Re: 12" Powerbook G4: an AppleCare and AppleStore assesment

[Timothy Luoma]

On Oct 9, 2005, at 7:52 PM, david wrote:

Bruce - if you knew anything about the Apple Genius you'd know he  
is supposed to be familiar with current and past product. Spend  
some time in a store and you'll find plenty of G4 computers being  
used and upgraded.


Next time, try leaving your attitude at the door, huh?



"Hi, this is Pot, is Kettle home?"




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Re: 12" Powerbook G4: an AppleCare and AppleStore assesment

[darm0k]

At 04:05 PM -0400 10/09/2005, david wrote:
I work part-time for an Apple reseller and your experience is why 
I'll continue to strongly suggest people buy their products from an 
independent reseller rather than directly from Apple.


/me agrees wholeheartedly

Find yourself a certified Apple repair service other than Apple. And 
the next time you are in the market for a computer think twice 
before buying directly from Apple.


There's just no substitute for having a good relationship with a 
local repair shop.  Even better if it's an understanding one - that 
doesn't have coniptions because you saved $100+ by buying from 
outpost.com instead of him.


BTW, am I the only one who thinks that the whole Apple Store thing 
is turning into a disaster in the making?


Disaster?  I donno.  I think they fill a nitch.  There's a lot of 
raff out there that needs the pretty all-Apple storefront to give 
them that warm'n'fuzzy feeling.


Personally, I have yet to get even barely acceptable service from an 
Apple Store.  Ditto for calling Apple Support.  Nor do I care to see 
my wallet bleed from their higher-than-CompUSA prices.  So I don't 
recommend them to anyone, ever.


sigh.  When my housemate's Lombard died, she went to our newly opened 
Apple Store to take a look at the new PBs.  When she came back home, 
she asked for a Dell catalog -- she was that discouraged.  It was 
only a lot of conversation and a trip to my fav reseller that turned 
her around.  Except for the BSODs, she's quite happy with her 1.5-GHz 
15" PB.


When my local Apple store opened the 'genius' truly was incredibly 
knowledgeable.


When my local Apple store opened their music was so loud you couldn't 
hear anything the 'geuius' was blithering.


FWIW,
- Dan.

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Re: 12" Powerbook G4: an AppleCare and AppleStore assesment

[david]

On Oct 9, 2005, at 5:49 PM, Bruce Johnson wrote:



On Oct 9, 2005, at 1:05 PM, david wrote:


 work part-time for an Apple reseller and your experience is why  
I'll continue to strongly suggest people buy their products from  
an independent reseller rather than directly from Apple. What you  
require is a service my boss offers. When a customer's drive is  
damaged/dead, if desired, we'll attempt to transfer data or send  
the drive to a data-recovery service if we can't access it.





That's only if your local reseller isn't a bunch of arrogant  
elitist pinheads who think that customer service is when they've  
whacked all the tennis balls at our head, and its time for us to  
throw them back for another go-round.


My, we have a lot of pent up anger, don't we? Perhaps you need to  
find a few dead monitors and smash them?




IMO, from my vantage point as  a consumer, Apple gave the resellers  
nearly 20 years to get the retail stuff right, then gave up and  
created the Apple Stores out of self defense.


Oh, Apple Corp made no mistakes while the local resellers played  
silly buggers? I don't think so. Oh, I know there were some bad  
stores, there always will be. But the three major resellers in my  
area are quite good.


And you ARE one of the few who think the Apple Stores are a  
disaster in the making. Most of the rest of the world thinks that  
they were a brilliant marketing move that's paying real dividends  
for Apple in both bottom line sales and mind share.


They certainly have done a good job of attracting purchasers - many  
of them from the local resellers. When I sell a Mac to a customer the  
customer registers that computer - now Apple knows that person is an  
Apple customer. My customer which Apple is now free to poach. In the  
last two years we lost several large clients to Apple direct -  
because Apple is able to undercut us. And don't tell me our prices  
are too high. Apple sold product to those clients for LESS than we  
bought it from Apple.


I have three influential faculty members who are switchers because  
of visits to the Apple store. (One is the Dean of the college)


Also, don't forget, the Apple store is geared mainly to supporting  
new sales and systems. How many years has it been since Apple  
shipped a G4 tower that could accept an internal Zip (don't   
forget, neither the Quicksilver or the MDD models could take an  
internal Zip. The last one that could was the Digital Audio)


Bruce - if you knew anything about the Apple Genius you'd know he is  
supposed to be familiar with current and past product. Spend some  
time in a store and you'll find plenty of G4 computers being used and  
upgraded.


