Is it worth getting this repaired?

Fenster

I have an Apple G3 iBook and two weeks after paying 180 euro to get a faulty hard drive replaced at Galmac (pricy, imo)...it just dies. I come home one day to find it won't come out of standby. I had to remove the battery and unplug it from the mains to turn it off.

Its absolutely dead otherwise, won't switch on. Considering either the internal power supply or motherboard entire is dead, would it really be worth my while getting it repaired, or would a new laptop be cheaper, considering the heaviest work it would be doing will be photo editing?

Karoma

Did Galmac replace the drive, or you bought it and replaced it..?
A bit suss that it would happen two weeks after a repair...

cynos

remove the cmos battery and wipe the bios, may work
dont know much about macs but i'd try this 1st with a PC

Fenster

They replaced it entirely. It does sound a little fishym truth be told. I could've changed it myself except for the fact that Apples are fiddly as hell. Still, I've left it this long (its been over a month since it died) leaving anything that might come of it to boil down basically to my word against theirs. As a person who's had experience with such problems in the past, its honestly not a mess I want to get into.

It doesn't help that I was reading this article on Slashdot and saw the following paragraph:

The iBook G3, which sold quite well, had the most failures of any Apple laptop we surveyed and the failures were critical (the motherboard). Some other Mac models have had quite a few failures as well, but they generally were due to specific component problems. The iBook G3 simply appears to have been a flawed design, but it took a long time for Apple engineers to get a handle on the problem and fix it.

SouperComputer

hmmm, sounds like a logic board failure at the outset. Do any fans spin at all when you try to power it up?

There is a board replacement program, but you laptop doesnt currently exibit the issues that it covers. You could be economical with the truth.

http://www.apple.com/support/ibook/faq/

IIRC, the issue is to do with the positioning of the Graphics chip near\on a flex point of the chassis, leading to failure. The 12" powerbooks suffer this also, but to a much lesser extent.

Take out the battery, power and extra RAM (if any). Alllow to simmer overnight and try it again after 24hrs from mains, again without the Battery and extra RAM. Another common issue is that the DC-IN jack fails and needs to be replaced. Of course you can check this easy enough to see if the battery is being charged!

Ill take a look at it if you like, but generally logic board issues are terminal. Failing that, id be interested in buying it from you for parts

Fenster

Selling it for scrap sounds tempting. I'll try leaving it like you said first, to see if that changes anything. No, nothing spins up, neither fans drives.

SouperComputer

any signs of life from this fenster?

Fenster

Just as something of an update, I did get my iBook functional again - the battery was the culprit in this case.