Tuesday 5 May 2009

Capacity for disruption

It's still dead. My computer. For three or four years it has obeyed many of my commands, and certainly never failed to turn on or off. Yes, it's been frustrating at times. It took me a very long time to discover that to perform a "right click" you have to press CTRL at the same time as clicking on the Mac's mouse. Until yesterday I was often frustrated by its inability to show me, before clicking, where a link might take me (on a PC, of course, you just hover over the link and the address is displayed at the bottom left of the screen). Until yesterday, that is, because today it's irrelevant. The Mac is an ex-Mac. The Apple has rotted.

I've searched discussion forums for clues: apparently Apple used a batch of dodgy capacitors in the power supplies of the G5 iMac. These capacitors leak or explode, quite possibly both, and incapacitate the power supply. No power, no computer.

OK, I thought, I'll dismantle the thing and see if I can find the fault. I could almost hear the breath being sucked past the teeth as I found discussions of fault finding on the G5-with-iSight (my model). The Apple website shows you how to get the back off G5s - great! - but the G5 iSight is excluded. It is non-DIY. Of course, people HAVE managed to get the thing apart, and have put instructions up. But it looks like a nightmare. So much so that the first place I phoned this morning, a highly recommended Apple specialist in Norwich, told me he wasn't interested in taking the job on because of the difficulty in dismantling.

In commenting on my previous post Carl of Maclogics in Peterborough has given me hope. First, by describing a possible easy cure, to do with holding down the "on" button while plugging it in (already tried) and second by telling me not to panic. My data should be recoverable. I suppose in extremis the hard drive could be removed without regard for the rest of the computer, put in an "enclosure", and wired up to another Mac. I've left a message for him to contact me.

Meanwhile there'll be few photos, and none of our recent canal trips.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Halfie, give up on it, after a temporary surge in popularity a couple of years ago (when Vista first came out with teething troubles)the tables have now turned. Macs are buggy, they have probs running some popular software & debugging / help is almost non existent.
Bite the bullett & go for a nice Vista Premium laptop - you'll never look back & it has some great diagnosis tools. Only ever problem I had was a printer driver it couldn't use cos Epson had kindly written it in German... They sorted it eventually.
That's how Vista got a bad name at first, cos other hardware companies hadn't developed Vista drivers for their hardware in time for Vista's release. So M$ got the blame...

PS: On a much lighter note I've tagged a comment (or 2) on that same post about that new photo of yours --- what a cool dude... lol

H

Carl said...

Not quite so. As someone who looks after over 200 clients, problems with a Mac are nowhere near those of a PC. Not sure the word 'buggy' could ever be applied to a Mac in the same way awful could be applied to Vista...

And if you want, you can run Vista on your Mac... (though I stick with XP)

Still, in fairness, Apple don't make any part of the hardware, and anything electrical or mechanical can break whenever it likes.

As for support, I can get Halfie up and running again in less than 24 hours.

Anonymous said...

You're on Carl, all the best with that one, getting Halfie up & running with recovering any data from his HD on another computer shouldn't be a prob. But resurrecting this particular laptop within 24 hours is asking a lot. Even if it's possible to open it up, ID the prob & order new hardware it wouldn't arrive in 24 hours & given the laptops age Halfie could be wasting his money... Give us an update within 24 hours - should be interesting..

H

Carl said...

I've already diagnosed the problem. The part can be ordered one day and delivered the next. The computer takes about 40 minutes to open and remove the old part and 40 minutes to fit the new part and put it back together again - without him knowing it was ever opened. 20 minutes for testing and it's back doing what it should for another 4 years.

It's not a laptop, but a desktop. If it were a laptop it would be even quicker.

Halfie said...

Er, excuse me, can I say something?

Heather, I know you're trying to be helpful, but I think I'll stick with the Mac for a bit longer, assuming Carl can indeed get it going again. It cost a lot of money! Yes, it was frustrating at first, but I've got used to it now. (I might get a Mac laptop next time, though!) I'll have another look at the post you mention (who is this cool dude?)

Carl, I like your optimism! Let's do it! I've e-mailed you. Just a moment, only another four years? Is that all I can expect?

Anonymous said...

Hi Halfie,

In that case I really hope Carl can sort it out for you - only had your best interest at heart. Let us know how you get on. (007)

H