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Got a PB G4 1.5 GHz for $395 on eBay

wakka092

wakka092

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 20, 2007
344
0
Title says it all.

Full specs
PowerPC G4 1.5 GHz
512 MB RAM
SuperDrive
Bluetooth, Airport Extreme, etc.

But.. there was a catch. The LCD is cracked.

Pretty gruesome, right? Well, I promptly ordered a replacement LCD (eBay, 130.00) and a battery (eBay, again; 20.00) and I have a charger lying around. I also downloaded the iFixit instructions, which was about 20 pages long.

But, good news, the seller will upgrade to Leopard. :apple: So did I make a good buying descision or a bad one?
 
Fantastic for the price. Just take the disassembly slow and be careful installing the new LCD. It's a great little machine. Since it'll be running Leopard I'd buy a 1GB stick and throw that in. That's what I'm running now and it handles Leopard nicely.
 
You paid $550 for a 1.5 ghz powerbook + your time and labor. It's a reasonably good deal if you have the time and know how and don't break anything in the repair process and don't discover any other problems that the seller neglected to tell you about. As long as that all turns out to be true then you made yourself a nice deal.
 
Thanks for the quick reply, guys. The only problem with installation is that the iFixit guide requires you to remove the logic board, light sensors, PC Card slot, pretty much everything except the hard drive and optical drive. That bothers me a bit. I'm wondering if I need to remove all of that in order to replace the screen.

The screen I ordered had the bezel and hinges attached. I am planning to remove the bezel and just get the LCD itself. Anyone think any different?
 
Good buy! Although I hope it isn't dpaanlka's :)

I don't know about the bezel thing. I've never repaired a PowerBook before.

Anyway, even if it doesn't work out, you can probably re-sell it for parts, or just use it as a toy to learn from, like I did with broken XBoxes back in the day.
 
dpaanlka said:
That's the exact computer that was stolen from my house in April 2005!
Click to expand...

Well that explains the cracked LCD then. Sorry just kidding. Couldn't resist.

Anyhow its a fair price. But laptops never last forever anyway. We paid 2800 dollars for a G4 1ghz laptop dvi. 3 years later it said bad vram.

I hope the aluminums are more stable.
 
No we didn't buy apple care. We should of. Besides it broke 6 months after the apple care would of expired anyway. So they never would of helped.

Plus laptops are not meant to last 10 years anyway. They're disposable.
 
ivnj said:
No we didn't buy apple care. We should of. Besides it broke 6 months after the apple care would of expired anyway. So they never would of helped.
Click to expand...

Why should you have bought Applecare? It wouldn't have helped you and you would've been out the money. That's usually the way it works with Applecare, regardless of what anybody says.
 
Apple care does work. Just not after it expires.

Besides it should of never bad vramed in the first place. I heard that was not very common. I mean all apple laptops had some issues or the other.

I want a laptop that'll last me 10 or 20 years but aint going to happen. Never.
 
I replaced the screen on my 17" 1.67 and it was rather simple. I did not have to remove anything from the inside, just remove the top with the keyboard and your good to go. I ended up replacing the entire screen assembly. Taking apart the screen seemed a bit dodgy, and it didn't go back together as clean as it was.

My case had some damage which may be why it did not want to go back together. But I had it apart a few times trying to figure out what was wrong, so I decided on a entire new screen rather than just the LCD.

But it sounds like a good deal.
 
aquajet said:
Why should you have bought Applecare? It wouldn't have helped you and you would've been out the money. That's usually the way it works with Applecare, regardless of what anybody says.
Click to expand...

AppleCare has proven itself worthwhile for my family and friends on several occasions.
 
aquajet said:
Why should you have bought Applecare? It wouldn't have helped you and you would've been out the money. That's usually the way it works with Applecare, regardless of what anybody says.
Click to expand...

What is it with this attitude? It's rampant on these boards. I don't profess to project my own personal situation on anyone else, but these people who have had no problems whatsoever with their machines would rather classify AppleCare as loss of money, rather than an added protection of one's investment.

dpaanlka said:
AppleCare has proven itself worthwhile for my family and friends on several occasions.
Click to expand...

Same here, for my old Powerbook G4 and a couple iPods. I would've been out of luck had I not taken the extra precaution. Yes, it costs money, but the other alternative is I have to drop MORE money on a new product when the current one is out of warranty and isn't functioning properly.
 
sublicon said:
What is it with this attitude? It's rampant on these boards. I don't profess to project my own personal situation on anyone else, but these people who have had no problems whatsoever with their machines would rather classify AppleCare as loss of money, rather than an added protection of one's investment.
Click to expand...

Setting aside the perceived attitude, what aquajet says is absolutely true. Applecare costs more than the average of all the repairs/replacements Apple makes for each model during the warranty period. In the long run (meaning over the course of multiple purchases), the consumer loses money by buying this, or any other, extended warranty.
 
tobefirst said:
Setting aside the perceived attitude, what aquajet says is absolutely true. Applecare costs more than the average of all the repairs/replacements Apple makes for each model during the warranty period. In the long run (meaning over the course of multiple purchases), the consumer loses money by buying this, or any other, extended warranty.
Click to expand...

Lets put it this way, based on my personal benefit from having AppleCare coverage, and given the Apple reps constant advice "you'd be better off just buying a new one" when anything goes wrong, I'm happy to lose some bucks on it.
 
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