Minor design flaws (yes, even Apple). Apple design criteria and goals have always been cutting-edge. After twenty years of setting design trends and bringing spectacular devices to market - many of which earned entry into museums of modern art and design - Apple now enjoys widespread recognition as the industry leader and continues to set the bar for manufacturing and product design. In the process, tho, some designs have been so exotic and unconventional as to compromise certain aspects of machine function, or create special considerations that might be viewed as being flawed. One example of an Apple design considered to be somewhat less than perfect is the G4 PowerMac Cube released in 2000. This design has a 7-inch cube-shaped core, released and extracted from its case by a spring-loaded handle with machine turned upside-down (as it was displayed during its MacWorld Expo introduction; core suspended over inverted case). While the design was as spectacular as it is unique, it had a few characteristics that proved to be something of a drawback, such as having all ports on the bottom of the machine where they were hard to access. Minor flaws, really, and easily overlooked by those who appreciate stunning design concept and execution. A handful of other designs along the way have had more significant flaws in terms of serviceability and reliability..... Major considerations: Design flaws considered significant are those which go beyond minor irritations, lead straight to costly service, and tend to leave a dull impression. Here's one "flaw" so blatant as to be completely overlooked: Like all computers, this Mac has a PRAM battery on its logic board with a life span of five years or so. When the day comes for replacement, owners will be in for a nasty shock: Replacing this battery requires removal of outer case, shields, sub assemblies, cables, display, speakers, fan(s), drives, and logic board. Just to access a $5 battery. This specific transition model also has its diagnostic LEDs buried behind the left speaker; if a service tech doesn't know to remove the speaker, troubleshooting power and video issues could easily go wrong. This iMac's predecessor was one of the easiest cabinets ever designed for service purposes - and the following model was completely redesigned and very elegant, too - but this particular transition machine got caught in the middle, making even simple procedures very time consuming. A notorious PowerBook G4 weakness: Photo (right) shows broken Titanium PowerBook (aka TiBook) hinges, a problem all too common to this 2002 model. Damage is compounded by the fact that replacing a hinge required replacing the entire $700 display - at least as far as Apple was concerned. A cottage industry sprang up for these TiBooks, offering stainless steel replacement hinges installed to existing display, but still an expensive fix. Common notebook issues from rough handling: Notebook optical drive slots (shown from inside machine, drive removed) require a 5-inch unsupported opening to allow passage of discs. This one had its aluminum frame bent, effectively closing that slot and rendering the optical drive useless. Not exactly a "design flaw" per-se, but a weakness common to all notebooks equipped with CD/DVD drives. Another beat-up notebook, this one with a broken frame making machine's display a little wobbly. Added stress on hinges typically cause eventual damage to cables and display failure. Pin Grid Array -vs- Ball Grid Array -vs- Land Grid Array. Modern notebooks have miniature video cards onboard, soldered to the logic board by a Ball Grid Array (pads, left). Good heat transfer, more compact assembly, but if BGA/video fails the logic board goes with it. Older machines used a (detachable) Pin Grid Array with plug/socket arrangement for daughtercards having a large matrix of connections (right). The third method, Land Grid Array, consists of leads fanning out from a chip's perimeter and soldered to circuit board; this is the most common type of surface-mount technology used for almost all components these days. A compromised BGA is difficult to repair, an expensive process called "reballing" that will likely exceed street value of machine. A failed BGA/video card usually means replacement of entire logic board, also a costly repair. BGAs are the most complex of miniaturized connectors commonly used in notebooks, and a good example of what makes notebook machines rather fragile when compared to desktops and towers. It's also one reason we recommend consideration of an extended warranty from any manufacturer when buying a high-end notebook.

