iBook repair (approximate cost)

[5300cs]

I was carrying my iBook in my bag last nite, and due to some jostling around (don't remember too much, was drinking) a small piece broke off and now the CD drive won't stay closed.
If I push it in and hold it, it will try to access the CD, but because this tiny piece broke out (from where, I can't tell) it just keeps popping open.
I know this sounds vague, but can anyone guess how much it would cost to repair?

p.s.- no insurance, this was bought 2 years ago in the U.S.
also, this is the very first CD model, do you think for a little extra, Apple would swap it for a CD-RW drive?

 

[Mblazened]

I just repaired an ibook with the exact problem.

Likely the metal catch on the botton of your optical drive has bent away from the release. It needs to be bent back, then it will likely work fine.

You have to take the computer all apart, and remove the optical drive. then look on the bottom to see the catch.

Unless, you know for sure that a piece of the optical drive has broken and come out. That would not be easily repaired.

Repairs for this would be in the hundreds of dollars if you sent it to apple. See if you can find a service center to work on it in-house.

-m

 

[5300cs]

Dunno if this helps, but here is the piece that broke out.

 

[applemacdude]

see what drinking does

 

[5300cs]

thanks for the help I'll be sure to give to my local SADD/MADD chapter from now on

here's another picture I just took, showing more damage. what happened was that my bag was checked at the place I went to but I didn't notice the damage until I had already gotten on the last train home. it's quite obvious the place where I checked my bag dropped it, or hit it hard.

if you look inside the black circle, you might notice that there's supposed to be a piece of plastic screwed into the frame which helps hold the two halves together. this part was also broken.

Mblazened >> Needless to say I guess this ups the cost of repair?

 

[5300cs]

A Happy Ending

Bad News: went to the nearest Mac dealership and asked them about fixing it. They said it would cost a staggering $500+ to fix it. WTF? So THAT'S where Apple is getting all it's money. It's not good enough to just replace a small piece. No- they need to replace the entire drive

Good News: on the way home stopped in the Electronics District and found a good deal on a 14" 800Mhz iBook My sorrow was quite short-lived.

R.I.P. P29, you've served me well. Wonder why OS X Server won't run on it?

 

[robotrenegade]

Just get a new one.

 

[iJon]

Re: A Happy Ending

Originally posted by 5300cs
Bad News: went to the nearest Mac dealership and asked them about fixing it. They said it would cost a staggering $500+ to fix it. WTF? So THAT'S where Apple is getting all it's money. It's not good enough to just replace a small piece. No- they need to replace the entire drive

Good News: on the way home stopped in the Electronics District and found a good deal on a 14" 800Mhz iBook My sorrow was quite short-lived.

R.I.P. P29, you've served me well. Wonder why OS X Server won't run on it?

yada yada, its customer abuse, you should have bought a case, cheapest insurance you can buy.

iJon

 

[melchior]

"i broke my cd drive so i decided to get a new computer"

 

[iJed]

Re: A Happy Ending

Originally posted by 5300cs
Bad News: went to the nearest Mac dealership and asked them about fixing it. They said it would cost a staggering $500+ to fix it. WTF?

That is simply a ridiculous price. They also did this for my 500MHz iBook when I needed a new motherboard. It cost me about £350 UK. It would not surprise me if this was one reason why people don't buy Macs.

 

[iJon]

Re: Re: A Happy Ending

Originally posted by iJed
That is simply a ridiculous price. They also did this for my 500MHz iBook when I needed a new motherboard. It cost me about £350 UK. It would not surprise me if this was one reason why people don't buy Macs.

lol, your highly misinformed. go break your motherboard on a compaq and see what your price is. i had a friend who had to have his motherboard replaced on his compaq, price was 600 dollars. its not the reason people buy macs, its the reason why people buy cases so stuff liek this doesnt happen, it was his own fault.

iJon

 

[mrjamin]

Re: Re: A Happy Ending

Originally posted by iJed
That is simply a ridiculous price. They also did this for my 500MHz iBook when I needed a new motherboard. It cost me about £350 UK. It would not surprise me if this was one reason why people don't buy Macs.

i just had my iBook repaired (under warranty). i got a new screen and new logic board - all in all the repair would've cost £650 PARTS ONLY if it wasn't under warranty.

 

[yzedf]

What a joke...

Just buy a new drive somewhere else:

http://www.wegenermedia.com/ibkdrv.htm

 

[Mblazened]

The damage you describe would definitely fit the cost, unfortunately.

 

[melchior]

ok, honestly, this is a totally minor problem. and charging $500 is ridiculous.

if i wasn't leaving japan really soon i'd offer to fix it for you.

$500 for a cd drive, even if you do need to take the ibook apart (and it's not that bad, i've done it half a dozen times) that's $30 for the part and $470 for labor.

