kinda disapointed :(

[jakochampolska]

I got a beautiful 12 inch powerbook on christmas last year and I couldnt of been happier. I havent had any major problems exect for not having the 512mb memory in my PB when I got it. Got that fixed and until now I havent had any problems.
Now, the problems I have with my pb arent BAD, I mean I can live with them, but it just dispoints me.
-The first problem that bugs me the most has to be the speakers going out. I listen to music out loud from my pb alot and until recently its been giving out. The sound either goes really loud or really quiet and its ANNOYING.
-Second- The top (screen) doesnt want to close. I close it, and it just pops back open!
-And the third one is the slowness of my pb. I know I can fix that, but I'm always so jealous of my teacher's 15 inch pb (thats shes had for THREE YEARS) moving quickly from photoshop to powerpoint, without seeing that god damn "beachball".
-and last, the BATTERY. Its crap. I cant leave the house without the power cable with me and my pb. I use to be able to spend 4 hours straight at starbucks without plugging it in!

SO WHAT HAPPENING? Did my powerbook just come to old age?
Is it me? Am I not taking care of my mac like I'm suppose to?

other than hardware problems I havent had any problems with the software. I absoutly LOVE MAC OS X. I dont know what I'd do if I were left with only mircosoft vista.

oh and while I'm at it: my mom really really really likes my pb (she does know about the problems) and she wants one. But she wants a 17 inch macbook. But she also works with autocadd and all those fancy architectural programs. Do you all know if autocadd works on Macs, now? I heard someone say no, but that was a while ago. I thought maybe they changed something.


THANKS!
(sorry for the spelling and grammer-but I'm in a sort of rush)

 

[nazmac21]

That just sucks. I am sorry that you had that experience. Anyway, try different RAM and reset the PRAM. See if that helps. Also there is no 17" MacBook, there's just only 17" MacBook Pro. Your mom would love it.

 

[WillMak]

Sounds like a lot of wear and tear on your PB - you must have made great use of it in a year. If you bought apple care you can get your internal speakers replaced from apple.

 

[WillMak]

oh and about your battery: D/L coconut battery to see how much charge your batery has left. link

 

[Royal Pineapple]

your speekers, latch, and battery are all showing signs of fatigue, this is normal with older machines, it sucks but usually isnt that bad, the biggest problem is the battery which would need a replacement to fix, are you covered under the powerbook battery recall perhaps? if so you should be able to get a new battery for free.
as for the speed, look into getting yet more ram

EDIT: there is no autocad for mac but it should work fine under boot camp, the 17" MBP is a beautiful machine and i think you mom could really enjoy it, my dad loves his

 

[Eric5h5]

Boot Camp is a very poor solution for AutoCad, since you have to reboot the machine to use it. Unless that's the only program she runs, in which case she might as well get a Windows machine. A better solution would be Parallels.

--Eric

 

[Wild-Bill]

I had the latch problem, but that's from dropping it. WHoops. I also had the sound issue when I took it to a local Apple authorized repair place to replace the bottom case for me. Tech couldn't figure out what happened, so it went to the Apple Depot.

As far as your battery, definitely check to see if your S/N is on the recall list. Heck, I turned in both my batteries and got new ones from Apple. THEN, when it went to the Depot for repair, they replaced the one that was in there, stating it was part of the recall. Strange indeed, but that should spring hope that you can get yours swapped out for another one.

 

[jakochampolska]

Thanks so much for the replys you guys!

Well see I tried telling my mom maybe she should just look into a windows instead but she she said she hates the operating system and finds Mac OS X alot better.

Anyways, I dont have the apple care plan I always thought of it as a waste of money. I still dont see the point of it (yea yea i know haha).


So really I guess I cant do much to make it better without spending any money? I want it faster but adding RAM means buying it and I just dont have the cash on me right now (My parents wont help because I just got a crap load of stuff on christmas- ipod video). SO I guess I'm going to have to live with it for the next 2 years until I go to college

 

[BlackMax]

-The first problem that bugs me the most has to be the speakers going out. I listen to music out loud from my pb alot and until recently its been giving out. The sound either goes really loud or really quiet and its ANNOYING.

My speakers have gone "out" once. They just stopped working and did not show up under system preferences. Then about a half hour later they just came back. Haven't seen this issue since.

-Second- The top (screen) doesnt want to close. I close it, and it just pops back open!

Make sure your case isn't warped. Unfortunately one characteristic of these aluminum cases is that they are malleable. The bend and sometimes warp.

Once my 12" PB got really hot and the case noticeably warped and I had a similar issue with my latch. The next time my 12" PB got really hot I *gently* applied pressure to edges of the PB until it was practically straight again. I've not had any latch issues since then.

-And the third one is the slowness of my pb. I know I can fix that, but I'm always so jealous of my teacher's 15 inch pb (thats shes had for THREE YEARS) moving quickly from photoshop to powerpoint, without seeing that god damn "beachball".

What CPU do you have in your 12" PB. I have a 1.33 GHz G4 and 1.25 GB of memory and mine performs relatively well. You might need to add more RAM to improve your performance.

-and last, the BATTERY. Its crap. I cant leave the house without the power cable with me and my pb. I use to be able to spend 4 hours straight at starbucks without plugging it in!

How many cycles do you have on your battery? I just replaced my original battery that had over 500 cycles on it and would not even hold a 50% charge. This is pretty normal. Where I work I see Dell and IBM notebook batteries failing all the time. If you have a lot of cycles 200+ and you are still getting around 4 hours on your 12" PB that is pretty good considering. You can find a new 12" PB battery on EBay for under $100.

SO WHAT HAPPENING? Did my powerbook just come to old age? Is it me? Am I not taking care of my mac like I'm suppose to?

I don't know if your taking care of your PB or not (calibrating battery, etc.), but everything you've listed so far is normal according to my experience with my 12" PB.

 

[jakochampolska]

Make sure your case isn't warped. Unfortunately one characteristic of these aluminum cases is that they are malleable. The bend and sometimes warp.

Once my 12" PB got really hot and the case noticeably warped and I had a similar issue with my latch. The next time my 12" PB got really hot I *gently* applied pressure to edges of the PB until it was practically straight again. I've not had any latch issues since then.




What CPU do you have in your 12" PB. I have a 1.33 GHz G4 and 1.25 GB of memory and mine performs relatively well. You might need to add more RAM to improve your performance.




How many cycles do you have on your battery? I just replaced my original battery that had over 500 cycles on it and would not even hold a 50% charge. This is pretty normal. Where I work I see Dell and IBM notebook batteries failing all the time. If you have a lot of cycles 200+ and you are still getting around 4 hours on your 12" PB that is pretty good considering. You can find a new 12" PB battery on EBay for under $100.




I don't know if your taking care of your PB or not (calibrating battery, etc.), but everything you've listed so far is normal according to my experience with my 12" PB.

I dont know how hot is HOT for a pb because I remember my other laptop geting to the point of burning flesh off my lap! My pb never has got that hot. But next time it does get hot I'll try it!

Now I dont know how much CPU I have (I'm not to computer saavy) and I dont calibrate my battery.
But thanks for the info!

 

[haleyvan]

oh and about your battery: D/L coconut battery to see how much charge your batery has left. link

whoa...do NOT download coconut battery. it confuses the battery, reduces battery life, and in my friend's case, completely depleted her battery. apple was nice enough to give her a new battery free of charge, but not without a lecture on how awful that program is for your mac.