Ham-handed repairs are easy to spot. In order to open and service this particular machine, all cables must be disconnected from the logic board including the display's video connector, enlarged here x5. When this machine arrived, it booted to a Kernel Panic with corrupt and/or missing Operating System files and a monitor displaying data in shades of red only (green and blue video signals missing). Careless reassembly killed a 'Book. When this notebook arrived following an "upgrade" by some PC tech, it had no sign of life other than fans running at full speed. Among other problems, we found missing, loose and stripped screws; pinched and incorrectly routed cables; and an unsecured hard drive. Photo tells all: Misplaced, too-long screw protrudes thru frame where it drilled the DC-power cable dead-center. Good job! Bare copper is visible around edge of indentation, revealing short circuit direct to ground. Hard drive data was intact, but machine was fried. "Pry it open, let's see what's in there..." This next machine was still (somewhat) functional when it arrived, although its fans went on full-tilt moments after startup, and screen would blackout periodically. Kids took a screwdriver to mom's $2K notebook. Many screws were stripped, missing and broken, including a critical heat sink mount alongside processor chip (located between two screws shown). Right screw is intact, left screw is actually lifting heat-spreader and caused a noticeable bulge in top case and keyboard. Optical drive had apparently been removed for some reason (mounts and aluminum bezel were broken), then reinstalled with duct tape. We were able to repair everything, including machine's SuperDrive, but - unfortunately - damage to the optical drive ATA bus prevented drive from functioning. Machine was reassembled sans optical drive, and its repaired SuperDrive placed into an external Firewire enclosure. Do-it-yourself upgrade: The owner's goal was to upgrade his laptop's hard drive, but it never happened. After obtaining a drive that might have fit (maybe), he carefully disassembled his notebook until he got to the logic board. Attempting to disconnect a tiny plug, he pulled entire connector off the logic board - traces, solder and all. We reconstructed the board's tiny copper traces and successfully repaired connector and logic board, but..... When he took his logic board home and tried to reassemble his notebook, the display was black. Attempting to fix the display, he then destroyed the logic board. Oops. Same story, different connector. This time a ZIF connector was ripped from logic board by someone bent on saving money. Aren't many shops around that would've taken this job and fixed this notebook. Amateur hard drive replacement. Still under warranty, a new $3K notebook underwent a hard drive upgrade at the hands of its owner, a man who was so focused on trying to split the machine's cases he neglected to remove a few central screws. Resulting damage was about $500 with a bent aluminum case and broken keyboard. (He thought repairs should be covered under warranty.) Disc fishing: Slot-loading disk drives present a hazard or two that might be unexpected, including the fate of nonstandard CDs and DVDs that enter - and do not exit - these drives. Other foreign matter may find its way into that slot, too, and many a damaged drive has passed thru the shop. Once a mini-disc or foreign object has become stuck in the drive, trying to fish it out thru that tiny slot is all but impossible, as this client found out. He got ahold of the drives thin, stainless steel innards and bent the daylights out of it by mistake. Sometimes factory repairs - aren't. Client brought in his wife's notebook. Said wine had been spilled on it when new, he'd paid Apple $750 to replace logic board and machine was fine - until lately. Back to Apple, he was told it needed a new logic board, new optical drive and a new hard drive. He canceled the repair order, and the notebook was returned to him from a facility somewhere in Tennessee (at no charge) with a letter and report bearing Apple's letterhead. And now, the notebook's display was black, too. Odd..... First, a lump under keyboard turned out to be the Airport antenna trapped under a shield. Bottom case and bottom shield still had substantial residue and stains. Top case and top shield were missing all retaining screws, all eight logic board screws were missing, and all but two bottom shield screws were gone. Worse: Fan was unplugged, as were display backlight, microphone and sleep light. Replaced missing screws, connected cables and machine passed all bench tests, operating perfectly, boards, drives and all. Weird.

