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Life expentency, no internet, and stuck dvd... why bother with apple?

W

whydidiswitch

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 1, 2009
4
0
in October of 07, we took the plunge and bought a brand new Imac desktop system, instead of a PC. we were tired of getting 2 to 3 years of life from a PC and then having it crash and die. We thought with all the hype about Apple, it had to be better. so we spent the extra money, got an Imac, and ran with it...

fast forward 1 year, things are fine... add another 3 months (15 months) and suddenly, a DVD is stuck in the drive, and there is no way to get it out short of taking it back to Apple, and having them rip apart our machine. (we tried every single hint/suggestion/trick on the internet to eject it, capture it, trick it, grab it with tweezers, etc.) Why didn't Apple bother to design an eject button or reset on the unit itself? So, 15 months into the life, and we lose DVD/CD/CD burning/and Music playing capabilities... about 1/3 the reason for owning it, in our view.

Now, in April, we turn on the Mac one morning, and it will no longer "connect" to the internet, through either Safari or Firefox. Our router is fine, the computer can speak and ping with the ISP, we have "connection", we have a valid IP address, but something suddenly decides it doesn't want to work, so it refuses to pull up any internet pages. we did all the reboots, tricks and tips we could find, we had our ISP shoot the service to the router, and they can even verify that the computer is connected, but... no internet.

So, 16 months of ownership, and i have a pretty word processor.

I drank the kool-aid, i guess this is the price i pay. $50 for an apple service call on the phone, and that won't guarantee me a fix, just that they will trouble shoot a single problem. And, the technician tells me it's likely that after that $50 is spent, he will simply tell me to take it to an Apple store for repair... a 2.5 hour drive, one way.

Hurrah... More time, gas, and money to drive it into LA, leave it for who knows how long, then drive back down and pick it up.

I should have stuck with a PC.. at least my IT guys could have fixed it from work.
 
Was there a question in there somewhere? Your connection issues are probably the product of a software problem and can be fixed without a trip, assuming you're actually looking for help rather than just venting.
 
I guess a lot of frustrated venting (for spending more for a lesser product), but if there truly is a software fix, I would love to hear it. the apple tech wants $50 to start the process, and he can't actually tell me that he will do anything more than my ISP tech did with her "Imac Troubleshooting Guide". He couldn't directly say anything without the fee, but he seemed impressed at what my ISP technician had already tried.
 
With the limited information given, the browsing problem can be a due to accidentally switching on a proxy.

Check under System Preferences -- Network -- Ethernet(or whatever) -- Advanced -- Proxies. (Firefox latest version has them under Preferences - Advanced - Network -Settings).

As for the drive, stuff breaks. :( If you have tried all known remedies, perhaps you should consider buying an external DVD drive.
 
whydidiswitch said:
I should have stuck with a PC.. at least my IT guys could have fixed it from work.
Click to expand...

The IT guys aren't the only people who could "fix" your PC from "work". ;)

Go to System Preferences > Network > Advanced. Select your internet connection. Make sure your TCP/IP settings and DNS servers are set up correctly. Make sure you don't have a proxy set up accidentally.

The three Intel Macs I've owned have all had $1500 logic board failures. Fortunately, they all had extended warranties. I've also got two PowerPC Macs which have been going for 12 years with zero trouble.
 
omeletpants said:
Stop whining. Everything manufactured breaks at some point. :cool:
Click to expand...

Much like the marketing and hype surrounding Apple's "long carefree life", this statement is also not true. I can make bromine, and it will last pretty much forever and ever. When the universe is expanded, and entropy has ruled completely, bromine will still be around.

And i do know that things break. But, I could have bought a cheaper product that lasts longer, saved money, and gotten a better value... that's what I dislike about my purchase. The extra money to get a "carefree" product that dies faster than any of my "trouble filled" PCs ever did.
 
