The Year of the Geek

More like 25 Years, but this is easier.

Posts Tagged ‘repairs’

Battle of the Bulge: A Battery Story

September 1st, 2009

If you own a Mac laptop you know that the adapter has a little light on it; green for charged, amber for charging or bad. The light on my adapter (which is not the original adapter, but a replacement from Apple themselves) stopped working properly a long time ago: the light would not come on in most cases unless I jiggled the cable for a bit and then never touched or moved it again. If I moved, it went out. I thought this was a contact issue on the plug itself, I’ve seen many people have the same issue before. So I thought nothing of it. Not to mention, my battery was fine, 255 cycles after 2 years and I still got 2+ hours on a good day.

Last week this changed when I noticed my laptop spontaneously turning off at random points during use. Even when fully charged it would cut off, and not allow me to start unless I plugged it in, even though there was a 70% charge on the battery. Fed up I decided t was time to bring it in for service, again. The night before I was going to bring it in brought on a whole new issue. After placing my laptop on the table I noticed it was not sitting evenly. I look underneath and notice the battery is sticking out…maybe it’s not plugged in all the way? I pop the battery off and find it to be bulging outward!

MacBook Pro battery with a bulge...

This is a very dangerous thing to happen to a battery. So now I know there is an issue and my battery is not “just old.” I brought it to Tekserve the very next morning and after 2 hours of waiting and checking they determine that not only is the battery bad, the adapter is as well.

Why am I writing about my battery? I’m mainly writing to talk about how Tekserve tested and made sure there really was an issue. The woman who helped me took my laptop to the table behind her and popped in a USB stick with some sort of battery/adapter testing program from Apple. The test came up as both “Good” at first. She retested, both came as “bad”. She retested, one came ad good, one as bad, etc. She did this at least 4 times, and then tested with a known good battery and adapter, and came to the conclusion that “AFTER NUMEROUS TESTS I have deemed that both are broken and need to be replaced.” She found this out after TESTING what I told her to test.

So a few things to keep in mind here:
1. If your battery starts to bulge, please get it replaced and stop using it ASAP. It’s dangerous.
2. It might not be just the battery, get the adapter checked.
3. Tekserve tests their shit…as everyone should.
4. A new battery and adapter make me happy.

Now I have a 1 cycle battery for free:-)

Brand new battery info.

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Posted in Hardware

Tags: battery Hardware laptop repairs

Computer Repair is ever complete without…

August 6th, 2009

TESTING!

When I am given a computer to repair by a customer (or anyone to be exact!) I do my best to be quick with the job as well as do it RIGHT. I test everything about the computer that I changed/fixed/replaced. I do not want people bringing their computers back to me for the same issue, it doesn’t make sense for someone to have to bring their machine back after I just fixed it. Unless it’s something totally different.

Why am I writing about this now?

My MacBook Pro iSight seemed to stop working randomly one day. I tried to use it and it didn’t work. System profiler didn’t show it, something was wrong. I brought it to Tekserve first. They claimed that it was hardware but since I had a small dent on my computer (no joke) they wouldn’t cover the warranty because Apple would deny it. I found another place in the city which I was told would take laptops in almost any condition as long as the condition wasn’t the cause of the issue and repair it under Applecare. Sure enough they replaced my logic board and my iSight worked again. I got my computer back in 2 days time.

I get home I try to use my DVD drive and find it doesn’t work. System profiler acts weird saying it works sometimes….then it doesn’t….whatever. I open the laptop and re-seat the cable. It loads a DVD but when I start doing reading from the drive it loses it. Something is obviously broken. I take it back and explain to them the issue. They take it and call me 2 days later saying they cannot reproduce the issue and it seems to work fine. I say, well, if you say it’s working fine, I’ll come by to get it. I get my laptop home and sure enough, same issue. I bring it back the next day. They claim they put a DVD in it and it read it so they deemed it as fine. Really? You did exactly what I told you I did and didn’t think to read from the drive?

After a conversation I tell them to replace the drive ASAP; meaning get the part and call me when it comes in so you can install it right then and there because I’m tired of not having my laptop. They install it and tell me to come back because it’s fixed! GREAT! I go and ask “Do you have a disc I can boot from?” He hands me a Leopard install disc and sure enough the disc does not load at all. Mr. Tech then tells me “Oh you have a third-party boot software (rEFIt), it’s probably the issue. It wasn’t hardware, it was YOUR software.” I then need to explain to him that it was fine until they replaced my logic board. I also ask “did you replace the ribbon cable also?” to which I never get a straight answer for (No). The tech doesn’t believe me, so I uninstall rEFIt on the spot and boot. The disc gets loaded, oh my god! He then gets a smug look on his face and says “It was obviously the software, see it’s loading.” After waiting 15 minutes, it doesn’t load. This was about the time where I wanted to shove the guy’s face into a wall; he finally takes my advice and boots from an external drive, HIS DRIVE, and goes into system profiler. The drive is no where to be found. Thank you. Hardware failure.

