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powerbooks in bestbuy

their finally in-stock at bestbuy. got my 12" at the chelsea (NYC) branch. service was terrible...but i can't complain when i was using my $500 gift card (the only reason why i got the pb there). this thing is wicked!
 
Originally posted by MacBandit
If that's the case then it shouldn't be permanent and should fade within an hour or two.

Yes but we're not talking about only once or twice, we're talking a recurring action and much more pressure than just pressing on the screen.
 
RE: Heat Issues

I talked to the people at apple and they helped me out a ton. (This is my first mac --15" AlPB) They had me go into the energy savings option, and adjust the processor speed to automatic instead of highest possible. This has brought the temperature considerably! I have it plugged in now and everything is quite comfortable and cozy.

Thanks for the comments and advice. It wasn't the palm rests getting hot, those stayed cooler than the bottom near the hinge of the screen. That's where I get the heat issues. I haven't been using the visual part of the iTunes, just listening to it while working on other stuff. Interesting, but I'll check that out too.

They mentioned that the fans on this baby (yes I'm using my PB for this) are controlled by a temperature gauge inside the machine and not really controlled by the OS. It would be nice to be able to adjust that by using a script or something. Oh well.

Maybe I'll have to switch it back to highest possible once we get into winter here. :D Keep myself warm! :D :p
 
Re: There's 4 Dead Pixels on my 12"

Originally posted by ozlow
Well, I ordered my powerbook on the 16th. I recieved it on the 1st of October. I opened the box and there it was, in the middle of the freeking screen.

Called MacMall and they said too bad, so sad. Called Apple and they wanted me to send it in so they could test it.

Finally took it to the Genius Bar in Seattle's U-District and they determined it was 4 dead pixels in a clump. I begged them to fix it. After some convincing they took my powerbook. Now I'll be without one for another 2 weeks. It sucks, but hopefully I'll be dead pixel free.

I'll keep you updated.

Well, Apple store U-Village just called. After waiting 5 days for the pixel fix I get this call... "Hi, this is the Apple store, you're powerbook is back." I said "did you turn it on and see if it was fixed?" Reply..."They didn't fix it. They said it was only a clump of 2 pixels, not 4 Apple has a strick policy."

So...

Spoke to their Manager. The manager said. "If you want you can return it here, pay the 170.00 restock fee and I will give you a new powerbook in the box. I can't guaranty it won't have a dead pixel, but I can do that for you."

I wouldn't be so made, if....

1. The "genus" at the bar told me it would be fixed.
2. The Apple Tech told me to bring it to the bar and they would know if Apple would fix it or not.
3. The dead pixels, weren't in the freeking middle of the screen.

Is two dead pixels worth $170.00?

All I can say is &$(#*@!

-oz
 
Re: Re: There's 4 Dead Pixels on my 12"

Originally posted by ozlow
Well, Apple store U-Village just called. After waiting 5 days for the pixel fix I get this call... "Hi, this is the Apple store, you're powerbook is back." I said "did you turn it on and see if it was fixed?" Reply..."They didn't fix it. They said it was only a clump of 2 pixels, not 4 Apple has a strick policy."

So...

Spoke to their Manager. The manager said. "If you want you can return it here, pay the 170.00 restock fee and I will give you a new powerbook in the box. I can't guaranty it won't have a dead pixel, but I can do that for you."

I wouldn't be so made, if....

1. The "genus" at the bar told me it would be fixed.
2. The Apple Tech told me to bring it to the bar and they would know if Apple would fix it or not.
3. The dead pixels, weren't in the freeking middle of the screen.

Is two dead pixels worth $170.00?

All I can say is &$(#*@!

-oz

If he lets you look at it before you actually purchase it, then maybe. Otherwise, no...if you're going to be buying it 'blind', then I'd say $170 is not worth it.

On another note, at least you can go and pick yours up!! Mine's still at the repair facility, waiting for a backordered screen. :(
 
Re: Re: Re: There's 4 Dead Pixels on my 12"

Originally posted by MattG
If he lets you look at it before you actually purchase it, then maybe. Otherwise, no...if you're going to be buying it 'blind', then I'd say $170 is not worth it.

On another note, at least you can go and pick yours up!! Mine's still at the repair facility, waiting for a backordered screen. :(

I've never heard of them letting you open it up and look at the screen. My best suggestion is to find a 3rd party authorized Apple store and see if you can buy there floor model if it doesn't have any bad pixels that is.
 
