>>
>>Significant damage will occur to the 'book if the battery is not 
>>installed properly, or the owner can inadvertently short out the battery 
>>during the installation, rendering it useless.  Because of these inherent 
>>dangers, we no longer sell this battery outright.  
>
>Newertech used to sell you the G3 card if you sign a release and you're on 
>your own.  Your altruistic explanation rings hollow.
>
>>the installation for you (which does 
>>require nearly complete disassembly of the 2400 -- about an hour bench 
>>time with testing).
>>
>Not even the installation of the G3 card takes an hour for me and I am 
>just an amateur. I don't know what testing entails but if you give me a 
>PRAM battery and I do not install it in 10 minutes with all screws screwed 
>back, for the computer ready to start up, you can call me a Windows user.
>
>And no, it does not require an almost complete disassembly to the 2400, at 
>most you have to take out the logic board in one piece, but i know you can 
>just loosen some screws and you can lift up the logic board enough so as 
>to get to the underside behind the flip. While taking out the logic board 
>is not a simple matter, compared to exchanging the processor where you 
>have to take the logic board apart it is less complicated.

Sandy,

Proper removal of the battery pack requires removal of the bottom clam 
shell from the collection of mother/daugherboards (what is referred to in 
your note above as the logic board).  Only removing some of the screws to 
pry apart the boards from the bottom bends the boards and places undue 
stress on the remaining screw seats (which are in molded plastic, not a 
very forgiving material as many of us already know).  It is far safer to 
remove the entire bottom.

You are absolutely right:  We could whip through it in about 10 minutes 
if we wanted to.  Odd thing about being so cavalier with computer 
components is that they don't respond very well to such treatment.  
Taking our time and testing the computer for other problems keeps our 
customers happy.  We rarely find other problems, but more importantly, we 
avoid causing other issues (such as the daughtercard being partially 
unseated from its slot in the motherboard due to someone flexing their 
boards up to get at a battery rather than removing the assembly -- a 
frequent cause of the green-light-of-death).  Like any firm, we can make 
mistakes -- but all-in-all, we've only had one 2400 defeat us (a bad main 
battery -- something we don't stock).  In business, when you mess with 
someone else's computer, you don't take risks.  That box is possibly 
their life and livelihood.

As for selling the batteries outright for powerbooks, we offer a one-year 
free replacement should it fail.  In the past, we had some 
less-than-honest folks order batteries, claim the battery pack we sent 
did not work and request another.  The first couple of times, we sent 
replacements no questions asked.  Since we build our own, and our 
in-house replacements didn't fail, we thought that failure rate "odd".  
We changed our policy to an advanced exchange, and magically the requests 
for a free replacement dried up completely.  However, we've had users, 
apparently with less experience than yourself, attempt to install our 
batteries and damage their computers in the process.  Some of them blamed 
us, some blamed Apple, or the design of the system.  Apple stopped 
allowing service techs to repair powerbooks in part because of the 
disproportionate number of broken parts during the repairs and complaints 
by comsumers about the work done.  They can control the QA/QC much better 
from one shop than 400, so they went with the current powerbook repair 
policy -- proving more cost-effective than the old way.  [That's a shame, 
'cause the Apple techs I know are perfectly capable of properly 
disassembling 'books -- and they don't take shortcuts like prying 'books 
apart to swap components.]

Sandy, I don't understand why you'd take exception to our policies with 
your remarks -- the information offered to the Duo/2400 community is 
hopefully helpful.  If not, just delete it.  I know many of the other 
contributors here have helped us.  Your posts are frequently snide and 
acerbic -- that doesn't help any of us.  Eric has taken great pains to 
make this "the friendliest place on the net", and in that spirit, we 
offer information and advice here.   I'm sure if they had the 
inclination, DT&T and MCE would contribute a lot more, too.   As for 
giving a little background about After Hours, some folks may like to know 
that I've been doing this for a while, so I "might" know what I'm talking 
about.  If that bothers you, you're welcome to contact me off-list.  Then 
again, if you are as good as you claim, I'd encourage you to open up your 
own shop and do this for the community.  Another quality firm offering 
good tech support for Apple products is always welcome.

paul vail
www.afterhoursconsulting.org

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