Next time, try leaving your attitude at the door, huh?


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Re: 12" Powerbook G4: an AppleCare and AppleStore assesment

[John Siple]

Sorry you've had a bad run at the Apple world, both from weak  
hardware and blundering support. My own experience with the genius  
bar and warranty service has been more positive but I'm in Seattle  
and I had a simpler problem.


I find the Apple support a little like some kind of military  
procedure. One must first go through step A, which is usually going  
through a troubleshooting phase with someone in India to be certain  
it isn't a silly user error or something correctable via standard  
software utilities, and at the end of that Apple gives out a number.


The Indian guy, or whatever, logs this number and the troubleshooting  
steps he went through so that the next guy in the process doesn't  
need to repeat it all. In the end there is often some kind of  
warranty replacement, which can involve being deprived of your  
machine for a week or two, but rarely any extensive data retrieval or  
tedious hunt for cheaper ways to fix things or find out why they went  
bad.


John was right in suggesting the firewire boot as a possible way to  
get some data back. Disk Warrior is also very handy there. But actual  
data recovery, which is the kind of thing they do in clean rooms with  
drives that have gone to the bottom of the Holiday Inn swimming pool,  
that's an expensive proposition. It usually involves opening the  
drive itself and reading each sector and trying to reassemble the  
data into files that can be read. Expect to pay as much as your iBook  
cost for this.


I rather like taking stuff apart, but that's not everyone's cup of  
tea. So I guess I don't have as many problems with Apple. I also kind  
of expect life to toss a turd in my general direction, deprive me of  
use of something or rob me regularly, so I'm not floored when I get a  
flat tire or my iPod dies. It's a philosophical position. Life offers  
very few guarantees, so when any company agrees to fix it's stuff I'm  
pleasantly surprised.


Hope that firewire boot helps somewhat.

JS


On Oct 9, 2005, at 10:18 AM, Tobias Strohe wrote:


Dear Listas/essas,

I have been lurking mostly, but recent events warrant some verbage. I
apologize right away, if (when) this gets lengthy.

On my annual vacation this year my Powerbook G4 died (with some 500
not-yet-backed-up photos on it). Here is my story to this point and my
request for help:

1. Powerbook died and won't go beyond a grey backlit screen on startup
2. took it to "Gravis" in Cologne, Germany (great place!, competent,
helpful 'Apple Service Provider' like we used to have here). They  
put in

a system disk and confirmed my suspicion that the Hard Drive has died
(it had been getting progressively slower on startup).
3. After return home this week I went to the local Apple Store and  
they

informed me I needed to get an appointment to speak to a "genius" and
that the genius bar was closed for the day (this was Friday night).
4. I called 1-800-APL-CARE on Saturday morning (one: it hung up on me
after about 5 mins of the 8 mins announced (max) wait time; two: after
15 minutes waittime of 10 mins announced (max) I got Eric, who  
requested
I insert a system disk and wouldn't believe the description of  
above No.

2.) - I could not find my system disk other than an old X.1 which he
deemed not an option since I was last running X.3.9 ... After my  
request
was denied to connect me to a repair dispatch to determine whether  
there

is a way to obtain the damaged Hard Drive for Data recovery, I gave up
and decided to go back to the Apple Store.
5. Went to the Apple Store on Saturday AM, signed up for an  
appointment

with a genius, got a pager (this alone took 10 to 15 minutes, although
the genius bar was not apparently busy) - the appointment was showing
11:30 (about 1 hour after my arrival), but I got buzzed at 11:10 (most
people are probably not patient enough to wait too long and I was to
find out immediately why:
6. The genius I spoke with mentioned that my only option for data
recovery would be to pay them 150 USD to remove and replace the  
damaged
drive after a week where I could have it for data recovery and then  
send

it in to Apple for replacement. Asked whether they could not put a new
drive in at that point he informed me that it needed to be an Apple
certified part and they could not obtain that. This is where the story
ends (for now).

