter what one manages to do with it. Nice!
Do not spill on your Mac. You will very likely regret it. I love this machine, and I am growing to like Mac OS more and more.
The only real hassle is Windows executables and virtual machines... It all works, but it's more steps than I would like. For now, I'm still going to Prop, especially P2 on Windows for SPIN + PASM, but I will very likely continue with C on Mac OS. When all is said and done, I will seriously appreciate the open tool efforts going on right now. Thanks all. One day in the near future I can go all Mac OS and have an environment that closely resembles IRIX, which remains my favorite for development type activities. (No, I'm not going to compile on an SGI, though I have to fight this temptation and even have people pushing SGI machines my way too... arrgh! However, it's worth noting that an O2 has serial, and video capture in and video output built right in... lol )
I'll never, ever buy another one new though. It's not the cost. Clearly, these computers are going to run a very, very long time. Well engineered. It's not that. I just don't want to get into the position where so much time for repair makes sense. I would rather replace at this point.
I wanted to just pull the battery quick and perform triage and first aid on the Mac, but of course, there are 9 screws, and one has to hold the power button down for a seemingly endless amount of time... I did the latter, waiting it out, hoping the coffee didn't get anywhere too serious.
Then I went for the almost pure alcohol + air can to get as much out as I could quick, then I took the back off this Mac for the first time...
For one, Apple is amazing! The level of manufacturing is much higher than anything else I've ever owned. This Mac is one of the machined unibody ones, and that right there is very cool, but a quick look see on the inside told me two things: One, the keyboard is buried underneath a lot of very delicate circuts, flexible PCBs, etc... Two, it was going to be the better part of a day to get it disassembled properly before I could really attack the potential problems. And there was no blasting it from inside to push material back out without that disassembly. So three things.
Powered it back up, and the keyboard was borked, but the computer was fine otherwise. Not OK.
Took it all apart, and there it was! The keyboard was basically part of the mainbody assembly, held there by something like 50 little screws, and it was layered with printed circuits and isolated by some plastic shield that sealed it. That shield was nice, because nothing got into the really expensive parts of the computer, but taking that keyboard out to service it was going to be extremely painful.
A quick chat with Apple revealed they wanted nothing to do with it. At. All. They wouldn't even sell me parts. So I hopped onto some sites and quickly found a few sellers out of Hong Kong who would sell me an entirely new body with keyboard and a few of the flexible circuits already mounted and tested. $100. Perfect.
Took me a considerable amount of time to get where I wanted to spend the day moving all the stuff from the old body to the new one. Last weekend I decided to take the plunge and did it with 95 percent success!
Got it all but for some part of the wireless antenna system that was soldered to a plate which was glued down, pretty much impossible to move, and that was all soldered to a PCB that was impossible to get at without first doing damage to the little cable...
If you buy a main body like I did, you can buy them with more of the work done. Be sure and do that so you can get the glued on parts.
The other part I could not get moved was some metallic foam, looked nickel plated or maybe just was nickle foam strips near the fans. Was able to get one, so I just moved on. Other glued parts were the magnets that keep the machine closed. And I was kind of surprised at the liberal use of magnets. Do not bring old media near a Mac! Tapes, floppy disks, etc... I really had no idea.
Finally some shielding strips were glued on, but possible to move.
The rest was more or less uneventful. With all parts back in, minus that part of the wireless, I fired it up and it's running great. The wireless appears to perform well still. Since I didn't benchmark it before, and I don't have all the network options to test, I don't know what is missing, but it's not much. Just not going to talk about that going forward.
Great machine, but oh man! Not really user servicable at all, and mine is a 2012. The newer ones are even more difficult. YMMV! Beautiful, elegant hardware. Love it. But, you really do need to be careful with it.
From here, I'm going to get a second disk, clone the one in the machine, and then upgrade it to Mavricks so I can boot the new OS and continue running the old Snow Leopard for GCC builds and some other old things that may come up. Osgood the Mac is now back and running, but I'm a bit shocked at just how much time and attention it really took to get there.
If money were not a factor, my usual rule for deciding when to spend and when not to would have been out the window half way through! Problem is, these machines just are not cheap at all! I'm a little gun shy now about taking it "in the field", which I will get over soon...
Lastly, the screws are very small, and you need a variety of well made, fine tipped tools to deal with this machine. Cheap knock off kits will wear quickly and make the job painful. Spent twice on that too, just not ready for how Apple chose to manufacture this machine.
Well, not lastly. For all the negatives, I really was in awe at the advanced manufacturing. The main logic board on this machine is small, and the connectors and cables moving signals to the various parts even smaller! Very cool and well engineered to optimize performance, noise and space. I'm impressed and it was a lot of fun to just look it all over, appreciating how they solved so many little, painful problems in reasonable ways, so long as too much service isn't needed.
Oh, and I didn't know it before, but the panel I'm looking through to see the LCD is glass! One of the disassembly videos I watched showed how to remove it and I was just unaware. No wonder the display looks awesome no matter what one manages to do with it. Nice!
Do not spill on your Mac. You will very likely regret it. I love this machine, and I am growing to like Mac OS more and more.
