Killed iBook? - spark leaps from audio into jack.

[indigoflowAS]

My dude may have just crippled, if not killed his iBook. He was plugging in the jack from this amp he uses as a speaker into the audio out of the iBook...a spark jumped across before he plugged it in. The iBook froze and a upon forcing it to restart, it would not do so. The HDD appears to try to spin up and the sleep indicator lights up, no "breathing," and flickers every so often. The only way to see if its on really is to push the caps lock light and see it light up.

...sounds ugly to me. think his data is safe? fill me in, thanks

 

[amacgenius]

Tell him to back up all his important data ASAP just in case, and then (if it's still under warranty) have him take in into an Apple Store and see if they can diagnose and possibly (under warranty) fix the problem .

 

[Demon Hunter]

This is just guessing on my part, but the logic board is completely fried. If the sleep indicator light isn't even working, that's bad. The hard drive should be okay, although there could be some corrupt data.

 

[mkrishnan]

Depending on how badly the hard drive is damaged, it may be possible to get the Mac up in target disk mode, or else, you will probably (more likely) need to pull the hard drive out, and put it in an enclosure, or something....

Wow, the potential on that line must've been quite a lot to fry a logic board through the headphone jack.

 

[indigoflowAS]

is a short/fried logic board covered under Applecare? he has 13 days left on his Applecare

 

[mkrishnan]

is a short/fried logic board covered under Applecare? he has 13 days left on his Applecare

Depends...have him call them *now*, like right this minute, why are you still here on MR replying to this post, NOW, and tell them what happened.

I guess it really depends on where the high voltage came from. If it sparked because there was a chassis ground issue on the iBook, it's Apple's fault. If it sparked because it was the amp, it was your friend's fault. But that's really hard to diagnose.

Anyway, good luck!