Now, I am told that they need to send it to Apple for repair. Why? All you need to do is replace the god damn ribbon cable, and if that doesn’t work, the logic board is bad. It’s not difficult to diagnose!

So, after 4 trips to this place I lost my laptop for at least a week now all because the tech’s didn’t test the repair properly. If you install a new optical drive, or if a user says “something is wrong with my optical drive,” what should you do? Should you pop a disc in and say “Oh it showed up, it’s obviously not broken at all?”

NO!

You put in a disc, read from it, install something, burn a disc, ANYTHING THAT TESTS THE DRIVES OVERALL PERFORMANCE! NOT THE EJECT MECHANISM! NOT THE [does the disc load, software?] MECHANISM!

What have we all learned (except Digital Society apparently)? Test your repairs!

3 comments »

Posted in Rant, Reviews

Tags: digital society incompetence morons repairs

eMachine Computer Repair Job

January 27th, 2009

A few weeks ago I picked up a quick freelance job from one of the cab drivers who drives me home often. He had a computer he wanted me to take a look at and attempt to upgrade for him. He doesn’t want to spend more than $200, and he just wants basic things done to it, nothing major to me. He drops off the machine and to my surprise it’s an old HP Pavilion mini-tower. I take it in and stare and it and realize that this is not really worth it; it holds a maximum of 512MB of PC100 RAM, it has a 20GB hard disk, and it’s only got a Pentium Celeron 667 in it. I let him know this thing is basically worthless and he informs me that a friend of his has given him a newer eMachines computer. I tell him I’ll take a look at it.

The machine is an eMachines T3092 with an Athlon XP 3000+ processor, 512MB DDR RAM, 160GB hard disk, CD-ROM and DVD-R. It’s got onboard nVidia gforce 4 video and sound, and it actually works fairly well. He wants the maximum amount of RAM (2gb) and a fresh install of XP, nothing really major.

Step 1: Order RAM

Easiest part, right? I order 2GB PC2700 RAM from New Egg for $54 and have it shipped to me at work. It ships from Edison, NJ…about 30 mins away. It takes 5 days to reach me. This is annoying to me because I could have used 2 of those days (the weekend) to install and test the RAM. Why would this have been important to me? See below…

Step 2: Install RAM

I install both 1GB sticks, computer boots, I rejoice. While working a bit I notice some issues. Freezing, slow loading, and finally blue screens. This is not good. I’m thinking it’s a driver issue because of the new RAM. I reinstall the chip-set drivers and still blue screens. Finally I run Memtest on the RAM, right away both sticks come up with errors.

Step 3: Test RAM

I pop out 1 stick and test only one. Same deal, red flags like China. I pop that stick out and test a stick that I know to be 100% working, one from a computer that is used all the time. Memtest: CHINA! What next?

Step 4: Begin Google and BIOS

Looking through the BIOS for memory settings; speed, voltage, etc. Nothing to change that would help. Google brings some light on this; many people have the same issue, works with 512MB but nothing more. Some people say it’s the power supply unit (PSU), some had RAM issues. Since I know it’s not the RAM, it might be the PSU. That’s my next stop, testing a better PSU than the Bestec that’s in there. Many people on forums complain that the PSUs in eMachines are crap, and they tend to burn out boards, RAM, or just don’t give enough voltage. Hopefully it’s the PSU.

If after I test the PSU tonight it does the same thing it’s time to get a new motherboard for this guy. Now, keep in mind he wants me to try to stay below or as close to $200 as possible, at this point I’ve been VERY generous with costs only charging him 50% of my normal labor costs. If he needs a new motherboard I need to eBay it because no one has them in stock. The price on eBay with shipping is approximately $60, the same price as the RAM. I told him I can either get a new motherboard or he can stick with the 512MB RAM for now. Only issue with the latter, he has to pay for th 2GB RAM still, it’s not returnable, and I only bought the brand I bought because it was well rated, has a lifetime warranty, and was cheaper than the other more known brands. He wanted me to save him money, so I did. Now it might bite him in the wallet.