[Op-Ed] Death of a Lombard (and other Logic Board Stories)


My Lombard died last week. Actually, it'd been dying for over 6 months. First, the logic board started playing up. It would only boot attached to a terminated SCSI bus (that was a new one to me as well). Which meant that my trusty CD burner became an indispensable part of my booting armory.

Then, last week, the daughtercard died. Completely. Kaput. No, it wasn't the infamous L2 cache failure (which leaves the processor operable, albeit at greatly-reduced speed).

So what? you say. Time for a new PowerBook. Or iBook. Fact is, I was waiting for the still-mythical G5. So I dutifully checked out the recommended retail on a few AlumBooks, G4 iBooks and some ex-demo TiBooks.

The TiBooks were tempting - at a price - because they retain OS 9 boot capability, useful to me in several respects, not least because I use my iRez Capsure PC card a lot. No drivers for OS X, you see.

Then there was the investment in the Lombard. Expansion bay drives. Almost-new main battery ($130). New PRAM battery (not at all cheap at $40). RAM. The 12mm 30GB hard drive I might not be able to take with me into a slim Ti. And iBooks are notoriously difficult for getting into and out of. Then there's the new keyboard I bought (more $$$) when I killed it with coffee. In summary, there's scarcely a part in there that hasn't been replaced or upgraded.

Now we come to the issue of Apple Quality Control. Or lack thereof. This Lombard was a December 1999 build, nine months old at time of purchase and still under warranty. It was well kept (apart from the Caps Lock key). Now, barely 3 years after purchase - and barely 4 years after it was built - it was toast.

This is not your father's Mac. I've certainly seen plenty of Macs die in my time, mostly through owner abuse. But not one of my own Macs has died. A PowerBook 190 (1996) still sees service. My PowerBook 5300 (1995), despite the ubiquitous power connector failure (fixed under the 7-year Repair Extension Program) is still soldiering on, as far as I know. Quadras I put into service are still happily number crunching. My Power Mac 8100 (1994) still works fine. Hell, even the 'Kitchen Classic' (1990) has only put its original hard drive six feet under.

Inevitably, PowerBook/iBook parts wear out. I accept that. Desktops, PRAM batteries aside, can be very cheap to own. $5 back-up batteries, $20 replacement keyboards. And if the monitor dies, good quality 17" CRTs don't cost a lot nowadays.

But PowerBook components take a considerable battering and other parts die from old age. My previous keyboard, even if I hadn't destroyed it, was lacking input sensitivity, and keys could be inconsistent and unresponsive. The mouse clicker was making unusual noises. The screen, still with no dead pixels, was beginning to fade somewhat after thousands of hours of use. One rear door hinge was broken. The rear right-hand plastic was peeling off. The display hinges were growing alarmingly floppy. And the charcoal palm rests were almost worn smooth from overuse. Of course, the rubber feet had gone long, long ago.

A couple of years ago, I wrote an piece called Has Apple Quality Control Bitten the Dust? Given the less-than-isolated cases of iBook logic board failure, an issue Charles Moore at MacOpinion has written of extensively, there is some evidence that Mac quality - for so long taken for granted - has finally gone out to lunch. And it's never come back.

Snapping TiBook and PowerBook G3 hinges; roaring G4 power supplies; L2 cache failures; paint flaking off titanium; overheating PB G4-12s...you get the idea.

In the article, I asked who was to blame. The answer was "ourselves". We wanted thin and light. We got thin and light. We wanted cheap Macs. We got cheap Macs.

Now, I'm not so sure it's all our fault. We still pay a premium for Macs - or, more accurately, for the OS that runs on them. They use industry (low) standard components. The question is, should we really expect our modern Macs to last more than 4 years? Given PCs are so commodified, should we turn them over every 3 years before the AppleCare's run out? Have they just become short-lived appliances like toasters, electric kettles and VCRs?

If you're open to the theory of planned obsolescence, none of this will come as any surprise to you. In Japan, for instance, cars are effectively unroadworthy after five years. That means you've got to save and buy a new set of wheels every 4-5 years. Good for the industry, you see.

As far as Apple are concerned, there are still far too many people running Power Mac 7300/200s, beige G3s, Bondi iMacs and Wallstreet PowerBooks. Probably about 15 million of them, in fact. And they should all be driving a shiny new Mac. Matter of fact, if it's been built since 1998, they'll probably all have to be driving a new Mac. And soon, as their logic boards are programmed to turn into pumpkins on the stroke of midnight, come February 29.

If there's a moral here, it's this: get used to turning over your Macs early and often. Get some return on your depreciated asset. Otherwise, you will, like me, foolishly throw more good money after bad.

The end result? I decided Apple wouldn't get my money. Not this time. Becoming desperate, I even found myself looking at a [gulp] Dell catalog, before recovering my senses.

Instead, I sourced a complete Lombard case, display, logic board and 400MHz processor. Into that, I slotted my modem, keyboard, hard drive, expansion bays, battery, PRAM battery and RAM. That cost around $450 all up. So I haven't been burnt too badly in the end.

With any luck, it'll still be functioning by the time I post this...