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scctx · Sep 29, 2003, 07:45 PM

I FINALLY got my 15' BTO AL Book and boy was I happy. I have had the same terrible experience with Airborne that everyone else had. The funniest part was this morning when I called at 8am and they told me to call back in an hour and they might be able to tell me where it is at. I asked the lady if that was so she could get her morning coffee in first. haha

When it did finally get here at 10am a lot earlier than I expected I noticed the sticker thaqt said Monday delivery on it had another sticker under it that said Friday delivery. Oh great, it should have been here Friday. Now I'm a little peaved, but hey it's here now. No more Airborne to deal with, or so I thought.

So I get it out and I have to be 5 feet in from of my snow airport base station in order to get even ANY signal and I'm seriously depressed. So I started to look at modifying my snow base station to add an external antenna. Finally I decided to go to the Apple store and see what kind of signal I got there. So I go to the Apple store and I head straight to the Genius Bar. I show the guy that I'm getting no signal and he takes it to the back and agrees with me and says this is actually the first 15" AL Book that he's seen that has an actual problem. Great, just my luck. I'm totally losing faith in the total purchase with Apple at this point. So after the guy takes it to the back he brings it back out and says it is defintely the APX card or the antenna. So he says it'll be tomorrow before they can pop a new APX card in it to test it. At this point I'm totally disgusted. So he tells me that if it's the antenna in the machine itself they will have to mail it off to the repair center via Airborne. Oh great, my best buddies Airborne. So at this point I'm at two weeks and I touched my PowerBook for 1 hr and am sitting here without it again. I'm totally depressed.

CrackedButter · Sep 29, 2003, 07:55 PM

I feel sorry for you, at least you have a Apple store near you.

I am so much happier now i have cancelled my order.

MrK · Sep 29, 2003, 09:23 PM

And I am glad I didn't order one in the first place...

Drakino · Sep 30, 2003, 02:29 AM

Originally posted by CrackedButter:
I am so much happier now i have cancelled my order.

And I am so much happier now posting on a PowerBook from bed instead of from my desk on a PC.

All products will have flaws. And guess what, people will complain about them on forums like this acting like the world is coming to an end. But overall, the flawed machines represent less then 1% of the machines Apple ships. So, enjoy whatever machine you decided to keep over a new Powerbook.

To the origional poster, sorry to hear about your problems. Not knowing how the AE cards work, but remembering the old Airport ones, it sounds like the antenna cable is just simply disconnected. So it hopefully will be a quick fix. The machine is well worth the wait, so just ignore those here who would tell you otherwise.

nobitacu · Sep 30, 2003, 05:32 AM

yea... sorry to hear that man... hope you will get it back soon.... because I know how that waiting is, and it seems like forever too... but yea, good thing you have a Apple Store near you, here at Fargo, ND, we have none, it would of been even longer if I have any problem with mine.

Ming

scctx · Sep 30, 2003, 10:22 AM

Well I got a call back from the Apple store and guess what, the airport card had just come lose in shipping and they just reseated it and it worked. That is what I told the guy I thought was the problem the minute I walked in there AND he took it to the back and supposedly opened it up and looked at the connections because when he came back he said it looked like it was connected properly and it was DEFINETLY a hardware problem. Oh boy!

So now I bet they are going to try and charge me the $50 for looking at it. I know you are all thinking what an idiot, why didn't you just pull the card out and reset it yourself. Well, I looked at it and I couldn't figure out how to unplug it without yanking on the antenna so I decided to let the "geniuses" look at it to be on the safe side. Boy what a joke that was. I'll make sure they show me how to unplug it before I leave there today. So I hope my ordeal is finally over.

Oh and if anyone is trying to decide if they should go with the 12" or 15" due to size. Go with the 15". I have a 12" iBook at home too and it doesn't fit well across my lap, too small. The 15" actually spaned across both of my legs perfectly when I was sitting on the couch with it. That and the screen real estate made it the perfect choice.

I hope everyone else has as much of an adventure as I'm having.

Pierre B. · Sep 30, 2003, 10:49 AM

Originally posted by scctx:
Well I got a call back from the Apple store and guess what, the airport card had just come lose in shipping and they just reseated it and it worked.

I thought that for the superdrive 15" model, the airport card is built-in; at least that's what Apple says in the specifications of the new powerbooks: bluetooth built-in, airport extreme built-in. This would mean that the airport card is on the motherboard, or am I missing something? And in the BTO options you cannot choose to not have airport extreme...Just confused.

forcelite · Sep 30, 2003, 10:51 AM

its true people will talk about the bad machines way more than the good ones.

I and most others who own a 15" albook are very happy and received a flawless machine

Force

PeterKG · Sep 30, 2003, 10:54 AM

Originally posted by Pierre B.:
I thought that for the superdrive 15" model, the airport card is built-in; at least that's what Apple says in the specifications of the new powerbooks: bluetooth built-in, airport extreme built-in. This would mean that the airport card is on the motherboard, or am I missing something? And in the BTO options you cannot choose to not have airport extreme...Just confused.

It's not built in, it's just included with the 1.25GHz model.

Pierre B. · Sep 30, 2003, 11:00 AM

Originally posted by PeterKG:
It's not built in, it's just included with the 1.25GHz model.

Strange, you can change RAM, disk, optical drive during online ordering but no bluetooth (expected, built-in), no airport?!

LfGrdMike · Sep 30, 2003, 11:12 AM

Sorry to hear about your situation but I got a peeve about something you said.

SCCTX Said
"
Oh and if anyone is trying to decide if they should go with the 12" or 15" due to size. Go with the 15". I have a 12" iBook at home too and it doesn't fit well across my lap, too small. The 15" actually spaned across both of my legs perfectly when I was sitting on the couch with it. That and the screen real estate made it the perfect choice.
"

Just because the 15 spans accross your legs perfectly does not mean its the right machine for everyone. Furthermore this is not the only reason. Why I could tell you oh if your trying to decide between the 15 and the 17 get the 17 because it spans accross your legs even better than the 15. Furthermore you can spread your legs apart more. This is a ridiculious factor, and it annoys me. You buy the laptop based on what you need it for and ask yourself a series of questions. After answering these questions you always have to make trade offs no matter what you buy. Their is always going to be something minor you don't like about it because of a trade off. Now you can sit their and say that the 15 is the way to go to solve the trade off problems, but this is false. For me the 15 is a little too big for a student who is on the go a lot. So I went with the 12, and actually haven't had a peeve about it yet. Sure its nice to have a bigger screen size and all those other factors, but you need to remember for some people their are more pluses for one machine than another. Its all based on personal preference and needs. My personal preference is I dont need a 17, and I think its too large. I will probably get a 15 with my next laptop because i wont be on the go so much. This wont be for awhile though because the G5 Tower is next. Getting one of those in 2-4 years. Anyway glad your problem is solved and enjoy your machine.

I was going to get a iBook a year ago, and thought oh i hope it goes G4. It did, but it worked out better than I could of imagined i got the nice sized 12 with plenty of power for a student majoring in computer science.

good times It was a PowerBook a huge surprise. Steve Jobs made the machine for me, and I knew what I wanted. Even while thinking about a 15 i stilll jumped back too the 12 because that was the on I knew I wanted for me. Sometimes your first choice is the right choice.