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12" Powerbook latch not closing

E

Elbeano

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 21, 2004
131
0
PA
The title of the thread pretty much sums it up. My 3 day old 12" powerbook doesn't like to latch closed. Since yesterday it's been doing it gradually less and less, and now it's at about a 1 in 10 success rate when I try to close it. Even when it does manage to catch it doesn't take much to pop loose. This is my first mac and have thus far been treating it better than I am likely to treat my own children so far, and it has not been jarred or stressed in any physical way. I've been trying to find some information on this problem, but most of the problems I could find on these forums that were even similar were related more to the screen being warped, or something to that effect. I obviously couldn't find much dealing with this revision, more likely due to the fact that it's about a week old. If anyone has any suggestions let me know, because I really don't want to have to add a piece of electrical tape to my baby to keep it closed. Preferably any suggestions would have to do with not going back to the apple store either, because that's a solid 2 hour drive for me.
Anything is appreciated,
Bean
 
take it to the apple store

Call them up, explain, they might suggest going to the store to have it looked at, you might get a faster turn around because the alternative is sending it back to apple. Which they i think send you a box, and you send it back, and it can take a few days to a week to get it back. Where you can possibly get a new one at the apple store the day you visit. Call them up, and tell them your problem.
 
I would like to know if anyone in here has had something similar happen, and had to take it into an AASP place. I found one of them like 7 miles from me, and that would definitely be preferable to driving to the apple store again. Does anyone know though, are they required to fix it if they can, even though it's an independent place of some sort and I didn't buy it there? If anyone has had any experience in that area it would be great. Just let me know how it turned out if you had to take something to an AASP place.
 
That's actually what I was trying to do to an extent when I was checking out the situation. However, it came to my attention that because of where the latch attached to the hinge, the power of the magnet doesn't quite draw it out far enough. It's perfectly centered in the magnetic field, but not open far enough to catch the little thing on the button because it's very far over to the left. I'll see if I can make a little picture to illustrate this situation.

latch.jpg


Hopefully that works, it's my first attempt at putting an image. But yeah, as you can see, the thing would have to flip out to pretty much a right angle to catch the little thing only a little bit. It's not completely to scale, but if you all look down in your powerbooks you should see what I'm talking about. It does seem to be a little flimsier than it should be up top. For anyone who has one that works perfectly, does it wobble around at all if you catch the latch with you finger before completely closing it, or is it stiff if you try to go up and down. If it's not supposed to have any sort of give, then that is my problem, because it does wobble around a little bit. Perhaps I shall keep trying the bending it solution though, but I really wanted to avoid that. However, if that's what their techs actually do, then it's not the worst thing I could be doing.
 
it could be worse; a friend of mine had the latch break on his 12" iBook. it was out of warranty, and the repair was quoted at several hundred dollars.
 
Yeah, that really sucks for a piece of metal that is about the equivalent of the amount of iron in one serving in Total. It would have to be the raisin bran though, I don't think the regular would cut it. But yeah, after a very very nerve racking attempt at the solution listed in the link a few posts above I managed to get my baby to be able to close when I give it a good pinch around the latch area. It can get it to click closed, and if it doesn't get any worse, I suppose I can live with that. I will say though that this really does not impress me. I am just amazed that my 1600 dollar computer is held together by something that looks like it could have fallen out of a ball point pen. Oh well, everything else is good. Very good. However, I get the feeling this won't be the last time I add to this post.
Peace out.
 
Well, to update it's back to working occaisionally at best. I guess I'm going to have to head on over to that AASP place and get them to do do it up right. However, I think all they really need to do is move the little hinge for the latch over about 1/8th of an inch. If they do that the magnet will open it up straight since it will be a little bit to the right of the magnet's "center of attraction", for lack of a better term. As it is it opens up where I have the little drawing. If they change it as I said, then all they need to do is move the little thing it latches on to in the hole over about the same amount. Then it will be going down onto it straight. It seems like a reasonably simple enough solution. I think I should receive credit for it, and get an upgrade to a 15" powerbook for my idea, instead of them having to fix my current powerbook. That seems fair.
 
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