Some additional information:
12" PB G4 (bought from Apple refurb), 1 Ghz, 768 MB RAM, Superdrive,
Airport Extreme, unit has been in my possession for about 1.5 years, I
do have Applecare 3 year extension

Some general venting: If Apple wants to get out of their low market
share they need to improve their service to what it used to be. Don't
hire arrogant, half-wits as geniusses, and phone line support (the
'genius' actually told me he had gotten yelled at over his comments
before - not that it helped, and I couldn't waste more time or energy
with him ;-). Don't design otherwise beautiful hardware with  
components

that fail within

Re: 12" Powerbook G4: an AppleCare and AppleStore assesment

[Nancy Lawrence]

I have mixed feelings about the Apple store.  When the one near me  
first opened, it was great.  As was said earlier, the geniuses really  
did seem to be geniuses.  And they took a look at my Pismo (!) after  
what I came to find out was a kernel panic, recommended DiskWarrior,  
and I was up and running that very day, all for free (yeah, I bought  
the DiskWarrior but it's not like they charged me for looking at my  
way-out-of-warranty laptop).


However, fast forward two years.  I finally convinced my SO to  
switch.  We go to buy a bright shiny new Powerbook, i.e., to drop  
$1,500-$1,700.  I have never been treated so rudely.  The salesperson  
tried to upsell Applecare (which we planned to buy, but not right  
then, thank you).  I mentioned that since it was available throughout  
the time of the original warranty we were going to hold off because  
this was a big purchase for us.  He then made this face like, "Well,  
if you're willing to risk it, I hope nothing bad happens," as if  
somehow we were at some additional risk by not purchasing Applecare  
at the time of purchase.  Please.  But the worst thing was what  
happened next.  It took him a really long time to get the Powerbook  
from the back and when he finally arrived, I asked if the Airport  
extreme card was there.  (I know they're stock, but I had a friend  
who had gotten home and discovered that it wasn't there).  He looked  
at me like he hated me, raised the box up to my face, tapped his  
finger on the side where the spec labels are, and glared at me.   
Didn't say a word, didn't say "Yes, of course," "Yes, they're stock,"  
"Yes, if there's any problem you can bring it back," "Yes, would you  
like me to open it and double-check?", nothing.  Just tapped the box  
about 6 inches from my face.  I have never been treated like that  
before, not at BestBuy, not at CompUSA, not at Circuit City, hell,  
not even at Wal-Mart.  And *especially* not when I was spending well  
over a grand.  I mean, it's not like I was buying a USB hub and asked  
if the adapter was really there.


So after that, I am really, really soured on the Apple store.  I  
think Apple needs to regroup and refocus regarding exactly what they  
want the Apple store to be.  Right now it seems like it's a  
storefront no different than the other retailers I mentioned, except  
that it happens to sell only one brand.


Nancy

On Oct 9, 2005, at 5:49 PM, Bruce Johnson wrote:



On Oct 9, 2005, at 1:05 PM, david wrote:


 work part-time for an Apple reseller and your experience is why  
I'll continue to strongly suggest people buy their products from  
an independent reseller rather than directly from Apple. What you  
require is a service my boss offers. When a customer's drive is  
damaged/dead, if desired, we'll attempt to transfer data or send  
the drive to a data-recovery service if we can't access it.





That's only if your local reseller isn't a bunch of arrogant  
elitist pinheads who think that customer service is when they've  
whacked all the tennis balls at our head, and its time for us to  
throw them back for another go-round.


IMO, from my vantage point as  a consumer, Apple gave the resellers  
nearly 20 years to get the retail stuff right, then gave up and  
created the Apple Stores out of self defense.


And you ARE one of the few who think the Apple Stores are a  
disaster in the making. Most of the rest of the world thinks that  
they were a brilliant marketing move that's paying real dividends  
for Apple in both bottom line sales and mind share.


I have three influential faculty members who are switchers because  
of visits to the Apple store. (One is the Dean of the college)


Also, don't forget, the Apple store is geared mainly to supporting  
new sales and systems. How many years has it been since Apple  
shipped a G4 tower that could accept an internal Zip (don't   
forget, neither the Quicksilver or the MDD models could take an  
internal Zip. The last one that could was the Digital Audio)


--
Bruce Johnson

"No matter where you go, there you are", B. Banzai


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Re: 12" Powerbook G4: an AppleCare and AppleStore assesment

[Bruce Johnson]

On Oct 9, 2005, at 1:05 PM, david wrote:

 work part-time for an Apple reseller and your experience is why  
I'll continue to strongly suggest people buy their products from an  
independent reseller rather than directly from Apple. What you  
require is a service my boss offers. When a customer's drive is  
damaged/dead, if desired, we'll attempt to transfer data or send  
the drive to a data-recovery service if we can't access it.