 

[iJed]

Re: Re: Re: A Happy Ending

Originally posted by iJon
lol, your highly misinformed. go break your motherboard on a compaq and see what your price is. i had a friend who had to have his motherboard replaced on his compaq, price was 600 dollars. its not the reason people buy macs,

Yeah and if I need a new motherboard for my PowerMac how much will I have to pay? £300? £400? £500? If it was a PC of this age then it would be somewhere between £65 and £120.

Also when I sent in my iBook (since I had no other choice) it took them a good part of a month to fix. Not only did they take ages but they broke the DVD ROM drive. If any PC company had this kind of customer service then they would have gone bankrupt.

its the reason why people buy cases so stuff liek this doesnt happen, it was his own fault.

Things break. Its not exactly uncommon. I take my iBook into the pub quite often after uni so I can easily understand how his could have been broken. It is a laptop you know and the idea of a laptop is that you can take it places with you. Obviously you must be "highly misinformed."

 

[5300cs]

Melchior > Where in Japan are you? If I had know, I would've asked you to fix it anything rather than forking out $500.
People's replies are making me sound like some sort of spoiled brat. I didn't break the damn thing on purpose.
The way I looked at it was, $500 to fix it, why not just add another $500 and buy a more up-to-date machine? The store I went to (MacMart -part of Eden) was selling used 500Mhzs for ¥80000 (with a broken mouse button; the guy said I could have that repaired for ¥20000 [around $200] ) So I could buy a 500Mhz for $800 or a 700Mhz or 800Mhz for $1000 NEW. Which would you choose?
There are no other places in the city that will repair Macs- the sales guy at another place I went to didn't even know how to turn the damn thing on or even plug-in the AC adapter!
Faced with the situation, I just decided to go with a new machine.

 

[iJon]

Re: Re: Re: Re: A Happy Ending

Originally posted by iJed
Yeah and if I need a new motherboard for my PowerMac how much will I have to pay? £300? £400? £500? If it was a PC of this age then it would be somewhere between £65 and £120.

Also when I sent in my iBook (since I had no other choice) it took them a good part of a month to fix. Not only did they take ages but they broke the DVD ROM drive. If any PC company had this kind of customer service then they would have gone bankrupt.



Things break. Its not exactly uncommon. I take my iBook into the pub quite often after uni so I can easily understand how his could have been broken. It is a laptop you know and the idea of a laptop is that you can take it places with you. Obviously you must be "highly misinformed."

yeah, if you built your computer. but not if not bought it from a name brand compan, the charges are similar, mac or pc. also cs just rated apple best support out of all the tech companies, youve just had bad luck and your saying pc motherboards replacements are cheaper when you are wrong.

iJon

 

[iUser]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A Happy Ending

Originally posted by iJon
yeah, if you built your computer. but not if not bought it from a name brand compan, the charges are similar, mac or pc.
iJon

Thanks for the input - you're wrong. Before you disagree, I've been working with this stuff longer than you've been alive. So listen up. Industry price for a new slim CD driver is ~$50, which mean Apple will want $150+. Ok, fine - ignoring that, normal service price for a company Apple's size would be $70-$100/hr of work. This gives us the maximum "reasonable" price as $250. If it takes any service shop more than an hour to swap out a CD drive - laptop or not - they should be burned to the ground.

Originally posted by iJon
also cs just rated apple best support out of all the tech companies, youve just had bad luck and your saying pc motherboards replacements are cheaper when you are wrong.
iJon

Well, that's just plain farking stupid.

1) PC motherboards are cheaper than Apple CD drives. See link from yzedf.
2) Apple service sucks.

The lid catch on my ibook broke through no fault of mine exactly one month after the warranty expired. Ok, fine, stuff breaks. Apple's solution: replace the entire case for $600. WTF? It's $0.50 worth of plastic!! The Apple service tech told me that that's their solution for anything remotely case related. Yeah, great service....

 

[iJon]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A Happy Ending

Originally posted by iUser
Thanks for the input - you're wrong. Before you disagree, I've been working with this stuff longer than you've been alive. So listen up. Industry price for a new slim CD driver is ~$50, which mean Apple will want $150+. Ok, fine - ignoring that, normal service price for a company Apple's size would be $70-$100/hr of work. This gives us the maximum "reasonable" price as $250. If it takes any service shop more than an hour to swap out a CD drive - laptop or not - they should be burned to the ground.



Well, that's just plain farking stupid.

1) PC motherboards are cheaper than Apple CD drives. See link from yzedf.
2) Apple service sucks.