Re: Re: There's 4 Dead Pixels on my 12"

Originally posted by ozlow
Well, Apple store U-Village just called. After waiting 5 days for the pixel fix I get this call... "Hi, this is the Apple store, you're powerbook is back." I said "did you turn it on and see if it was fixed?" Reply..."They didn't fix it. They said it was only a clump of 2 pixels, not 4 Apple has a strick policy."

So...

Spoke to their Manager. The manager said. "If you want you can return it here, pay the 170.00 restock fee and I will give you a new powerbook in the box. I can't guaranty it won't have a dead pixel, but I can do that for you."

I wouldn't be so made, if....

1. The "genus" at the bar told me it would be fixed.
2. The Apple Tech told me to bring it to the bar and they would know if Apple would fix it or not.
3. The dead pixels, weren't in the freeking middle of the screen.

Is two dead pixels worth $170.00?

All I can say is &$(#*@!

-oz

I think apple is not realy fair with you. If the apple guys made mistake and tell you it's 4 pixels and it will be repair i think you are ok to ask him to repair it. I'm not sure but it sounds like verbal contract.

by the way, by checking, how many pixels are bad?

And i always tought if the placement of bad pixel are very important.If 2 or 4 pixels are in the middle of the screen it's very very anoying. you know i have 2 stuck/green pixels in right middle of the screen and i dont give a f... mine are so well place i can't even see them when i check my screen with white background.
 
I've had my 15" AlBook for 2 weeks now and thankfully, no sign of dreaded white spots. However, an issue I haven't seen raised here but is getting increased attention on the Apple forums is the quality and resolution of the screen itself. There seems to be a lack in clarity and sharpness when reading text in black or blue font, highly apparent on white background. A certain fuzziness about the resolution makes it hard on the eyes after a while. Mine certainly suffers from it. Changing the 'font smoothing' setting in General Prefs doesn't seem to help either. A few users have sent their units in for an LCD and cable replacement, though still unsure if it's even a known issue or not?

Anyone here notice this "display resolution not as crisp as you'd expect for a $2600 machine" phenomenon? Is it worth it's own thread?
 
I've been running a 17" monitor at 1600 x 1200 for two years now, so anything looks sharp to me. I think it looks great for an LCD. Maybe there's just something wrong with yours? Not trying to be offensive or anything, but I've compared my screen with a TiBook's, and they look the same quality-wise. Mine does have a dreaded white spot, but it's not so horrible that I can't ignore it, and I don't have AppleCare yet. (Gonna get that when I have some money again).

--Cless
 
Re: Re: Re: There's 4 Dead Pixels on my 12"

Originally posted by nalfein
I think apple is not realy fair with you. If the apple guys made mistake and tell you it's 4 pixels and it will be repair i think you are ok to ask him to repair it. I'm not sure but it sounds like verbal contract.

A verbal contract is only worth the paper it's written on.
 
Well my wife ordered a PowerBook on the night of Monday the 17th. Today is Friday the 21st. When she made the order it was a build to order and they said it would ship on or before December 10th. Well it shipped today. Also we just ordered it with the normal shipping and it's coming FedEx instead of Aiborne.


So from everything I have read and been told by Apple people is that the Powerbook problems have been fixed at the factory level so in a sense this is a Rev. B Aluminum 15" Powerbook. I figured that was why the shipping was delayed so much. They still got it out quickly though and they have gone back to FedEx. Sounds like Apple is working the problems out. Every company goes through things like this once and a while trying to cut costs. In the case of Apple though they have enough self respect to realize the results were unacceptable and fix the problem. Now we wait and see if the Powerbook is free of problems or not. I've never had a computer from Apple with a problem and I really don't expect this one to have either but we'll see.
 
Buying Next Week

Thanks to everyone for their postings on this fascinating thread. Have just managed to sell my 12" iBook so am finally taking the leap to a 12" G4 PB next week via The Apple Store.

Apple want *£620 extra* (that's $1100 US) to supply it with the full 1.256Gb RAM. Is there any cheaper route to 1.256Gb or at least 1Gb ? Here in the UK I can't find any 3rd party retailers selling 1Gb PC2100 chips.

Also, is there any reason (other than the superdrive) to buy the more expensive 12" model rather than the base (combo drive) machine ?
 
Re: Buying Next Week

Originally posted by tomrob
Thanks to everyone for their postings on this fascinating thread. Have just managed to sell my 12" iBook so am finally taking the leap to a 12" G4 PB next week via The Apple Store.