That's only if your local reseller isn't a bunch of arrogant elitist  
pinheads who think that customer service is when they've whacked all  
the tennis balls at our head, and its time for us to throw them back  
for another go-round.


IMO, from my vantage point as  a consumer, Apple gave the resellers  
nearly 20 years to get the retail stuff right, then gave up and  
created the Apple Stores out of self defense.


And you ARE one of the few who think the Apple Stores are a disaster  
in the making. Most of the rest of the world thinks that they were a  
brilliant marketing move that's paying real dividends for Apple in  
both bottom line sales and mind share.


I have three influential faculty members who are switchers because of  
visits to the Apple store. (One is the Dean of the college)


Also, don't forget, the Apple store is geared mainly to supporting  
new sales and systems. How many years has it been since Apple shipped  
a G4 tower that could accept an internal Zip (don't  forget, neither  
the Quicksilver or the MDD models could take an internal Zip. The  
last one that could was the Digital Audio)


--
Bruce Johnson

"No matter where you go, there you are", B. Banzai


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Re: 12" Powerbook G4: an AppleCare and AppleStore assesment

[Bruce Johnson]

On Oct 9, 2005, at 10:18 AM, Tobias Strohe wrote:


Some general venting: If Apple wants to get out of their low market
share they need to improve their service to what it used to be. Don't
hire arrogant, half-wits as geniusses,



I'm guessing you haven't dealt with any other computer company's  
support lately. With Dell you get the same nonsense, only it's in a  
Bangalore accent.  Called in a system with an obviously broken HDD.  
(making clunking noises, system boots up and says "No HD Found")


The tech kept trying to tell me to re-install Windows first.

I'm not defending Apple's actions here, but trust me, the grass isn't  
at all greener on the other side of the fence. There's a reaosn  
people throw away PCs rather than fix them. The only good service  
I've ever gotten on the PC side is though Gateway, and then though  
their corporate service only; I've dealt with their consumer stuff a  
couple of times. Yeeeuch!


--
Bruce Johnson

"No matter where you go, there you are", B. Banzai


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Re: 12" Powerbook G4: an AppleCare and AppleStore assesment

[david]

I work part-time for an Apple reseller and your experience is why  
I'll continue to strongly suggest people buy their products from an  
independent reseller rather than directly from Apple. What you  
require is a service my boss offers. When a customer's drive is  
damaged/dead, if desired, we'll attempt to transfer data or send the  
drive to a data-recovery service if we can't access it.


Find yourself a certified Apple repair service other than Apple. And  
the next time you are in the market for a computer think twice before  
buying directly from Apple.


BTW, am I the only one who thinks that the whole Apple Store thing is  
turning into a disaster in the making? When my local Apple store  
opened the 'genius' truly was incredibly knowledgeable. The last time  
I went I overheard the 'genius' say things I'd expect to hear from a  
BestBuy sales-idiot. He was completely clueless about the G3 iBook  
repair extension and didn't know the G4 tower could accommodate an  
internal zip drive.


david

On Oct 9, 2005, at 1:18 PM, Tobias Strohe wrote:


Dear Listas/essas,

I have been lurking mostly, but recent events warrant some verbage. I
apologize right away, if (when) this gets lengthy.

On my annual vacation this year my Powerbook G4 died (with some 500
not-yet-backed-up photos on it). Here is my story to this point and my
request for help:

1. Powerbook died and won't go beyond a grey backlit screen on startup
2. took it to "Gravis" in Cologne, Germany (great place!, competent,
helpful 'Apple Service Provider' like we used to have here). They  
put in

a system disk and confirmed my suspicion that the Hard Drive has died
(it had been getting progressively slower on startup).
3. After return home this week I went to the local Apple Store and  
they

informed me I needed to get an appointment to speak to a "genius" and
that the genius bar was closed for the day (this was Friday night).
4. I called 1-800-APL-CARE on Saturday morning (one: it hung up on me
after about 5 mins of the 8 mins announced (max) wait time; two: after
15 minutes waittime of 10 mins announced (max) I got Eric, who  
requested
I insert a system disk and wouldn't believe the description of  
above No.

