Tell us your Mac horror stories

not reall a mac horror but it is relevant, so here goes... whilst writing my thesis at university i had a pc to do it on (evil) so typey typey, tada all finished, i know, ill have a coffee, come back and it had blue screened of death. bear in mind this was the day before the deadline. so dig out my old pc laptop on win95, retyped it from notes, its now three in the morning, and it doesnt work with my printer, the old word file cant be read by anything, it has no network or floppy to get it off with. the deadline is nine o'clock, six hours away. so my girlfriend lends me here 12" powerbook, i stay up the whole night and transfer it from one screen to another by hand, all 10000 words of it, for the third time in 24 hours. the next day i threw out my pcs and bought a very reasonably priced iBook which i have had without incident for 2 years now. not really a mac horror story i know, as i dont have any mac horrors, but i thought id just remind everone why we use macs in the first place. they may die, get crushed or fried, but pc's do it 800 times more often. ;)

At the start of this year I bought myself a shiny new 17" PowerBook. I was so proud of my baby, I'd bring it out to show off where ever possible. Low and behold, one fateful nite, when I had a few friends around for drinks (you can already see where this is going I'm sure). When I returned from a trip to the fridge, I tripped on the lip of the door frame. I managed to stay on my feet, by falling into the table, and knocking over several drinks, one of them directly onto my new PB. A quick shut down followed, and much panicing and swearing. The liquid had gone down the vent at the base of the keyboard, and made it's way to the circuit boards below. After a few days drying out, the poor thing would not power up. I took it in for repairs, and after a week of hair pulling and nail biting I got a phone call. The only thing that got fried was the DC in circuit board. $50(Aus) for parts, $200(Aus) for labour, and my baby is good as new. And then of course there's my friend's band new g4 tower that I dropped down a flight of stairs mid- ast year. He wasn't impressed. But all was forgiven when it booted up with out a hitch. Tough little buggers aren't they.

My horror story happened a little over a month ago. I was walking to class (summer school program @ Carnegie Mellon) in a rainstorm. I incorrectly assumed that my powerbook case (that I bought through Apple mind you) would protect my computer. Well, I was wrong.... I turned it on to find that the display had no backlight, and the keyboard was acting as if I was pressing the wrong buttons. A few days later I found that the display was working again. But the keyboard was still very messed up. I suspected water damage, but I wasn't sure... so I sent it into Apple in an effort that they might fix my computer (I DID pay for Applecare after all..) Apple getting me the box for the computer a week after they said they would. Apparently the person that normally picks up packages from the mail room was on vacation, and the substitute was clueless. I had to call up Apple, then DHL, then Apple... and eventually I got my box. Not surprisingly I had similar experience sending it back. ugh... Anyway.. Apple gets the box and a few days later asks for my approval to charge over $1000 to repair it. Well, the computer cost me $3000 or so, so I was kinda stuck. I approved it, and then waited 3 days, 5 days... a week, 10 days and finally they got in the part (after I pushed them...) and got my computer back. Only one good thing came out of the whole experience, I found out that the $1000 goes towards fixing anything but the display. I got a new case, and an accidental upgrade in RAM! From 1 gig to 2 gigs! They replaced the hard drive (thank god I had a backup). So I got a new computer (same processor and screen) for $1000 and a bit of patience.

My horror story happened a little over a month ago. I was walking to class (summer school program @ Carnegie Mellon) in a rainstorm. I incorrectly assumed that my powerbook case (that I bought through Apple mind you) would protect my computer. Well, I was wrong.... I turned it on to find that the display had no backlight, and the keyboard was acting as if I was pressing the wrong buttons. A few days later I found that the display was working again. But the keyboard was still very messed up. I suspected water damage, but I wasn't sure... so I sent it into Apple in an effort that they might fix my computer (I DID pay for Applecare after all..) Apple getting me the box for the computer a week after they said they would. Apparently the person that normally picks up packages from the mail room was on vacation, and the substitute was clueless. I had to call up Apple, then DHL, then Apple... and eventually I got my box. Not surprisingly I had similar experience sending it back. ugh... Anyway.. Apple gets the box and a few days later asks for my approval to charge over $1000 to repair it. Well, the computer cost me $3000 or so, so I was kinda stuck. I approved it, and then waited 3 days, 5 days... a week, 10 days and finally they got in the part (after I pushed them...) and got my computer back. Only one good thing came out of the whole experience, I found out that the $1000 goes towards fixing anything but the display. I got a new case, and an accidental upgrade in RAM! From 1 gig to 2 gigs! They replaced the hard drive (thank god I had a backup). So I got a new computer (same processor and screen) for $1000 and a bit of patience.

