your bad experiences with a mac?

[SilvorX]

hey ppl, sorry for not posting for like forever, i've been busy with finishing school (graduated last week) and hopefully im back to be around for atleast a bit each day
what are some bad experiences (hardware-wise, software-wise, etc) youve had with macintoshes in the present and past?
my bad experiences include:
-some sort of 'green' static appearing whenever i tilt my ibook display to a certain spot
-my firewire drive no longer works since the firewire cable doesnt work anymore for some reason so i'm stuck using usb 1.1 until i get a new cable (i noticed that it works fine under usb but it rarely ever works under firewire)
-after installing certain themes, i may end up having to do an archive and install :(
-it takes forever to disconnect from the net

thats all i can think of now, now post what problems you had

[Gus]

First of all, congratulations with graduation!

Second, if I were you, I'd give up on those themes. My wife keeps putting them back on her iBook, and I always have to end up doing system maintenance on things it has screwed up.

Your iBook problem is similar to mine, and mine is being sent innext week for a replacementm on the video connectors between the screen and the body. You might want to have that checked out too.

Other than that, I have had only one problem in the last 4 years. While on a business trip, I went through the Kansas City airport, and after being screened, my entire system was hosed. Both OS 9 and OS X were wiped. Strangest thing, really.

Regards,
Gus

[Kwyjibo]

ok i bought my ibook 800 on november 6, 2002....the sad part is I still love it no matter how many repairs its had

December 23, 2002
screen flickers with vertical lines and I send it into applecare

This problem happened two more times which makes a total of 3 times for this problem and 3 new motherboards...one time they added a new chip, lcd, and probably more

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20327&highlight=ibook+lemon

one time i broke off a key right after i got it back and apple sent me a new keyboard ....i replaced the key with one i bought off ebay so the spare in is my closet

the battery was on the frtiz and they sent a new one, then it still wasn't right so they repalce the lgoci board again..

i've also gotten the little feet free because they always leave one off or loose when it comes back from apple care

two power adapters... both came back doa from applecare one was freyed.


and those are all my repairs to date

[Megaquad]

Well, my mac is slooow but at least it never got broke or had any problems.
Uhmm.. no bad experiences, macs rule :cool:

[pEZ]

The only severe problem I can recall is when I had to reset the PMU on my iMac. It freaked me out though, because I'd never seen it before, and I needed to finish a 10 page paper that was saved on my HD because it was due the next day.

It's scary when your computer chimes and then nothing shows up on the screen.

[rojazz]

I have a similar problem with my Powerbook G4...though I think it may be due to the cracks in the LCD that I got when the security guy at the airport sort of plopped my computer into the little trays so it could go through the xray machine when I was being screened. It doesn't happen all the time, but I get lines that go across the whole screen similar to what you see in the "ibook lemon" thread, but I'm assuming Apple won't fix my LCD because it's too expensive. So I'm just dealing with it, but it's really frickin annoying :/

[medea]

hmm, only issue or problem I've had is this one bad pixel on my screen. that's it though.

[tazo]

my machine slows under photoshop and more then a few porgrams open :(

I would also call any experience with OS 9 a bad one..

[meta-ghost]

OS 10.0....

[XnavxeMiyyep]

I was given a Mac clone from a friend once(they hadn't used it in a year), and it was loaded with problems and lasted all of 2 weeks. Other than that, no bad experiences.

[Schiffi]

Originally posted by medea
hmm, only issue or problem I've had is this one bad pixel on my screen. that's it though.

I have one pixel that won't show blue.

Some "gummy" looking stuff on the right side of the LCD, under the actual screen. Worried if I went to get it fixed something else'll break.

Wacom's drivers do not let use hotspot to turn on screen effects

trackpad is not disabled when USB mouse is plugged in.

Speakers vibrate entire casing of TiBook

...I have to use the modem... grrrr.

[shadowfax]

i have had a huge number of file transferring troubles, between my mac and PC as well as internally. i am not sure if it is something i did to my files or what, but it always seems to have an error while i transfer backup and i lose a file or two. never anything too important, but it's really aggravating.

[scem0]

slow slow slow 333MHz G3 iMac.

