Lets back up here. You are exposing yourself to far more cost than necessary. A glass of water will potentially fry the mother board and maybe the keyboard on a notebook. If the unit is thoroughly dried out and power was removed there is a better than even chance it will come back to life. Get a cheap 10 lb bag of rice, and using a box big enough to hold the unit with the screen opened smother the entire notebook with the rice and let it sit for a few days. Trace amounts of water can exist for remarkable amounts of time inside a notebook chassis. Rice will pull the water out of the chassis without heat damage from a hair dryer or similar.
If the unit is really and truly dead you can replace the MB for a few hundred dollars or the keyboard for 50-100. Replacing a 2 year old unit with a brand new notebook is an absurd expectation. On ebay a working U]top of the line 2008 configuration in excellent condition maxes at 850. Getting an otherwise operational unit on ebay with a busted screen that someone is selling for $ 200 or so and taking out the MB and keyboard (and whatever else you might need) is the most practical way to go about this, but this assumes you have someone that can do the swap out work for you.
Re replacement value, what SCR said. Get the exact model #. Here are the Macbook 2008 general specifications and model #'sIf you decide just to make a cash offer of say 800 or so insist on keeping the defunct notebook as you can probably get at least 100-200 dollars for it on ebay “as is”. Make sure he does not strip out the drive, RAM etc. if you do this.
So here are your options .
Full replacement off ebay - bottom to top of the line units - exl cond used - 400 - 850 - Get his unit if you do this.
or fix motherboard (obtained off ebay not Apple direct) parts + labor - $ 400 or so max
or fix keyboard (obtained off ebay not Apple direct) $ 150.00 or so max.
The tiniest bit of water seems to be able to fry these fuckers. I got a brand new MacBook Pro in 2009, and within a month a little bit of water got inside the case. We’re not talking a spill over the keyboard. We’re talking some water got spilled on the table and literally a trickle (no more than a teaspoon) go into the case through the vents on the back. Computer went dead. Completely kaput.
I took it to the Apple store. At this time, I had no idea there was any water damage to it, as it wasn’t me who spilled the water. The Genius checks it in, opens it up in the back, and comes back with a look of death on his face. Water damage, warranty voided. One month old computer. Toast. Repair bill: $1280. I look at the thing and, sure enough, there’s a tiny stain where a little trickle of water got in. And a green spot of corrosion where the water dripped onto the logic board.
I call around, and I can’t find a logic board for this thing for less than about $1000. So I authorize the repair, then change my mind and take it home, figuring I have nothing to lose. I take a Q-tip, some rubbing alcohol, and get to work, cleaning every last spot of corrosion I could find. It turns on. I literally could not believe it. I was not expecting it to work at all. One year later, computer is still running smoothly.
So, rubbing alcohol and a Q-Tip is worth a shot, if all else fails.
Hmm, yeah. I didn’t see the water spill because he hopped up to his feet quickly and tore that battery out. He said it was a lot though, then he let the water run out for only 2 hours and plugged the computer in for about another hour, even though it wasn’t working anymore. I’d try the rubbing alcohol thing, if he’d let me, though from the sound of it, the inside of this computer is probably corrosion city. And the computer was not thoroughly dried out. It only dried for 3 hours max, and he didn’t take my rice suggestion either. He said that any damage would have been done during the initial spill. I was in no position to tell him he might be wrong.
And those logic boards don’t look cheap from where I’m standing. Grrr Apple.
I guess Macbook Pros in 2008 were all black and $2200 and still cost $2200 today, and that’s what my friend had. Also, it’s not completely fried gone, some of the parts still work, but it will cost $800 to repair it :eek::eek::eek::eek:
Nope, sorry. MacBook Pros have always been aluminum. I suppose it could have been sent to Colorware for painting, but it didn’t come from the factory black.
At this point, I think you shouldn’t hand any money over to him until you, personally, take the machine to the Apple store and get a direct quote yourself.
Oh damnit. I don’t know what to do now. I would feel weird giving him the third degree about his computer, and I would look like a jackass if I was wrong after all. He did quite directly say that it was a Pro, but maybe he meant that, with his added on specs he had a Pro in a MacBook body. He said it’s got 1TB hard drive, 2.66(? not sure on that one, maybe 3.66 or something) ghz, and 4g of RAM.
Edit: I’m gonna call the local apple store and see what they have to say on the matter. Also, would I be right to be mad if he took it to the genius bar to get it fixed as opposed to the locally-owned Apple Tech who would almost undoubtedly have charged less to repair the computer?
I think it is really nice of you to offer to pay for it but I don’t think you are obliged to do so. Maybe I am crazy and rude, but from what you said, the guy had a glass of water next to his laptop. You were just a little bit clumsy but he was the one who took the risk out of convenience. So, give him whatever you feel like.
Yes! I was reading the thread and was surprised that no one mentioned this until now. Glasses of water get knocked over all of the time. They don’t get knocked onto laptops all of the time because smart owners don’t have open beverages by their laptop. He created the situation, and he’s responsible for the damage.
