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How long does a Powerbook G4 last?

T

the vj

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 23, 2006
654
0
About 1 year and 6 months

But in my case 1 year and 5 months.

Tpoday one of my powerbooks got a black screen at the start up. No way to make the screen to work even I can tell the rest just runs fine.

I had the same problem with my Pismos and well, I would have to take the G4 to tech support on monday and get charged for the repair big time because I do not have Apple Care on this one, specillay when it took me 10 months to get the track pad replacement for another powerbook I have.

Well, lets see. :s
 
If eveything else is working, hook up a external monitor.
If that works, use it until you can determine a perminate solution.

Worst Case = Expensive Desktop.
 
1 1/2 years, are you joking? I have had mine just under 4 years.
 
I have had mine for 4 years and 3 months. never had any problems with it. Was your G4 a Titianium or Alluminum? Mine is alluminum. My work has had several titianiums and have screen problems with almost all of them.
 
That's what AppleCare is for... sucks to hear what can happen, though. Good to hear that the guy got his data backed up.
 
Mine is at 2 years, 11 months exactly yesterday.
While she is feeling a little sluggish at times, she's still my little beaut!

Hope yours works out for ya, :)
 
My Ti PBG4 still runs great, but
- the HDD had to be replaced
- the combo drive barely works/all burns fail
- the backlight sometimes goes out completely :eek:

If you hook it up to an external monitor and avoid CD use it still performs great though. A useful machine, though perhaps not as portable as it once was. Well, I guess "great" might be giving it a little too much credit. :)
 
Well mine is 2 years and 5 months old.
Problems:
Logic board replaced once
Hard drive replaced once (not technically Apple's fault)

White stains on screen (again not Apple's fault) but it's outside of the replacement programme:(

Ambient light sensors no longer work, so no backlit keyboard or auto adjust screen brightness.

And smaller problem the power light is dead.
 
I've had mine for a little over 2 years and it's still going strong. Never had any problems with it.
 
yeah the tibooks seem to be puttering along just fine. My uncle bought one about 4 or 5 years ago that I had for a few months and since I got my MBP my mom is now using.

I'm hoping to get similar results from my MBP but we'll see, gonna have to get that apple care at the end of the first year though.
 
Two Tibooks, one purchased August 2001 -- still running great, other a few months later still running great.

Thats over five and a half years.

My latest PB is only 9 months old, build date of June 2006, purchased in August 2006.

Still running GREAT.

There used to be a 329 dollar Apple program for your stock PB Tibook if there was a problem with it out of warranty. Check it out.
 
I've had my PB for over two years now and it's working just as well as the day it arrived at my door (knock on wood). Hopefully it'll keep acting like this because I sure as heck can't afford a new one right now.
 
My 1.67 G4 is 1.5 years old, my Ti is 5+, my G3 iBook is likewise 5, and my 3400C is 8+.

They don't sleep and only restart after major software updates.

0 problems with all three.
 
My powerbook will be 2 in June i think, apart from it's narcalpsy attack (fixed by me) it's perfect

And my old iBook, 300Mhz, bought back in 1999 apart from a well abused looking case also works floorlessly :cool:
 
Mine's going on 21 months without a single hardware issue. What's more is that it comes with me to work and back on a regular basis as well as other traveling I do and still no problems.

The only issies I've had with my PB are software issues, which were mostly (if not entirely) because of something I did wrong (i.e. renaming my Home folder, etc.).
 
Mine is the last of the 17" PowerBooks, purchased March 13, 2006.

I had the fans replaced last week because they made a slight grinding noise when doing processor-intensive stuff like encoding video. I didn't think much of it, but I figured that I could have the fans replaced in under an hour (I'm friends with a guy who runs an Apple service center). I had no idea how defective my stock fans were until I got the new ones put in. This thing runs so much cooler and quieter now... it's like I got a new computer.

I did get AppleCare because I wouldn't want to pay for a repair out of warranty. It also gives me peace of mind. I can forsee this computer lasting me for years and years to come, so long as Apple keeps putting out OS X with PowerPC support :)
 
My PB is almost 3yrs old now. It is still going strong.

Applecare replaced a dead HD in December.

Question: Does anyone purchase a second AppleCare after/before the first 3yr AppleCare expires? Is it worth it to purchase a 2nd AppleCare when I will probably still use the PB long after 4yrs?
 
joepunk said:
My PB is almost 3yrs old now. It is still going strong.

Applecare replaced a dead HD in December.

Question: Does anyone purchase a second AppleCare after/before the first 3yr AppleCare expires? Is it worth it to purchase a 2nd AppleCare when I will probably still use the PB long after 4yrs?
Click to expand...

I didn't know you could do that
 
My PowerBook is three and a half years old now, one of the first-off-the-line Aluminum 15" models, so it had the white spots problem, that was fixed. I managed to mess up the SuperDrive and that was replaced. Just before my AppleCare ran out, I had the backlight and screen hinge replaced. Never had a hard drive crash or other significant hardware problem. I'll probably sell it sometime next year if it's still functional and replace it with a 13" MacBook (or, even better, some even smaller/lighter Intel 'Book of some sort not-yet-revealed).
 
beige matchbox said:
My powerbook will be 2 in June i think, apart from it's narcalpsy attack (fixed by me) it's perfect

And my old iBook, 300Mhz, bought back in 1999 apart from a well abused looking case also works floorlessly :cool:
Click to expand...

Floorlessly? Do you know something about controling gravity that the rest of us might like to try out?
 
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