2.) - I could not find my system disk other than an old X.1 which he
deemed not an option since I was last running X.3.9 ... After my  
request
was denied to connect me to a repair dispatch to determine whether  
there

is a way to obtain the damaged Hard Drive for Data recovery, I gave up
and decided to go back to the Apple Store.
5. Went to the Apple Store on Saturday AM, signed up for an  
appointment

with a genius, got a pager (this alone took 10 to 15 minutes, although
the genius bar was not apparently busy) - the appointment was showing
11:30 (about 1 hour after my arrival), but I got buzzed at 11:10 (most
people are probably not patient enough to wait too long and I was to
find out immediately why:
6. The genius I spoke with mentioned that my only option for data
recovery would be to pay them 150 USD to remove and replace the  
damaged
drive after a week where I could have it for data recovery and then  
send

it in to Apple for replacement. Asked whether they could not put a new
drive in at that point he informed me that it needed to be an Apple
certified part and they could not obtain that. This is where the story
ends (for now).

Some additional information:
12" PB G4 (bought from Apple refurb), 1 Ghz, 768 MB RAM, Superdrive,
Airport Extreme, unit has been in my possession for about 1.5 years, I
do have Applecare 3 year extension

Some general venting: If Apple wants to get out of their low market
share they need to improve their service to what it used to be. Don't
hire arrogant, half-wits as geniusses, and phone line support (the
'genius' actually told me he had gotten yelled at over his comments
before - not that it helped, and I couldn't waste more time or energy
with him ;-). Don't design otherwise beautiful hardware with  
components

that fail within 2 years (while I was at the 'genius' bar there were 2
other people with powerbook hard drive failure experience (and there
were not very many people to begin with). If I want this kind of  
lack of

performance I can buy a Dell or another Sony (office experience with
Sony support on Vaio laptops is about on-par with current Apple). Will
we ever get another Powerbook G3 Kanga quality from Apple again? (my
1998 one is still going strong - now has a self-installed 20 Gig HD,
although I may need to solder the power connector for a short soon).

Any help, comments, different opinions/experiences, etc. are very
welcome,
tobias


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Re: 12" Powerbook G4: an AppleCare and AppleStore assesment

[Tim Collier]

That sounds like what happened to my G5 iMac.  My solution was just  
to pull the hard drive and anything else I could salvage and buy a  
new computer.  I sold the dead iMac for somebody who could have the  
time and patience to get it repairedbecause I'm not that person.


Tim
On Oct 9, 2005, at 2:30 PM, John McGibney wrote:



On Oct 9, 2005, at 1:18 PM, Tobias Strohe wrote:



Dear Listas/essas,

I have been lurking mostly, but recent events warrant some verbage. I
apologize right away, if (when) this gets lengthy.

On my annual vacation this year my Powerbook G4 died (with some 500
not-yet-backed-up photos on it). Here is my story to this point  
and my

request for help:

1. Powerbook died and won't go beyond a grey backlit screen on  
startup


Some additional information:
12" PB G4 (bought from Apple refurb), 1 Ghz, 768 MB RAM, Superdrive,
Airport Extreme, unit has been in my possession for about 1.5  
years, I

do have Applecare 3 year extension

Any help, comments, different opinions/experiences, etc. are very
welcome,
tobias


If you have a second machine with firewire boot the PowerBook in  
Firewire mode (hold T key). This will allow you to connect to  
another machine via firewire cable. The powerbook will show up on  
the other machine as a firewire hard drive. Hopefully you will be  
able to transfer your important files.


You could also try fixing the drive using TechTool Pro, DiskWarrior  
or Apple's Disk utility from the second machine while the two are  
connected.


John
--

My dog is very obedient,
he does what he is bid.
A sign said 'wet paint',
and that's just what he did.



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Exterminate all rational though.


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Re: 12" Powerbook G4: an AppleCare and AppleStore assesment

[John McGibney]

On Oct 9, 2005, at 1:18 PM, Tobias Strohe wrote:


Dear Listas/essas,

I have been lurking mostly, but recent events warrant some verbage. I
apologize right away, if (when) this gets lengthy.