I bought a brand new Powerbook at the end of February (after the last revision) to write my Master's thesis on. I was loving it, when the hard drive crashed... HARD. This was only three months after I got it. I called Apple and they said my phone-support had just ended and they couldn't help me over the phone. So, I asked if removing the hard drive to attempt some data recovery would void my warrenty, at least they answered that question and said it was o.k. to try. I have degrees in electrical engineering and computer science, so believe me when I say I tried EVERYTHING (short of finding access to a clean room and removing platters) to revive that drive. No luck. The hard drive was replaced free of charge but I lost about 40 pages of my thesis. Also, when I got it back from NeuralNet in town here (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada), the Superdrive no longer worked, the latch was buggered, the light on the latch no longer worked, the tray that holds the keyboard was bent and no longer flush with the case, they didn't use the proper screws on the outside so the screws were no longer counter-sunk and flush with the case, and there was a big scratch on the bottom. Brutal! I took it back and complained and asked them to replace the Superdrive, and that's where I am now, they've had my PB for about a week and a half now. Sigh. I want my Powerbook back and I want it functional and pretty again. :-(

I had my iBook (Clamshell) connected to my stereo in my car. I don't remember how, but I ended up crashing into a tree at about 50mph. My iBook was in the passenger seat. The LCD, and CD drive were screwed up. The shell kinda shifted. Over all it still looked OK. It turned on, but wouldn't get past a grey screen. I ended up with 2 broken ankles, and cuts and bruises. I worked for Apple at the time. So I brought it up there, and sold parts off of it. The HD, and Modem. I tore out the screen bezel, and framed my X-Rays with it, with a light behind it.

I spilt beer over mine. I've been sober since.

I had just purchased a brand-spanking new 15" powerbook after getting fired from a consulting firm and being disillusioned by working with PCs all the time. I decided I was going to be a free-lance consultant and I would only work with Macs. While at a client's house, she inadvertantly spilled a slurpee across the keyboard. I didn't panic, but through my mind I was saying every profane word in the book. I swear, I had Post-Traumatic Stress for days. The keyboard was sticky, as was the felt in the DVD drive. After two weeks of being on the Genius bar waiting list, my keyboard was finally replaced, though CDs still have trouble going in and out of the slot. I was pissed at my client for not offering to pay for the repairs, but I'll count my blessings. Everything still works without a hitch, and none of the slurpee managed to make its way to the motherboard.

My horror story is an ongoing one. As one of the proud owners of one of the power recalled iMac G5's, i have had to get my midplane replaced twice in the six months that i have owned it (taking a month to repair), and it has just died on me again. God only knows what would happen if i spilled something on it.

The Mustang vs. the Mac After a red-eye trip to the East Coast, lots of driving, and two long business meetings, I was getting ready to drive back to the hotel in my cheesy Mustang rental car. I was on the cell phone, set my 15" PB next to the car, finished my conversation, and backed out of the parking space. Thump-thump. I look forward in horror to see that I've driven over my brand-new (3 month old) PowerBook. I gather it up. Amazingly, it starts. Unfortunately, the screen is cracked. The cracked screen was usable (especially when driving an external LCD monitor, too) but great to work with. The fun part was having people ask about my "odd screen saver." Given that the computer was new, I did replace the screen (at about 2/3 the cost of the computer itself.) Apple service was great and they turned it around very quickly. I'm typing on it now an it still works great. --David