21 Nov
2001
21 Nov
'01
8:58 a.m.
I assume these are boardswapper guides and don't
include useful
information like schematics, right?
Exactly.
They are wonderful when you are trying to do things like open a Powerbook
to repair the latch spring or the mouse button (both things that are
prone to break on the 190/5300/3400/G3 case design), but totally useless
if you want to know how to repair the fried power supply on a 1400
(swapping yes, repairing no).
But that jives with apple and the Mac... they have ALWAYS had a board
swap approach to repair. Even when the repair is something simple. So if
that is all they approve doing, why bother making public (or in the case
of these, pseudo public) manuals that cover anything more detailed.
I would LOVE to find another good book on actually repairing Macs (The
Dead Mac Scrolls was wonderful, but it only covers thru the II IIRC... I
want something that will tell me how to get my PB 1400s power supply
working again, or repair/replace the fried printer port on my 6500...
that is the kind of book I want to find)
Now, I guess I've come to expect that computer
service centres can't
trace a fault in a circuit of 4 components. But if they're going to
board-swap, shouldn't they just swap the defective board? And not also
replace an expensive PSU that's got nothing wrong with it?
I know around here, it is very hard to find a "decent" repair shop. That
is, one that knows what they are doing, won't try to rip you off, and can
do economical repairs. For a while, the local CompUSA (big national
computer retail chain for those not in the US), had a GREAT tech. He
could do component level repairs, and did them on a regular basis. It was
not unusual to take a computer in, and find that it was repaired for the
diagnostic fee ($65), plus a dollar or two in parts.... guess what... the
CompUSA fired the guy... why? Because they could make more money selling
new boards then repairing the broken ones. They looked at it in terms of,
they can make no markup on a 50 cent transistor, and no additional labor
for the guy to spend 5 minutes replacing it... OR, they can make a 20-30%
markup on a new motherboard, AND 2 hours of labor (@ $65/hr) for the tech
to replace it, and reset the windows installation to accept it... AND
they could use brain dead, no training people at $10/hr to do the work
(compared to I am sure a much higher rate for the guy that knew what he
was doing).
And then you just have apple, that doesn't authorize "custom" repairs on
its parts... if it is warranty, or an "authorized" apple repair, it is
done as a board swap, and only to the detail they specify (which in many
cases means far more gets replaced then needed)... the tech mentioned
above used to ask, do you want an apple authorized repair (needed if it
was warranty, or you wanted to maintain a warranty if the repair itself
isn't covered), or did you want an unauthorized, but cheaper and faster
repair. Most people I know took the unauthorized repair for all units out
of warranty (can't void what you don't have)
-chris
<http://www.mythtech.net>