On my annual vacation this year my Powerbook G4 died (with some 500
not-yet-backed-up photos on it). Here is my story to this point and my
request for help:

1. Powerbook died and won't go beyond a grey backlit screen on startup

Some additional information:
12" PB G4 (bought from Apple refurb), 1 Ghz, 768 MB RAM, Superdrive,
Airport Extreme, unit has been in my possession for about 1.5 years, I
do have Applecare 3 year extension

Any help, comments, different opinions/experiences, etc. are very
welcome,
tobias

If you have a second machine with firewire boot the PowerBook in  
Firewire mode (hold T key). This will allow you to connect to another  
machine via firewire cable. The powerbook will show up on the other  
machine as a firewire hard drive. Hopefully you will be able to  
transfer your important files.


You could also try fixing the drive using TechTool Pro, DiskWarrior  
or Apple's Disk utility from the second machine while the two are  
connected.


John
--

My dog is very obedient,
he does what he is bid.
A sign said 'wet paint',
and that's just what he did.



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12" Powerbook G4: an AppleCare and AppleStore assesment

[Tobias Strohe]

Dear Listas/essas,

I have been lurking mostly, but recent events warrant some verbage. I
apologize right away, if (when) this gets lengthy.

On my annual vacation this year my Powerbook G4 died (with some 500
not-yet-backed-up photos on it). Here is my story to this point and my
request for help:

1. Powerbook died and won't go beyond a grey backlit screen on startup
2. took it to "Gravis" in Cologne, Germany (great place!, competent,
helpful 'Apple Service Provider' like we used to have here). They put in
a system disk and confirmed my suspicion that the Hard Drive has died
(it had been getting progressively slower on startup).
3. After return home this week I went to the local Apple Store and they
informed me I needed to get an appointment to speak to a "genius" and
that the genius bar was closed for the day (this was Friday night).
4. I called 1-800-APL-CARE on Saturday morning (one: it hung up on me
after about 5 mins of the 8 mins announced (max) wait time; two: after
15 minutes waittime of 10 mins announced (max) I got Eric, who requested
I insert a system disk and wouldn't believe the description of above No.
2.) - I could not find my system disk other than an old X.1 which he
deemed not an option since I was last running X.3.9 ... After my request
was denied to connect me to a repair dispatch to determine whether there
is a way to obtain the damaged Hard Drive for Data recovery, I gave up
and decided to go back to the Apple Store.
5. Went to the Apple Store on Saturday AM, signed up for an appointment
with a genius, got a pager (this alone took 10 to 15 minutes, although
the genius bar was not apparently busy) - the appointment was showing
11:30 (about 1 hour after my arrival), but I got buzzed at 11:10 (most
people are probably not patient enough to wait too long and I was to
find out immediately why:
6. The genius I spoke with mentioned that my only option for data
recovery would be to pay them 150 USD to remove and replace the damaged
drive after a week where I could have it for data recovery and then send
it in to Apple for replacement. Asked whether they could not put a new
drive in at that point he informed me that it needed to be an Apple
certified part and they could not obtain that. This is where the story
ends (for now).

Some additional information:
12" PB G4 (bought from Apple refurb), 1 Ghz, 768 MB RAM, Superdrive,
Airport Extreme, unit has been in my possession for about 1.5 years, I
do have Applecare 3 year extension

Some general venting: If Apple wants to get out of their low market
share they need to improve their service to what it used to be. Don't
hire arrogant, half-wits as geniusses, and phone line support (the
'genius' actually told me he had gotten yelled at over his comments
before - not that it helped, and I couldn't waste more time or energy
with him ;-). Don't design otherwise beautiful hardware with components
that fail within 2 years (while I was at the 'genius' bar there were 2
other people with powerbook hard drive failure experience (and there
were not very many people to begin with). If I want this kind of lack of
performance I can buy a Dell or another Sony (office experience with
Sony support on Vaio laptops is about on-par with current Apple). Will
we ever get another Powerbook G3 Kanga quality from Apple again? (my
1998 one is still going strong - now has a self-installed 20 Gig HD,
although I may need to solder the power connector for a short soon).

Any help, comments, different opinions/experiences, etc. are very
welcome,
tobias


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Re: Lombard RAM in Pismo?

[PeterH5322]

>It could but it depends on chip density. Pismo can use higher density memory
>chips that sometimes older memory managers in the Lombard and Wallstreet can
>fully recognize.

Mostly, the Lombard and Wallstreet memory managers cannot accept higher 
density DRAM chips.

