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PowerBook Disassembly Guide
kwiens writes "We've been slaving away for months to create the FixIt Guide Series-- a set of Free-As-In-Beer step by step PowerBook disassembly instructions. Maybe waiting another 6-18 months for those PowerBook G5's will be easier if you fix your old PowerBook now (or just use the Guides as a starting point for that killer PowerBook case mod). Guides are up now for the PowerBook G3 Wallstreet, Lombard, Pismo and Titanium PowerBook G4 Mercury, Onyx, DVI."
Yes, it will void your warranty. Also if you shelled out the $300 for apple care it will void that. Doing anything besides a RAM upgrade, or possibly an airport/ap extreme card voids your warranty. These are the only consumer supported upgrades apple will support on the powerbook.
These guides are great and all but if you hang around Apple specific hardware hacking forums enough, you'll come across the official Apple repair manuals which feature complete dissasembly guides, exploded views, etc.
That said, I love being an Apple tech.. I get these goodies within a week of the product being released.
> That said, what i don't like is novices that "cheapskates" that buy these things, use them, screw up their computer while they are still under warranty, then take them to a service provider (me, others) and then have the units fixed for free.
Likely much worse when they sell them on Ebay after messing with them. Obviously not all powerbooks on Ebay have been modded, but some of them might have been. Caveat Emptor.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Apple's manuals are generally OK if you need to disassemble stuff but their diagnosis flow charts SUCK.
Wow, I actually got a little nostalgic :) two months ago I was up to my elbows in broken Macintosh, now I'm sitting in front of a MDD and flanked by a bunch of PC's in my cushy corporate job :)
Reviews with a twist! http://www.sardonicbastard.com
I get this shit all the time. I'm the sole Apple hardware guy at a laptop campus which currently has around 600 students with iBooks and 12" Powerbooks.
I've heard and seen just about everything.
Student: "I didn't spill anything on my iBook"
Me: "Oh yeah? What's this sticky shit that smells like a Gin and tonic?"
Then again, the guys that work on the HP/Compaq's have it worse. They've had two or three laptops that have been pissed on. I suspect it has something to do with lower customer satisfaction.
Maybe Apple has asked for this site to be placed on /. - why hire expensive lawyers sending c&d's if a herd of clicking nerds with bandwith will give the same result.
in a room full of computer dorks, someone says things like "don't open your own case and fix your machine..." ! isn't this what helps to progress the technology? why does everyone need to stand around like they're our mommys (happy mothers-day btw..!) and hold our hand and tell us "no, don't open your 3k laptop you might break something No Shit! If you're dumb enough to open the case, and not know what you're doing its your fault. Most lame-ass n00bie computer users aren't going to be poppin' the case on their machines. argh, i just can't believe all the negitive 'don't do it!' posts Also, why the fuck do you need a guide to take screws out of a computer? I opened my powerbook two days after i bought it.
Or you could just go with CowboyNeal's method of disassembly. http://cowboyneal.org/ex-powerbook.jpg
--
Using GNU/Linux - Windows-free zone!
Dell has clear instructions on taking their laptops apart (and putting back together again) on their website.
;-)
When I bought my current X300, I considered a 12" powerbook as well, but the 3 year warranty period on the Dell made the difference.
OTOH, when the hard disk died the on-site engineer that came to fix it was so clumsy that I had to do some of the taking apart myself (that included finding the howto's on the site).
So, what exactly am I trying to say here..?
My girlfriend once used my computer for an evening. The next day, when I tried to type, pressing a key would produce something like:
#$F|||||||||||#@#$SSSDGF
instead of, say 'a'. So I find my girlfriend, who has an innocent look of concern on her face, and I ask her: did you download any strange software yesterday? No. Did you scan your floppy disk? Yes, no viruses. Did anything else weird happen while you were using my computer? No, nothing weird.
Hmmm... so after tapping away in frustration and checking the cables I decide there must be something loose inside the keyboard that is producing crazy input signals every time I press a key. I decide to check it out, so I go and get the trusty phillips head and go over to my computer. I pick up the keyboard, and as I turn it on its side, liquid starts pouring out. Lots of liquid... lots and lots of liquid... in fact, an entire cup of tea pours out all over the desk.
Using my Sherlock Holmes-like powers of deduction, followed by an appropriately Holmesian denoument in which I made my accusations, I discovered the following. She'd knocked her tea over with her hand, and it had fallen neatly and poured directly into the keyboard body. Then, realising how terrible her crime was (it was a nice keyboard), she quietly logged off using the mouse to select Start->Shut Down->Yes, quickly packed up her stuff, and weaseled away into the night without saying a word.
Things I discovered from this incident:
- keyboards are remarkably water-tight
- darjeeling tea with one sugar is very bad for circuit boards and contact-based switches like the ones inside a keyboard
- there is no limit to the optimism and weaseliness of people when they want to get out of trouble
- it will cost you more than the price of a new Logitech keyboard if you call your partner an evil keyboard murdering wench to her face
Read Pynchon.
I never see anything about what type of screw goes where. I was taking apart a Pismo 400 the other day and while I thought I could remember where each screw went I later realized that I could not. Of course now I can seeing as how I had to take it apart a few times to make sure everything was seated correctly.
Needless to say, when you feel resistance on a screw and you're not quite sure where it goes, don't keep screwing it in. That goes for laptops and women.
--"It's Bradford Company, slash your last name, dot your first name"