Apple want *£620 extra* (that's $1100 US) to supply it with the full 1.256Gb RAM. Is there any cheaper route to 1.256Gb or at least 1Gb ? Here in the UK I can't find any 3rd party retailers selling 1Gb PC2100 chips.

Also, is there any reason (other than the superdrive) to buy the more expensive 12" model rather than the base (combo drive) machine ?

Ramseeker is my best suggestion finding ram that is certified to work in a Mac with OSX.

Here's a link.

http://www.ramseeker.com/scripts/sortModelDetails.php?modelId=31&sortSize=1gb

or TransIntl.com.

http://www.transintl.com/store/category.cfm?Category=2439&RequestTimeOut=500
 
Re: Buying Next Week

Originally posted by tomrob
Thanks to everyone for their postings on this fascinating thread. Have just managed to sell my 12" iBook so am finally taking the leap to a 12" G4 PB next week via The Apple Store.

Apple want *£620 extra* (that's $1100 US) to supply it with the full 1.256Gb RAM. Is there any cheaper route to 1.256Gb or at least 1Gb ? Here in the UK I can't find any 3rd party retailers selling 1Gb PC2100 chips.

Also, is there any reason (other than the superdrive) to buy the more expensive 12" model rather than the base (combo drive) machine ?

First off it can never be 1256 MB of RAM...think of this logically.....

1GB = 1024 MB

1256 - 1024 = 232

Especially considering that (I believe) you only have 1 DIMM in the 12" PowerBook...how would you ever get that extra 232 MB?

Now considering a large amount of available DIMMs and much older RAM chips (disregarding types of RAM obviously):

256 MB is obviously too large

128 + 64 + 32 + 8 = 232

In other words you could accomplish this with 5 DIMMs which the PowerBook certainly does not have....

Realize I'm not being mean here it's just that I don't want you to have incorrect information....now if you mean 1 Gig plus a 256 chip then you'd really have 1.280 GB or 1280 MB....in other words either is impossible in the 12"....

edit: BTW we're talking GB, or Gigabytes, not Gb, or Gigabits...
 
Nice one Zync

Thanks for the correction about GB not Gb - as a technical know-nothing, it's good to learn this kind of stuff.

As far as the max RAM goes - as a technical know-nothing who didn't want to appear too stupid, I simply copied the amount shown on the Apple Store page into my message - see: Apple Store - figuring they'd be likely to know the correct max amount of RAM their machine would take.

Seems I was wrong. Ah well.

Thankx to Bandit for pointing me at Ramseeker. Looks like we're talking about 400 bucks for a single one gigabyte chip - a big improvement on the Apple price, but still four times the price of 512mb. Is the 256mb the PB 12" comes with soldered on or a removable DIMM ? I mean could an engineer friend drop in 2 x 512mb DIMMs, and thus get me at least 1024mb (being careful about the exact amount here) for just 200 bucks ?
 
I am not sure if you can do that or not but even if you can it would void your warrantee on your machine.
 
Cheep RAM

Originally posted by tomrob
Thankx to Bandit for pointing me at Ramseeker. Looks like we're talking about 400 bucks for a single one gigabyte chip - a big improvement on the Apple price, but still four times the price of 512mb.

Be careful with buying cheap RAM. For 512MB RAM blocks and greater it's impossible to test all combinations (would take a high number of years per chip). So manufacturing needs to be very high quality. And the worst thing is that RAM errors are hard to detect - your computer just acts strange; somtimes. It's very hard to check whether it's the logic board, the software, the RAM or anything else - so I would try to get as high quality RAM as possible.

I'm not saying only buy Apple RAM. Just get the best available.
 
Re: Cheep RAM

Originally posted by Hugin777
Be careful with buying cheap RAM. For 512MB RAM blocks and greater it's impossible to test all combinations (would take a high number of years per chip). So manufacturing needs to be very high quality. And the worst thing is that RAM errors are hard to detect - your computer just acts strange; somtimes. It's very hard to check whether it's the logic board, the software, the RAM or anything else - so I would try to get as high quality RAM as possible.

I'm not saying only buy Apple RAM. Just get the best available.

The pages I linked to have Apple compatible guaranteed ram. Also all there ram has a lifetime guarantee and I have never had a problem with any of the companies listed.
 
Originally posted by tomrob
..................As far as the max RAM goes - as a technical know-nothing who didn't want to appear too stupid, I simply copied the amount shown on the Apple Store page into my message - see: Apple Store - figuring they'd be likely to know the correct max amount of RAM their machine would take.

Seems I was wrong. Ah well. ....................