Watch out for double-sided SODIMM sticks which are made using higher 
density chips. These are organized as "two bank" sticks, and only the 
Pismo can recognize the second bank.

A 256 MB stick will be read as a 128 MB stick, in these cases.

Generally, 128 MB sticks will always be read as 128 MB, on all machines.

It is conceivable that a 512 MB stick could be read as a 128 MB stick, 
although I have no t put this conjecture to the test in a Wallstreet or 
Lombard.

Wallstreets or Lombards are limited to 256 MB sticks and to 512 MB total 
RAM.

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Re: Lombard RAM in Pismo?

[PeterH5322]

>Is RAM used in Lombard the same stuff that goes in Pismo?  My Mom's 
>Lombard hard drive just died, and it makes more sense to buy a new 
>machine at this point (case is in brutal shape) than to replace the 
>drive.  I'm hoping to pick the carcass before we bury it.

Yes and no.

Early Wallstreet and Lombard RAM is PC66, although some owner-installed 
SODIMMs may be PC100.

Pismo is always PC100 or better, and was PC100 from the factory, although 
PC133 may be owner installed.

If you SODIMMs are PC100 or better, and read as their correct sizes on 
your Lombard, they will work in a Pismo.

The reverse is not true.

Only early PC100 SODIMMs will work in the early machines.

Most PC133 SODIMMs will not work in a Wallstreet or Lombard because these 
machines cannot accept very high density DRAM chips, or so-called "low 
profile" SODIMM sticks which consist of more than one bank.

Both the Lombard and the Pismo require a special hard drive which will 
auto-negotiate down to ATA-5.

The latest ATA-6 drives will not do that.

The just discontinued Hitachi/IBM 5K80 ATA-6 drive (20, 30, 40, 60, 80 
GB) WILL auto negotiate. The same sized Samsungs and Toshibas and WILL 
NOT.

The Hitachi/IBM replacement for the 5K80 also WILL NOT auto-negotate.

The Wallstreet will accept just about any drive, whether it will 
auto-negotiate, or not.


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Re: Lombard RAM in Pismo?

[Laurent Daudelin]

on 09/10/05 12:15, Dante McLean at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> Is RAM used in Lombard the same stuff that goes in Pismo?  My Mom's
> Lombard hard drive just died, and it makes more sense to buy a new
> machine at this point (case is in brutal shape) than to replace the
> drive.  I'm hoping to pick the carcass before we bury it.

It could but it depends on chip density. Pismo can use higher density memory
chips that sometimes older memory managers in the Lombard and Wallstreet can
fully recognize.

-Laurent.
-- 

Laurent Daudelin   AIM/iChat: LaurentDaudelin
Logiciels Nemesys Software   mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

plumbing: n. [Unix] Term used for shell code, so called because of the
prevalence of `pipelines' that feed the output of one program to the input
of another. Under Unix, user utilities can often be implemented or at least
prototyped by a suitable collection of pipelines and temp-file grinding
encapsulated in a shell script; this is much less effort than writing C
every time, and the capability is considered one of Unix's major winning
features. A few other OSs such as IBM's VM/CMS support similar facilities.
Esp. used in the construction `hairy plumbing' (see hairy). "You can kluge
together a basic spell-checker out of `sort(1)', `comm(1)', and `tr(1)' with
a little plumbing." See also tee.



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Lombard RAM in Pismo?

[Dante McLean]

Is RAM used in Lombard the same stuff that goes in Pismo?  My Mom's 
Lombard hard drive just died, and it makes more sense to buy a new 
machine at this point (case is in brutal shape) than to replace the 
drive.  I'm hoping to pick the carcass before we bury it.


--
Regards,

Dante McLean
Dante McLean Photography
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -->  NeXTMail welcome at this address!

DS16 (Diller-Schwill 16) Sail/Hull #19
"A Humming Bird"
Christian Island, Ontario
N44° 51.472'  W080° 12.349'


If you don't know what the above is, look here: 






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Re: Problems with my Hard Drive?

[darm0k]

At 12:08 AM -0700 10/09/2005, Morgen Schuler wrote:

I have a powerbook bronze pismo.


Before digging into the interior, identify your PB properly:

The 1998 PowerBook G3, called the Wallstreet, is a black PowerBook, 
thicker than the others, and has the family number M4753 on its 
bottom.