Thanks for the other tips.. my proxies seem fine/clear, the ISP technician checked them out and nothing was wrong per her handbook. THe TCP/IP and DNS configurations also were checked, nothing seemed wrong there either.

the external drive is an option, i guess, if i get internet to work (no reason to spend money on a paperweight if it doesn't). I assume that will use up one of my USB drive ports? I guess i could buy a wireless keyboard, and use that port...
 
whydidiswitch said:
in October of 07, we took the plunge and bought a brand new Imac desktop system, instead of a PC. we were tired of getting 2 to 3 years of life from a PC and then having it crash and die. We thought with all the hype about Apple, it had to be better. so we spent the extra money, got an Imac, and ran with it...

fast forward 1 year, things are fine... add another 3 months (15 months) and suddenly, a DVD is stuck in the drive, and there is no way to get it out short of taking it back to Apple, and having them rip apart our machine. (we tried every single hint/suggestion/trick on the internet to eject it, capture it, trick it, grab it with tweezers, etc.) Why didn't Apple bother to design an eject button or reset on the unit itself? So, 15 months into the life, and we lose DVD/CD/CD burning/and Music playing capabilities... about 1/3 the reason for owning it, in our view.

Now, in April, we turn on the Mac one morning, and it will no longer "connect" to the internet, through either Safari or Firefox. Our router is fine, the computer can speak and ping with the ISP, we have "connection", we have a valid IP address, but something suddenly decides it doesn't want to work, so it refuses to pull up any internet pages. we did all the reboots, tricks and tips we could find, we had our ISP shoot the service to the router, and they can even verify that the computer is connected, but... no internet.

So, 16 months of ownership, and i have a pretty word processor.

I drank the kool-aid, i guess this is the price i pay. $50 for an apple service call on the phone, and that won't guarantee me a fix, just that they will trouble shoot a single problem. And, the technician tells me it's likely that after that $50 is spent, he will simply tell me to take it to an Apple store for repair... a 2.5 hour drive, one way.

Hurrah... More time, gas, and money to drive it into LA, leave it for who knows how long, then drive back down and pick it up.

I should have stuck with a PC.. at least my IT guys could have fixed it from work.
Click to expand...

Forgive me as I post this from my work PC instead of my Mac, but if you can open terminal, and throw

ifconfig en0

at the command line, we might be able to see a little bit more about why your browsing is unhappy.

Another thing to try is to see if another user logs into the machine if it works properly. Perhaps your account has become hosed. I was working on a Mac Mini the other day and the account couldn't save stuff in its keychain, couldn't save its dock settings, etc. And it was an admin account. I created a new account while logged into the broken one and the new account could do everything just fine.

Don't get frustrated. The lack of an eject mechanism is crap. I will give you that. I was trying to get a new Mini to take an old copy of Mac OS X Server the other day and it was UNHAPPY about it. I had to bring my Mac keyboard from home to use its eject button since the normal stuff wouldn't work to get it to pop out.
 
Go to terminal, type "ifconfig", and paste the output here.

Do you have any firewalls running? Check in Security Preferences, and type "sudo ipfw list" in the Terminal (you'll need to enter your password) and paste the output here.
 
Well Im sure it wasn't entirely Apple's fault for why your Disc Drive broke or something. You might of not been too careful with it ;)

My sis broke her car stereo so many times (disc drive) because she kept jamming the disc in the stereo. She would put a CD in like the Car Stereo was invincible and couldn't break.

Im just saying maybe you should treat your stuff better and nothing would get stuck. If you were really careful with your Mac and your Disc Drive broke, then my bad and I take that back.
 
Also, while you're in the terminal, I'd double check your DNS resolution.