The only real hassle is Windows executables and virtual machines... It all works, but it's more steps than I would like. For now, I'm still going to Prop, especially P2 on Windows for SPIN + PASM, but I will very likely continue with C on Mac OS. When all is said and done, I will seriously appreciate the open tool efforts going on right now. Thanks all. One day in the near future I can go all Mac OS and have an environment that closely resembles IRIX, which remains my favorite for development type activities. (No, I'm not going to compile on an SGI, though I have to fight this temptation and even have people pushing SGI machines my way too... arrgh! However, it's worth noting that an O2 has serial, and video capture in and video output built right in... lol )
I'll never, ever buy another one new though. It's not the cost. Clearly, these computers are going to run a very, very long time. Well engineered. It's not that. I just don't want to get into the position where so much time for repair makes sense. I would rather replace at this point.
Comments
The design of MacBooks is absolutely horrible when it comes to spilled drinks. Unibody shmoonibody...
I needed a whole new logic board, cause Apple designed it that way.
I can pour water on my Thinkpad all day, it doesn't mind at all.
If you want to see some impressive packaging technology, take apart some cell phones.
FWIW...while I am a real tech geek who loves technology, I HATE products that are esentially unservicable.
After looking at the writeups for the new Apple computers, I knew that I will never own one...if I can't fix it, I don't own it.
The observation of products becoming non owner repairable is quite correct...a very distrubing trend.
And FWIW...in a world of full of water based hazards, I cannot understand why the marketplace hasn't demanded products that are truly water resistance/proof....marketing over common sense I guess.
Rice is a rather interesting fix.
We used to use 50 lb sacks of rice to block water seepage into building foundation excavations. If you have a crevice that is letting water into your excavation, just pack it with sacks of rice.. they swell.. and the leak stops. Later you pour a concrete wall with proper drainage, but this means less pumping and smaller bills from running pumps 24/7.
If there was no sugar involved, I'd just try spraying the keyboard with a can of TV tuner cleaner and let it dry out. That has worked for me... no elaborate rebuild... just spray... drip dry for a day (standing on one edge) ... and all was well.
That was a rather paradoxical post.
On the one hand enthusing about the design and build quality of a product.
On the other hand bemoaning that it was brought to it's knees so easily and it manufacturer was not interested in helping. I can imagine that a repair at the typical Apple repair stop I see around town may have been far more expensive.
On balance, and given the price those of those machines I inclined to stay away.
As an aside: A young chap recently opened a business in a small office near ours repairing iPhones and iPads. He has a seemingly endless stream of customers with cracked screens and such.
All of this does not inspire confidence in Apple products.
Actually it highlights a much larger problem.
Products are only as good as the materials used and the marketing priorities implemented via engineering.
Those are ultimately shaped by what the public will buy..which is shaped in large part by marketing.
For the moment Apple is on a roll where the public will buy anything with an Apple logo on it at a premium price.
Never mind that product...or the majority of its competitors...cannot survive in the world without being treated with extreme care.
In my opinion influenced by practicality and functionality, any product needs to be at the minimum water resistant. I also consider that any product should be capable of surviving being dropped on a hard surface within the realm that it would be used.
So now the current trend in phones is that we have products in pretty colors...instead of being to survive in a real world environment where in many instances people's lives depend on them when they call 911.
And since cell phone technology is driving laptop development, one sees similar flaws within laptops.
An interesting read is on the material science behind the current display covers...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorilla_Glass
As you point out, the need for replacable screens has caused a cottage industry to spring up to meet demand.
My poor old Samsung Galaxy S has been abused something rotten, dropped, rattled around in tool boxes. It has magically survived a couple of years.
LOL..good one...even though I suspect that Steve tried for resistance to green tea with organic sugar.
I have a Asus EEEpc that lives a terrible life of abuse...and keeps working.
Apple has a clear line. Much of the machine is quick 'n fairly easy. Logic board, hard disk, battery, fans are all not a big deal. The keyboard and well integrated buttons, are much tougher. Apple cuts it off on the easy stuff, and people can figure it out or get a new one.
IMHO, reasonable just not optimal.
Re: For the moment Apple is on a roll where the public will buy anything with an Apple logo on it at a premium price.
They got that through two things:
1. Great design. For some people, and I would argue a majority of people, this is not well valued. For a fraction of us, perhaps as much as a quarter of us, it's valued well, and for 5-10 percent of us, valued very highly.
Great design costs money. Lots of it. Originals cost a ton. Knock-offs not so much.
2. Value added. Compared to a Dell or Lenovo machine, and Apple has value throughout the entire experience. They get to do that because they control all of it. Again, the same rough metrics for how people value it apply.
Apple, unlike so many other companies, asks to be paid for that value added and because they are good at expressing it, they get paid and that results in high margins, which are necessary to continue great design.
Say what you want, it's not just luck or a fad. Many people want it to be for a lot of reasons. Look at Microsoft attempting it right now with their Surface Pro. Nice effort, but they have a serious amount to learn from Apple yet.
If you think you need a tough computer ,,,,,, shell out the cash and get a toughbook . I spent under 700 bucks on one and its pelnty fast and its paied for its self many times over ........
last TB i had took a spill down 2 flights of stairs and a few pints of beer in a bar brawl ( the latter was sad as my lappy smelt like beer for weeks ! )