That Apple store page is really funny. There are two ways to measure Gigabytes. First the correct way measured in binary. Which comes out 1024 Megabytes for every Gigabyte. Then there's the base 10 method that everyone is taught to count in. That being a thousand is 1000. It has become increasingly more common for hard drive and computer manufacturors to measure the memory capacity in Base10. What happens is 40GB measured in Base10 is 40.96GB. This allows them to market more capacity then there actually is. Whoever wrote the Apple store page doesn't know how to measure memory. They actually understated it by measuring one Gigabyte using base10 and then adding 256 Megabytes to it. What it should say is not 1,256MB but 1,280MB of RAM. So they're shooting themselves in the foot by understating the actual RAM capacity.
 
Originally posted by MacBandit
That Apple store page is really funny. There are two ways to measure Gigabytes. First the correct way measured in binary. Which comes out 1024 Megabytes for every Gigabyte. Then there's the base 10 method that everyone is taught to count in. That being a thousand is 1000. It has become increasingly more common for hard drive and computer manufacturors to measure the memory capacity in Base10. What happens is 40GB measured in Base10 is 40.96GB. This allows them to market more capacity then there actually is. Whoever wrote the Apple store page doesn't know how to measure memory. They actually understated it by measuring one Gigabyte using base10 and then adding 256 Megabytes to it. What it should say is not 1,256MB but 1,280MB of RAM. So they're shooting themselves in the foot by understating the actual RAM capacity.

I was thinking the exact same thing about the base 10 + 256 chip...which is why I asked if he meant 1 gig plus a 256 chip...and yeah if that's what they mean they're stupid :) how can they have someone write a page for their own product who doesn't know what they're talking about? Besides doesn't the 12" only have 1 DIMM? I need to go to the page to read what they put :)....to answer you're question tomrob the ram isn't soldered in (it's usually not soldered in anyway but when it's non-removeable/inaccessable it's considered on-board, i.e. on the logic board) it's in a DIMM...actually the 12" might have some onboard...lemme see...in either case it at least has one DIMM which is user upgradeable...it even has diagrams in the manual (at least for my 15")...

as an aside I really hate the way HD manufacturers use base 10...it really pisses me off...especially since the computer companies started to use the manufacturer's size claim instead of doing it the right way...my friend tells me there are class action lawsuits against HD manufacturers for the way they represent 1 GB...at least people like Apple put a disclaimer in that says 1 GB = 1,000,000 bytes actual formatted capacity less....I hate that...like my 80GB powerbook....you'd expect:

80GB = 80GB

nope, in reality:

80GB x 1000MB = 80,000MB

80,000MB/1024MB = 78.125GB

HD manufacturers are stealing GB after GB from us and yet we still pay for them...that's wrong...I mean take my iPod and the newer ones...

20GB (mine, 2nd gen) - (reality) 19.53GB
10GB - 9.77GB
40GB - 39.06GB

the higher you get the more you lose...hell back a few years ago this would be hundreds of dollars worth of space...I really have 78 versus 80 while that doesn't seem like much it's still not fair and I still paid for those 2GB...back in the day that was the standard HD...
 
Hey MacBandit, what do you think you get with 1.5GB of RAM? :D

a. 1536MB (1 Gig + 512MB)
b. 1524MB (1 Gig + 500MB (somehow))
c. 1500MB (again, somehow)

:D
 

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BTW I'm on dialup and I find it funny that the apple store UK loads faster for me than the american apple store...technically I'm probably closer to the UK though...though there should be fiber optic lines near me to both the UK and california (if they host their site in house which would be expected, though they probably host both in the same place)...it's probably just my mind messing with me...
 
Originally posted by zync
I was thinking the exact same thing about the base 10 + 256 chip...which is why I asked if he meant 1 gig plus a 256 chip...and yeah if that's what they mean they're stupid :) how can they have someone write a page for their own product who doesn't know what they're talking about? Besides doesn't the 12" only have 1 DIMM? I need to go to the page to read what they put :)....to answer you're question tomrob the ram isn't soldered in (it's usually not soldered in anyway but when it's non-removeable/inaccessable it's considered on-board, i.e. on the logic board) it's in a DIMM...actually the 12" might have some onboard...lemme see...in either case it at least has one DIMM which is user upgradeable...it even has diagrams in the manual (at least for my 15")..............

The 12" has one user upgradeable slot and one factory installed slot. If someone knows what they are doing they could replace the factory slot but you would be voiding your warranty.
 
it' the 7457 processor.. when you install the chud tools you will notice it. but it's without the 2 MB L3 cache.
 
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