I agree something sounds fishy, but what upgrades couldn’t have been made? There’s a black 2008 MacBook, but it’s not a Pro. It’s 2.4 GHz, not 2.66. I don’t see any reason why he couldn’t have put in a 1 TB hard drive after-the-fact, as long as he did it after about July 2009 (when 1TB hard drives first appeared for laptops.)
Still, you would expect somebody putting a 1TB hard drive into their computer to probably know the difference between a MacBook and a MacBook Pro. And, even then, I’m having a hard time getting that math to come out to $2200.
Sure, it’s possible, but #1 getting into a Macbook to tinker with the insides is a pain in the ass even if you know what you’re doing, but that aside, #2 (bolding mine):
as sachertorte reminded me, Macbooks, even Macbook Pros, have integrated graphics. The only way to “beef it up” with “a new video card” is to replace the entire motherboard, at which point you’ve essentially replaced the entire computer and are no longer dealing with a Macbook.
A maxed out Macbook today costs $1248; $1498 with the Applecare warranty. A 1TB laptop HDD runs about $250. RAM is incredibly cheap, typically about $20/GB. Decent video cards can be bought for about $100. So to get to $2300 we’d be talking about a Macbook with a 1TB HDD crammed into it along with the phantom video card for which there is no slot or way to otherwise install it, plus about 22 GB of RAM wedged into it somehow. This guy('s friend) is completely full of it.
First you should identify your friend’s MacBook. This can be confusing because there are Model No., Model ID and Order/Catalog numbers in the mix, but it is not difficult. You need to look up two numbers printed on the unit.
First, look on the bottom of the unit. There will be a couple of lines of text with FCC information in it - on mine, the text includes ‘model A1181’ and ‘2007’.
Second, open the batter compartment and look in the bottom left hand corner of the label on the right. It will have a Serial number, a ‘configuration’ line and an EMC No. Mine says:
Serial No. xxxxxxxxxxx
2.0/2x512/80/Combo:White (which means : CPU speed, memory SIMMs, HD size, Combo CD/DVD:Color)
EMC No. 2200
Then go to this site and key in the EMC number and look at the search results. The combination of Model No. and EMC No. will identify the exact model your friend has.
Most likely, it is a black (plastic) MacBook, not a ‘Pro’ model which as noted above, has always been aluminum.
The closest current equivalent is the the MacBook (only in white, the last black model was early 2008) and has a better processor, bus and video than a 2 year old model would have. The current model can be had NEW for $850 at MacConnection. As other have noted, upgrading memory and disk is far cheaper than buying it from Apple.
I didn’t ask my friend about the computer (for fear of looking like a Suspicious Sally), but I went into my local Apple Tech and they said that Apple won’t put in 1TB harddrives, but you can do it yourself pretty easily. Though they both mentioned “but who would do that??” Same with the RAM, they said it’s possible, but why would you put 4g into a regular MacBook? My friend doesn’t do anything with it other than browse, listen to music, etc. He’s not a photographer/video editor/music recorder, etc. Regarldess, if it was water damage, then his upgraded components would be fine anyway, and that spill damage normally mean a nothing more than a new logic board install would be around $700 anyway, so $800 isn’t very far-fetched at all. : eek :
For that price, he may as well buy an Apple refurb for $850 and put his new components in. The Apple Techs said that, even with logic board replacement, water damage repairs can’t be guaranteed; it may work for a bit and shut down for some hidden reason. I mean, I would tell him that if he didn’t already know, but that would put me at risk for paying for that whole deal.
Re: it was his fault for putting the water near his laptop. He was sitting at/using his computer when it occurred and he could have been more vigilant. But I was the one that knocked it over. I don’t know what’s fair, but I didn’t want to offend him by saying that it was partially his fault and he needed to pay money too, especially as he was holding a dripping, dead computer in his hands.
This whole experience has really solidified my lifelong PC usage.
FWIW, I know of no 1TB internal drives for MacBooks. This is one of the leading mail order places and they max out at 640MB - and even that is a pretty new drive.
A year ago I was shopping for a new drive and the 500MB drives had just been introduced and were still to expensive (for me) compared to the 320MB and smaller drives. Even today, 500MB is the largest you can get as BTO from Apple.
The tech said he’d seen it done. Regardless, my friend agreed to take it to the shop with me. It’s going to be pretty uncomfortable when he sees me weep involuntarily at the prospect of paying $800.
First hit for “macbook 1tb hard drive”. But that’s paying for someone else to do it. The site you linked to has a 1TB WD Scorpio laptop hard drive advertised on it, so I don’t know where you see it maxes out at 640MB.
Why not? RAM is dirt cheap and if you’re running memory intensive applications like Lightroom or Photoshop, you can use all you can get. My SO is a computer programmer, and she stuck 4GB in her regular MacBook because it simply wasn’t enough memory for her programming needs (we’re talking straight data and analysis with no GUI or graphics otherwise to speak of.) 4GB of memory is hardly an exceptional need/desire these days.
ETA: As for why a 1TB hard drive. Does he do video or photo editing? A terabyte goes in a jiffy if he’s using it as his main computer. My desktop, for instance, has 5 TB of internal harddrives on it, and I’m swapping out hard drives every six months to make room for more memory. And I just do photo, no video.
