What to do.

[JustineA]

So. I have a white Macbook unibody. I bought it refurbished, from Apple, May 2010

Couple weeks ago my child spilled a little bit of juice on it, and I dried it out and it is still functioning, aside from the fact that a few keys are sticky (any way to un-stickify those?)

Some of the problems it has been having are this:

Safari takes up too much ram. CD drive no longer works, just spits stuff out. Sticky keys from juice spill. Fan runs a lot and the machine runs hot. Battery life is about 2 hrs, so it lives plugged in.

Took it to Genius Bar to see about how much a repair would be.
They said it would cost $750 to fix everything that might be broken in it. Basically re-refurbish it.

So I am toying around with this idea, or purchasing either a MBP or MBA...

What would you do? Fix this one and throw in some more RAM? Or buy a new one?

 

[MrCheeto]

Safari takes up too much ram.

No it doesn't. Safari, as with most apps, takes up as much RAM as it desires. However, once another app requires that RAM, it's automatically freed up.

Rather than closing all of the Safari windows when you aren't using one, be sure to Quit it. It will release all of it's RAM.

As for the fan and heat, I can only guess that it's one of many common problems. Antivirus software, Mozy or other backup software, Flash player...

To be honest, I'd gladly diagnose it, free of charge. I haven't gotten to do any internal work on the white unibody MacBooks, so this would benefit me. It may be something as simple as reinstalling the OS, and I'll un-sticky your key caps just for the heck of it.

Check out my blog (link in the signature) and email me for details. I'd really be happy to help and I'll post all of the findings in this thread to assist others with similar issues

 

[JustineA]

Thanks,
About Safari, it didnt used to do this. I use it the same as I used to, but now it seems I can only run Safari, and no other program otherwise the machine will freeze up.

I will look at your blog.

So you think repairing it is better?

 

[MrCheeto]

I think a free shot at repairing it (and a free key-cleaning) is better, haha.

Hm, if it's doing something that it didn't at first, then it sounds like something that was installed or a setting or a change in file permissions. All of these could easily be determined and likely fixed by a operating-system reinstall.