10.0

wanting PC proggies but not being able to get them.

having to deal with immature PC users who think macs suck without giving them a fair shot, or knowing anything about them.

lack of good p2p software

scem0

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by scem0
slow slow slow 333MHz G3 iMac.

10.0

those, i would say, are the legitimate complaints :p everything else is out of apple's control. really the 333MHz G3 thing is your own fault too, lol.

[scem0]

It is true that the last one's were out of apple's control, but they are still bad experiences :).

scem0

[skymaXimus]

Originally posted by Schiffi


trackpad is not disabled when USB mouse is plugged in.
This happens to me too, but I noticed that when I plugged the mouse into the USB on the Pro keyboard that it disables the track pad. Only when I use the pro mouse w/o the keyboard does it not disable the track pad.

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by skymaXimus
This happens to me too, but I noticed that when I plugged the mouse into the USB on the Pro keyboard that it disables the track pad. Only when I use the pro mouse w/o the keyboard does it not disable the track pad. on OS X there is an option on laptops to turn off the trackpad when a USB mouse is connected. i think it is off by default. but you can disable it from sysprefs pretty easily.

[whfsdude]

My iBook has ahd 4 logicboards. Worst part is not even a year old. Only two more years of this to go for apple haha!

[shadowfax]

wow, that's a shame, man. i know ibookin' has had some trouble with his too. what happens, does it just suddenly go out and have to get replaced or does it start spazzing out first?

[SilvorX]

my display problem only started as soon as i got home from a trip (i left the ibook turned off for a week at home) and the green static happened after that, i wasnt suprised something happened to it as soon as i got home, i had a feeling that something would happen :(, i'll get it checked before i go to university if it gets worse

[whfsdude]

Vertical Lines > Freezes. It's that cable problem. Apple to replace the logicboard each time for some reason.

In fact I should have my ibook back in 4 hours. :D

[whfsdude]

Originally posted by SilvorX
my display problem only started as soon as i got home from a trip (i left the ibook turned off for a week at home) and the green static happened after that, i wasnt suprised something happened to it as soon as i got home, i had a feeling that something would happen :(, i'll get it checked before i go to university if it gets worse

Press the left side by the trackpad. If that causes your screen to go wazck then you get a new logicboard :(

[WinterMute]

My bloody 17 PBook has just got to Germany after a 3 week wait, its the second time its been in, and if they dont fix it this time Im going to throw it at the vendor, and they can send me a new machine.

This is the first time Ive had problems with Apple hardware in ten years.

[arogge]

I have encountered several quality issues with the ATI and NVIDIA graphics chips, but I have generally found Apple computers to be trouble-free. I had two kernel panics this month - one while logging out and the other while waking the system from Sleep. I repaired the disk permissions and the problem seems to have stopped. The overall quality of the computers could be better, but I suppose that price is also a concern for Apple's marketing department.

[Bond007]

Problems I've had with my mac...

Well, the iTunes Visualizer stutters and pauses every 5 or 6 seconds and....well, thats it.:confused:

[rueyeet]

Wireless reception on the TiBook is every bit as terrible as they say. :mad: And I've had one GUI freeze under Jaguar, where the mouse and keyboard didn't respond and I had to restart.

Mozilla doesn't like AOL webmail either, but then neither do I, and that's not strictly an Apple problem. So I got rid of Mozilla. :D

Other than that, no real problems since switching in late 2002. In the same period of time, the old ThinkPad I lent to my mom has had at least four or five Blue Screens of Death (it's running Win ME, poor thing).

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by rueyeet
Wireless reception on the TiBook is every bit as terrible as they say. have you tried pulling out the battery and pressing the antenna outwards? apple employees actually recommend that themselves, i am told. my reception has never been all that bad. i do get into situations, but i usually find that even the plastic enclosure PC laptops have the same problems.

[MetallicPenguin]

The only problems I've had with my Mac is that I always did something wrong like once a month (or I used to anyway), and I have ended up going through 5-6 reformats. But I guess that's good in some ways, because I love that new computer smell. :D

Ithink that was mainly because I am a switcher and i was getting used to the Macintosh and stuff.

