I am just so proud of myself! (kinda long)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I bought a MacBook back on December 24, 2006 (Christmas gift to myself after a good year). Having owned Dells in the past, the new MacBook was a nice change. What really struck me was how it always played back my DVDs after I inserted them (my last Dell seemed to despise its optical drive).

Anyway, about three weeks after purchasing it, I accidentally spilled a drink on it. If I recall correctly, it was a Mountain Chablis of the boxed variety. So I took it to the local Apple store and spent $750 to have it repaired.

The computer has been flawless for the past 2 years now, except for two issues: about a year ago, the screen has had to ‘warm up’ after being shut down before it would work (essentially, the backlight will not light immediately), and for the past few months the wireless has been slower than death.

The screen didn’t bother me too much; more an aggravation than anything. However, the wireless issue was driving me nuts, to the point that I wanted to use my little MacBook as a frisbee. Thankfully, I held my temper.

On Friday I decided to start looking for a place to take it to and have it fixed. In the process, I found this site that has free manuals for repairing Apple products.

I proceeded to download the one for the 13" MacBook and read through it. How easy it seemed! I could have my Mac dissected into a thousand pieces in no time thanks to that manual!

So I got home Friday night, grabbed my micro screwdriver and went to work. What I found was interesting:

case screws that didn’t engage anything
drink residue all over the inside (why didn’t they clean it?!)
screw missing from the optical drive
wires routed poorly at the hinge points (causing the insulation to almost wear away)
a wireless antenna connection not seated
a wireless antenna in the screen having been pinched and showing metal

I rerouted the wires at the hinge points and wrapped any wires that showed wear with electrical tape. I slapped the whole thing back together and…

It works! The screen lights right up even after being shut off for the night and the wireless is once again faster than anything! For that, I am proud of myself.

If this ain’t an MPSIMS, I don’t know what is.

2

Good for you!

But man, after having spent $750 for repairs, I’d march right back to the Apple store and show a copy of your post to the owner, and forward a copy to Jobs.

3

I thought of that, but it worked well for 13 months after it was repaired. The sloppy condition I found when I opened it, though, left me unimpressed.