[Sosa]

I received my iBook three weeks ago from the 5th Apple warranty repair (replacing the motherboard in as many times). This time they had it for three weeks. When I went to pick it up at the Apple store I sat down to test everything to make sure nothing else had been broken. I discovered then that my power adapter had failed in the mean time, luckily it was replaced under warranty also. Seeminly satisfied that everything was in order, I went home and started law school only to discover the following problems:

My audio out jack (headphones) no longer works. Plugging in my headphones while listening to iTunes merely makes the music skip, sound only eminates from the built in speakers.

If I close the lid and place the iBook immediately into my Brenthaven shoulder bag (as I have always done) there is a 50% chance of the iBook freezing and not going to sleep. The screen light goes off but the screen stays on (visible in bright light). Only solution is to restart. It can be prevented by waiting for the computer to sleep before moving it. However I've never had to do this before. Also, it seems to take longer to sleep.

Lastly, my modem now hangs abourt 40% of the time. It is unable to disconnect. I do not know if there is a way to kill this process. However attempting to restart gives me a kernel panic 50% of the time.

It is still under the 90 day Apple repair warranty. I've called Apple three times and they have tried reseting the vram etc. The last tech just asked me to try to spot a pattern in the freeze problem (and I think I did) and that he would get back to me. Apparently he wanted to contact the repair center to see what was done. Well, 3 days later I have not heard back.

Any suggestions? I would like Apple to exchange this iBook for another, perhaps a refurbished 800 or 900mhz. I have no confidence that my iBook can be repaired.

One thing I have not tried is removing the RAM. I have a 256 stick from Crucial which has never given me problems. However upon receiving my iBook three weeks ago only have the stick was showing on "About this Mac." After restart the entire stick showed. Perhaps it was damaged at the repair center? Top seems to show it available:

PhysMem: 47.8M wired, 71.7M active, 132M inactive, 252M used, 132M free

[amazing]

Call up AppleCare immediately and ask to speak to a supervisor. Be polite throughout, because that's how you get the best service. Go through the list of things that have gone bad with your laptop and then ask at what point Apple will declare that it is a lemon and replace it? If the supervisor balks at doing this, ask politely who else you can talk to. Perhaps you should write a letter to the head of customer relations? If so, could you please give me his name and business address. Thank you, etc.

And if you do get a replacement, buy the extended applecare asap.

[Sosa]

Well now they want me to reinstall OS X. It is going to take me several hours to reinstall OS X and make an effort to have my computer close to how I had it before. I'm going to buy a bunch of CD-Rs and try this. What a pain. The tech guy thinks this may solve all three problems.

If it doesn't work Apple is going to have to replace this iBook.

Note: If anybody has experience in backing up all your preferences and unique files of your computer, let me know. Will it be better to buy an external firewire drive for example? Will Backup be up to the task or is there some other program I should use? I don't need to back up everything, but I would like to back up my preferences to a host of programs.

I think what I will do is wipe out the HD, reinstall OS X with updates but not my files / preferences. If I still have the same problems then we know Apple repairs is to blame.

[Sosa]

Update:

Apple just approved me for a new replacement iBook. They refused to exchange my Crucial RAM though, which was damaged last month while in repair. The guy said that unless there was physical damage they do not cover 3d party RAM. I think it is BS, as I was never informed to remove my RAM any of the 5 times I sent this machine for repair.

Well I have two months left on my repair warranty. Should I wait two months before exercising this option? My iBook problems are more annoying than anything else. I can take precautions to avoid data loss. The thought of getting a 1.1 G3 iBook really excites me!

Of course Apple would only allow me to receive this if there were no more 900mhz iBook's around. That doesn't seem likely though, since the Gobi chips will not be availble until Dec. Now I'm reading rumours that the iBook may be updated in a month.

The other consideration is that I would like to avoid paying $130 for Panther. Ideas?