The 1999 PowerBook G3, called the Lombard or Bronze Keyboard, is a 
black PowerBook and has the family number M5343 on its bottom.


The 2000 PowerBook G3, called the G3 FireWire or Pismo, is a black 
PowerBook with the family number M7572 on its bottom.  This is the 
only black PowerBook with FireWire ports.



For a while (after I accidentally dropped it, a short distance, but 
still gave it a jolt) it has been making clunking noises.


In addition to the HD, there are a number of components in a PB that 
can come loose.


it was stalling a lot and having issues but still worked.  Now, I 
push the power button and the monitor comes on fine, the cd rom 
checks to see if there's a disc in it, and then nothing.  No apple 
(tho the screen is grey like it's supposed to be) no circular 
waiting icon, nothing.  The hard drive isn't booting up at all.


You're getting a proper BONG, not a chord or the sound of breaking glass?

Boot from your OS CD.  If that works, try running Disk First Aid from 
the CD.  See if it can talk to and repair the drive...


If you cannot boot from the CD, there's something more serious going 
on than just a dying HD.


IMO the PB G3's are nice machines.  Well worth digging into to repair 
them, if you have the patience.  I've delt with several that were 
dropped.  Mostly the damage was limited to loosened cables, cache 
cards, DIMMs, etc.  Haven't seen a laptop HD die from a simple fall 
recently... they're tough critters, designed for high-shock.


FWIW,
- Dan.

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Re: Problems with my Hard Drive?

[Laurent Daudelin]

on 09/10/05 03:08, Morgen Schuler at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> Hi,
> 
>  I'm hoping someone can help me out with my problem.  I am becomming
> familiar with the parts of my comp because I have a powerbook bronze
> pismo.  For a while (after I accidentally dropped it, a short
> distance, but still gave it a jolt) it has been making clunking
> noises.  I am thinking that the hard drive took the brunt of the
> impact and something was loosened or knocked out of place making these
> noises.  In any case, it was stalling a lot and having issues but
> still worked.  Now, I push the power button and the monitor comes on
> fine, the cd rom checks to see if there's a disc in it, and then
> nothing.  No apple (tho the screen is grey like it's supposed to be)
> no circular waiting icon, nothing.  The hard drive isn't booting up at
> all.  I am assuming this is a broken hard drive, but I don't want to
> go out and buy one before I get some opinions.  I also don't want to
> spend 45 bux for someone to tell me something I already know (a pro
> just checking to see what the problem is hmph).  Thanks in advance for
> any help.. i LOVE my machine and want it back up and running again
> soon.

Your hard disk is most definitely broken.

-Laurent.
-- 

Laurent Daudelin   AIM/iChat: LaurentDaudelin
Logiciels Nemesys Software   mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

mainframe: n. Term originally referring to the cabinet containing the
central processor unit or `main frame' of a room-filling Stone Age batch
machine. After the emergence of smaller `minicomputer' designs in the early
1970s, the traditional big iron machines were described as `mainframe
computers' and eventually just as mainframes. The term carries the
connotation of a machine designed for batch rather than interactive use,
though possibly with an interactive timesharing operating system retrofitted
onto it; it is especially used of machines built by IBM, Unisys, and the
other great dinosaurs surviving from computing's Stone Age.



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Problems with my Hard Drive?

[Morgen Schuler]

Hi,

 I'm hoping someone can help me out with my problem.  I am becomming
familiar with the parts of my comp because I have a powerbook bronze
pismo.  For a while (after I accidentally dropped it, a short
distance, but still gave it a jolt) it has been making clunking
noises.  I am thinking that the hard drive took the brunt of the
impact and something was loosened or knocked out of place making these
noises.  In any case, it was stalling a lot and having issues but
still worked.  Now, I push the power button and the monitor comes on
fine, the cd rom checks to see if there's a disc in it, and then
nothing.  No apple (tho the screen is grey like it's supposed to be) 
no circular waiting icon, nothing.  The hard drive isn't booting up at
all.  I am assuming this is a broken hard drive, but I don't want to
go out and buy one before I get some opinions.  I also don't want to
spend 45 bux for someone to tell me something I already know (a pro
just checking to see what the problem is hmph).  Thanks in advance for
any help.. i LOVE my machine and want it back up and running again
soon.

 Thanks again!
 -Morgen

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