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by MetallicPenguin
I think that was mainly because I am a switcher and i was getting used to the Macintosh and stuff. yeah, i have done maybe 3 or 4 myself in the 8 months of my ownership, my first mac too. i've done it because i screwed something up, done it because i tried panther and hated it, and done it just to partition my drive (that was the first day i got it). getting used to the mac didn't take me long though... i would have screwed up my windows box if i had stuck with it too, i am sure.

[Das]

The only problem I've had is with my ti867. The thing rocks, but the screen seems to get thin stuttering choppy lines when playing dvds or screensavers. Is this normal? Other than that it rocks.

The only other time I've had a problem was trying to network my PC and my mac together. Nothing worked and I had to finally map my mac drive on my pc, but then the IP changes on the mac side every reboot which makes it not work. Not really Apple's fault though.

[vollspacken]

I once had to replace the logicboard on an iMac DV400 - my fault, it was sitting in the bright sun on my desk and got too hot...

as some people pointed out above, airport reception sucks on my tiBook...

oh, and I had this horrible harddrive crash some time ago nut apple replaced it rightaway... I should have backed the data up though ;)

that's it I think...

vSpacken

[ibookin']

My previous iBook 500 had 3 logic board replacements. Apple just sent me a new one after it needed yet another new logic board, and the new one came with a Combo drive that couldn't read DVDs. I haven't shipped it off yet, and am not planning to any time soon, but it is kind of annoying.

I've noticed that a lot of white iBooks have problems. My girlfriend's 800 just died (nothing on screen when machine boots up) on her, and she had previously only gotten the screen to work when the VGA adapter was plugged into the mini-VGA port. Also, it came with one of the screws on the memory door stripped, so she couldn't upgrade the memory and was stuck at 128 running OS X. Ouch. :(

But it's getting fixed now. :D

[Pete_Hoover]

Haven't had any problems with my mac's because I can't afford one.

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by Pete_Hoover
Haven't had any problems with my mac's because I can't afford one. doesn't that kind of count as a bad experience in itself? although, realistically, the solution os more likely "save more money" than "whine about apple prices"--not to suggest that you were doing that...

[Durandal7]

-A screwy motherboard on a Powermac 7100 that needed hard resetting all the time.
-A badly designed case on a Powermac 7100 that is hard to open and even harder to put back on.
-A ridiculous procedure for hard resetting the motherboard on a Powermac 7100 that involved removing the power supply and the clock battery.
-A badly designed plug for a power supply on a Powermac 7100 that ended up having a clip break off before I could remove.
-A generally screwy graphics setup on a Powermac 7100 that required the monitor to be plugged into a primitive AV card in order to work.
-The tendancy of a Powermac 7100 to occasionally refuse to turn on.
-The case on a Powermac 7100 that never fit right and made it damn near impossible to plug in any periphials.

Not to mention the fact that I have yet to see an Apple Internal Modem function properly in any version of OS X so far (including Panther beta)

[Daveman Deluxe]

1) My iBook has occasional battery problems. First time, Apple gave me a new battery. Second time, I sent the iBook to them and it took them more than a week to tell me that I needed to give them my admin password. Took them another week to tell me that the guy had written the password down wrong. It was back in two days once they got the password right.

2) The little cord wrapping prong on my power adapter is broken.

3) There's a strip of gunk on my trackpad's button that coincides with where the screen bezel is when the lid is closed. There's a strip of gunk on the screen bezel that coincides with where the trackpad button is when the lid is closed. It's irritating and I haven't been able to get it off.

4) The iBook's speakers STILL suck.

Fortunately, I am otherwise very happy with my iBook. It's actually faster than my friend's PowerBook in most things. He was blown away when my computer loaded EV Nova faster than his could. The issues I have listed are really quite minor, so I'll continue to be a Jobs fanboy.

[WinterMute]

Just a heads up on my 17 PBook, it re-appeared today from it's second trip to germany with problems, well, I say it's back, in fact this appears to be a completely new machine with my original drive and ram installed:D

Nice one Apple, mind, I had to get really ******* with some poor Irish girl on Applecare, I hate doing that, it's not her fault after all.

So, first real Apple hardware problem, and they (eventually) resolved it well.