It’s alive!!
Monday June 14, 2004 – 9:09 pmReports of my iBook’s death were greatly exaggerated. Called AppleCare but they couldn’t help me, as I was (knowingly) in violation of one of their rules. (See below because the story’s too boring for anybody but a Mac geek.) I started fooling around with Disk Utility, ended up deciding to try a reinstall? And to my surprise it worked, there was apparently nothing wrong with the actual disk. I wiped the drive and there’s a new clean system on there now that boots and everything. I’m thinkin’ the problem was the heat, though I can’t say why it got so hot to begin with. It wasn’t getting too hot during the install so I’ll put it through its paces and try and get it to fuck up before the AppleCare expires next March. I’m pretty sure I can bork it up good by then, if it’s going to happen. :-)
So yeah, the reason the AppleCare guy had to cut the call short was because I had used my newer iBook’s install CDs to put Panther on this older iBook. You’re only allowed to install the OS on one computer, the one the disks came with. I’m not sure if the rule is the same if you buy Panther separately but anyway… I was stupid enough to admit this, he invoked the "my job is at risk" card, I said I understood and thanked him for trying to help as much as he did. (This was already about 15 minutes into the call, we were doing diagnostic stuff when I spilled the beans. ) I hung up thinkin’, you know what? The only reason he knew I was in violation is because I fucking TOLD him so — I had been fumbling around with CDs and it just sorta came out my mouth. So I figured I could try taking the iBook to the Apple Store, this time NOT offering that information. If they told me I needed my Panther CDs to get it fixed, I’d leave again, go buy some freakin’ Panther disks and come back with them. I don’t think there’s any way for them to tell which disks I used for the install. And it would sure be a lot cheaper than paying for parts & labor no matter what the problem was.
Anyway none of that matters now because I was successful in reinstalling… JAGUAR this time. I have those disks, so I’m no longer in violation of any stupid-ass rules. If it fucks up, they gotta fix it :-)
June 15th, 2004 at 6:58 am
(For some reason, my comment didn’t display the first time — odd. This time for sure?)
The rule for software licenses tends to be “one copy, one computer”, unless you have a license agreement that covers multiple machines. (I know Apple has or at least had “family” style licenses that covered all the machines in a house [up to five, I think].) That said, since it was ostensibly a hardware problem, not a software problem, violation of the OS terms and conditions shouldn’t have been a violation of the AppleCare T&C;(in fact, taking a look, unless it was somehow “abuse and neglect”, I have a hard time figuring out why they wouldn’t/couldn’t deal with it).
I doubt there’s any way to jury-rig a sensor on the machine without making modifications that void the warranty. It would be nice to see the sort of temperature profile your laptop has.
But at least it works (albeit with 10.2). Yay!
June 15th, 2004 at 7:33 am
I don’t think these older iBooks have any kind of temperature sensor. It’s one of them “Late 2001″ jobbies. OH I get it, you’re saying we could stick one in there somehow. (I just woke up!) Yeah, I’d like to know, though I reckon it’s just as easy to tell the old-fashioned way, by just holding it. We know how hot they’re supposed to be. There’s Cool, there’s Warm, there’s Hot, and there’s CRAZY HOT. No computer should need to get that hot. And the thunking, that can’t be good right?
Well, I had it running all night long streaming ambient music; seems fine right now. We’ll see. Thanks for standing by while I slogged through all this yestiddy!