Canadian OS, eh? What you see below is a screen dump of the Finder, showing one possible aftermath of running out of space on a hard drive while doing some heavy lifting. A recording studio in full flight, mixing down tracks while simultaneously copying audio files and running a bunch o'other stuff in the background. "I could tell things weren't quite right," the engineer told me, "but I just had to get this one last job finished." With processors working full-tilt and a massive amount of data on the move, there wasn't time for an error message or any warning: Lights out, game over, hard drive hit the wall. After a forced restart, he was horrified to see screens full of gibberish. "I couldn't even describe it over the phone," he added. True enough. We made a backup, recovered all data to a new drive, then made repairs. (Hard drives should have a minimum of 10-15% free space available; if you're editing large audio/video files, consider using a RAID array.) Time stands still..... This machine was only about a week old when it arrived here at the shop. Owners wanted help reinstalling its Operating System - photo shows System install screen (right) - but it quickly became apparent that an OS install wasn't going to solve this problem. During installation, progress bar and video froze. Moving install window around would cause screen to refresh, but only momentarily. Video card was defective, interfering with all ops (replaced under warranty). And, to make matters worse, the OS install disk that came with it (new) was also defective (next entry). Hello, Quality Control? Defective DVD frustrated owner's attempts to reinstall OSX on a new Mac; disc is missing part of its reflective metallic layer near edge, looks like a finger print. No excuse for this. Speaking of which..... Ya say your notebook won't power up? Gee, wonder why. This cheapo made in "Chian" battery wound up costing its owner dearly. We've seen damage from cheap knock-off AC adapters with insufficient output, too. You get what you pay for; get the real thing. Parts is parts. Unless there aren't any parts..... This particular laptop model had a display module that wasn't intended to be serviced, only replaced, and replacements were not available at the time. What you see is a notebook starting up after being dropped. The first light gray vertical lines are boot screen with logo and spinning gear. Any animation onscreen caused vertical lines to dance about like a deranged bar code. With no replacement screen available, it ended up connected to an external display for the time being. Broken Logic Pro key: A form of copy protection, some apps require a USB "key" to be in place before the application will launch and function. We repaired this one with a USB cable/plug and some plastic. Wasn't pretty, but it worked and got our client off the hook. Lookie here, we got us a RAM spider! Finally, a Mac with an honest-to-goodness bug. Eight legs and nowhere to go - bummer! Been in there for awhile, judging from the random-access web, but we were too late to save his fuzzy little cephalothorax. Internal short on USB bus: Nice to know the Mac has built-in protections for various faults, including this one. Port was damaged, shorting to ground. Non-standard discs = bad news in slot-load drives. Here's a CD wedgie courtesy of the U.S. Air Force. Funky lil' mini-discs get shoved to the back of optical drives where they get lodged and cannot eject. Removal and disassembly of optical drive is the only way to remove 'em, and just getting to the drive can be an adventure on some machines. Good news is, no harm done and machine was ready to fly in no time. We had another optical drive repair job once where we found (a record!) three full-size CDs stuffed inside a single slot-load optical drive. Dunno how that was accomplished (nor why anyone would try such a thing), but after removal and reassembly the drive was again fully functional. Might wanna take a break there, bucko..... About the fifth time this guy entered his registration info on some web site only to see it all disappear with an error - again - he delivered a right cross to the screen of his girlfriend's notebook. Pretty expensive repair, but machine left here in great shape and client wasn't forced to crash on the shop sofa. Probably had to grovel some, tho ;-).

Hard drive hammer Sometime, a sound says it all. If you know what you're hearing, you'll also know it's probably too late to do anything about it. You _do_ have a backup, don't you? Death rattle Here's an odd one: This hard drive repeatedly tried to free its stuck read/write heads. Resulting sound is rather curious (recorded with a microphone). The thrash By the way: If you think you're gonna freeze, heat, beat, shock or torture a drive into submission, odds are you'll only scrub data from its platters and make recovery impossible. Squealin' banshee No mystery with this drive failure, and no need for a stethoscope, either. If a computer could have bad brakes, this might be what they'd sound like. Thumper If only it could keep a beat. This drive appears to be attempting to read, except that its heads keep getting slammed back in one direction and it can't get very far. Normal (operational) HDD For the sake of comparison, here's a functional, if rather old, hard drive starting up then shutting off (audio was edited for time.) Barely audible with a mic, as it should be. While we're at it... Set the Wayback Machine to the mid-90s and enjoy a montage of various failure-to-boot sounds that signaled disaster on vintage Macs running System 7. Each of these were actually firmware error sounds.