First, run
Code: 
dig cs.uml.edu
This will run a DNS lookup using your system's configured DNS. If that is working, it should return something which looks like this:
Code: 
;; ANSWER SECTION:
cs.uml.edu.        3600    IN    A    129.63.8.2

Now, if that doesn't work, try this:
Code: 
dig @4.2.2.2 cs.uml.edu

Hopefully one of the two should work. If the first fails in the second succeeds, your DNS settings are probably misconfigured somewhere or the host you are using isn't responding.
 
whydidiswitch said:
Much like the marketing and hype surrounding Apple's "long carefree life", this statement is also not true. I can make bromine, and it will last pretty much forever and ever.

And i do know that things break. But, I could have bought a cheaper product that lasts longer, saved money, and gotten a better value... that's what I dislike about my purchase. The extra money to get a "carefree" product that dies faster than any of my "trouble filled" PCs ever did.
Click to expand...

As a counterexample, I've never had a major problem that required Apple repair in the 10-some odd years I've owned Macs. But you don't see me going around saying that all Macs last forever. In the majority of cases they don't have problems, don't go using your one example as proof that all Mac units are faulty.
 
I might be able to help with the DVD drive as I've seen stuck disks removed before. It's "invasive", and not without a slight risk, but the worst that can happen is you can wreck the DVD drive, so no real loss, right?

These instructions apply to the white iMacs, so if yours is aluminium (not sure which the 07 was) someone might be able to spot problems with this method and chime in, but the DVD drive should be the same.

Take the back off the iMac and find the DVD drive. There are some small screws holding it in place. Remove those and lift it up from the machine (don't bother disconnecting it). There are a couple of small screws holding the top plate on the drive near the loading slot, so remove these. The trick with this is that you can't remove the top plate easily as it's sealed at the back, but you don't need to - you just need to lift the plate at the slot-loading end just enough but without bending it - maybe a 1/4 inch. Once you have it lifted a small amount (you might need some help) you can reach into the slot (or into the gap you're creating by lifting the plate) with a thin knife or tweezers and flip the disk off the spindle. You only need to lift it by the thickness of the disk to dislodge it, which is why you don't need to lift that top plate too far. Once it clicks off the spindle, it'll just drop out of the drive along the knife. The just fasten it all back together and you're good to go.

I've seen this done and helped with the process, and the drive was fine and still working three years later.

BTW - in this case, it was due to a slightly different gauge of DVD. I read up about it (I didn't realise some were thicker than others) and it sounded reasonable, but it could be rubbish. All I know is the second that DVD was spun up in the drive, the readable surface was terminated, and the mechanism wasn't able to release it. My point being, it was a shoddy, non-standard disk in this case, and not the fault of Apple's hardware, so don't lose faith just yet :)
 
whydidiswitch said:
Much like the marketing and hype surrounding Apple's "long carefree life", this statement is also not true. I can make bromine, and it will last pretty much forever and ever. When the universe is expanded, and entropy has ruled completely, bromine will still be around.

And i do know that things break. But, I could have bought a cheaper product that lasts longer, saved money, and gotten a better value... that's what I dislike about my purchase. The extra money to get a "carefree" product that dies faster than any of my "trouble filled" PCs ever did.
Click to expand...

I have switched from the PC to Mac 16 months ago. I still run the PC and the Mac at the same time daily. I have Paralles and VMware running on the Mac. In the last 16 months the only problems that I have had is on the Windows machine or the Windows partions on the Mac but NEVER on the Mac it's self.
 
Every computer from every computer maker has problems now and then.

I had trouble once with my iMac where a DVD didn't get all the way in. There was not enough of it showing for me to pull it out, so very carefully I took a 2nd DVD and just made a slight push to get the 1st dvd all the way in. Then I was able to eject it normally.

Internet connection problems shouldn't be difficult to fix.
 
I got my DVD drive replaced by Apple a few months ago... and it broke last week. Luckily I'm under warranty, but I feel your pain. I could never go with a netbook because I actually use my DVD drive, and it just sucks!

Best of luck. If you're comfortable opening the mac up, you could always just replace the dvd drive yourself.
 
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