[Brit Ben]

One of my friends who I persuaded to change from wintel to Mac phoned me earlier this evening exceedingly dissapointed. Apparently he had been using his Ti whilst sat on his lap at home working in front of the tv and the fireplace. (It's snowing in Canada already, and warrants a fire, trust me) He put the PB down on the coffee table to answer the phone, and forgot about it during his 1 hour + long call. When he went back to carry on working, the thing was dead.

At first assuming it was the battery discharged, he plugged in to his power adaptor, but to no avail. He then switched to a second battery, but that also had no effect, even though the battery LED's showed full charge.

He recalls the fan running 'almost all the time' while it was sat on his lap, and suspects that over an hour in front of the fire roasted his innards.

Is this likely ? Said coffee table doesnt get damaged from the heat of the fire. I assume that these things have a heat-driven poweroff.

If it is indeed kaput, would it be covered under applecare ?
Is the harddisk likely to be salvageable ?

Thanks guys n gals.

Ben.

[direktor]

Many electronic devices worth anything these days have thermal safteys...but that doesn't mean they work all the time, or that a component that was designed to operate to a certain temperature would not fail early. If it was mine, I'd go through all standard troubleshooting (PRAM zapping, powermanager reset, etc) before assuming the worst and sending it to Apple.

I'm sure Applecare will take of it, unless he did something negligent that he didn't mention.

Unless the drive itself failed, surely data will still be there after it's fixed.

[fulmer]

the PowerBook will have a max operating temperature. All electronic devices have them. Here's Apple's info from their site about the new 667 PowerBook, though I suspect the 500 MHz version would be the same to similar:

Environmental requirements
Operating temperature: 50� to 95� F (10� to 35� C)
Storage temperature: -40� to 116� F (-47� to 47� C)
Relative humidity: 20% to 80%

If it was near a fire, proximity would make a huge difference. Anyone who has played with fire (literally) in the past can tell you that it feels okay from a certain distance, but almost exponentially rises the closer you get.

[absmiths]

Originally posted by Brit Ben:
<STRONG>When he went back to carry on working, the thing was dead.

At first assuming it was the battery discharged, he plugged in to his power adaptor, but to no avail. He then switched to a second battery, but that also had no effect, even though the battery LED's showed full charge.
</STRONG>

What is your definition of dead? I am assuming the screen was off when he returned, but what happened after that? Does the thing not even power up? In that case, obviously steps like zapping PRAM won't work. It would seem to me that if he was comfortable, and the laptop wasn't scorching his legs, then it was probably not overheating. 95 degrees F is awfully hot, and if Apple lists 95 then it probably doesn't begin to have serious trouble until after that.

I would definitely take it to an Apple repair store and let them deal with it.

[Brit Ben]

Originally posted by fulmer:
<STRONG>the PowerBook will have a max operating temperature. All electronic devices have them. Here's Apple's info from their site about the new 667 PowerBook, though I suspect the 500 MHz version would be the same to similar:

Environmental requirements
Operating temperature: 50� to 95� F (10� to 35� C)
Storage temperature: -40� to 116� F (-47� to 47� C)
Relative humidity: 20% to 80%

If it was near a fire, proximity would make a huge difference. Anyone who has played with fire (literally) in the past can tell you that it feels okay from a certain distance, but almost exponentially rises the closer you get.</STRONG>

So Thanks all for your comments, I asked a few more questions, and I recall something too. He has a fancy smarthome. The fireplace has a remote controlled temperature display, and is in a large open plan living room. I recall having turned the fireplace off 8 or 9 feet away from it, and seeing the display reading 81 degrees. If you consider the coffee table is two feet wide, and two feet from the sofa....

It was highly likely that the laptop sat about 4 feet from the fire for a good hour....

and no, it wont even power up...

Ben.