The lid catch on my ibook broke through no fault of mine exactly one month after the warranty expired. Ok, fine, stuff breaks. Apple's solution: replace the entire case for $600. WTF? It's $0.50 worth of plastic!! The Apple service tech told me that that's their solution for anything remotely case related. Yeah, great service....

pc motherboards are only going to be drastically cheaper if you build your computer with an asus or gigabyte motherboard or that soart. if you have a a compaq out or warranty or ruin it out of customer abuse the motherboard will near the same cost as apple, this is a fact, i know this. and im gonna stop this argument before it gets out of hand, but please, go ask some people on this thread how long it took to replace anything in their ibook besides ram or an airport card, ill guarantee you it was more than an hour but ill take your word for it, youve been doing this before i was born.

iJon

 

[MacAztec]

I agree

I agree with iJon. Go price out a Sony Vaio desktop, or a Compaq desktop, or any of that ****. Or even the laptops.

You will find that the machines are pretty much neck in neck (except for apple includes way better apps, and is more reliable, and runs X).

My buddy bought like a P4 2.6GHz HP with a DVD-R and all that crap for like 1600 a few months ago.

Well, he lleft it on in a cubbard for a day, doing nothing, and the CPU fried. HP didnt replace it because it was damage done by him or some ****.

But when my dads powerbook wouldn't boot, apple sent out a box (with padding) for him to put it in that day, and it was shipped back that night via fedex. They fixed it (it was bad RAM) but also included a new screen. All in 2 days. Sounds good to me.

 

[alset]

why are you here?

Originally posted by iUser
Thanks for the input - you're wrong. Before you disagree, I've been working with this stuff longer than you've been alive. So listen up. Industry price for a new slim CD driver is ~$50, which mean Apple will want $150+. Ok, fine - ignoring that, normal service price for a company Apple's size would be $70-$100/hr of work. This gives us the maximum "reasonable" price as $250. If it takes any service shop more than an hour to swap out a CD drive - laptop or not - they should be burned to the ground.



Well, that's just plain farking stupid.

1) PC motherboards are cheaper than Apple CD drives. See link from yzedf.
2) Apple service sucks.

The lid catch on my ibook broke through no fault of mine exactly one month after the warranty expired. Ok, fine, stuff breaks. Apple's solution: replace the entire case for $600. WTF? It's $0.50 worth of plastic!! The Apple service tech told me that that's their solution for anything remotely case related. Yeah, great service....

You have posted three messages since you signed up with MacRumors. They have all been complaints. Why are you here?

Dan

 

[iJed]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A Happy Ending

Originally posted by iJon
pc motherboards are only going to be drastically cheaper if you build your computer with an asus or gigabyte motherboard or that soart. if you have a a compaq out or warranty or ruin it out of customer abuse the motherboard will near the same cost as apple, this is a fact, i know this. and im gonna stop this argument before it gets out of hand, but please, go ask some people on this thread how long it took to replace anything in their ibook besides ram or an airport card, ill guarantee you it was more than an hour but ill take your word for it, youve been doing this before i was born.

iJon

A friend of mine had the mobo replaced in his Time (a British company) laptop for well under £200 UK. The machine may be an ugly brick that is only marginally more stylish than a Dell but it does run Linux pretty nicely. He also got it fixed within two days and an upgraded motherboard at no extra cost. This is much better service than the £350 I payed to have to wait a month to have anther 500MHz motherboard installed and my DVD-ROM drive ****ed up.

You also make another good pro-PC point:

pc motherboards are only going to be drastically cheaper if you build your computer

This is the reason many of my friends in my computing science course do not consider buying a Mac to be a viable option. You would think that Apple would actually want to attract computing science students since they are the people who will be coding the next generation of software. It is not a good thing if many of them are anti-Mac...

 

[MacAztec]

Wow

People buy macs because of how wonderful they run.

I just built a PC about 1.5 months ago, and I have had more problems with it then all the problems I have had with my macs (combined). Here were the specs, and here was what happened.

P4 2.66GHz (533MHz FSB)
Gigabyte Motherboard
Radeon 9500 Pro

Blah blah blah.

Installing Windows XP Pro took about 3 hours, it was impossible to setup, it took me 2 days to setup the internet because ****ing windows xp wanted its own IP, it wanted to be on its own workgroup.

Then 3 days later, it booted in DOS and wouldnt boot in XP, no matter what I tried. So I had to reinstall XP, and reconfigure, and the machine ****ed up my network.

 

[iJed]

Re: Wow

Originally posted by MacAztec
People buy macs because of how wonderful they run.

I just built a PC about 1.5 months ago, and I have had more problems with it then all the problems I have had with my macs (combined). Here were the specs, and here was what happened.

P4 2.66GHz (533MHz FSB)
Gigabyte Motherboard
Radeon 9500 Pro

Blah blah blah.

Installing Windows XP Pro took about 3 hours, it was impossible to setup, it took me 2 days to setup the internet because ****ing windows xp wanted its own IP, it wanted to be on its own workgroup.

Then 3 days later, it booted in DOS and wouldnt boot in XP, no matter what I tried. So I had to reinstall XP, and reconfigure, and the machine ****ed up my network.

While I agree with you that PCs are a pain they are still useful for some things like unix installations so long as your happy using the command line.

One thing I have to ask you though is why did you install DOS on the machine?