Last year, I went through a saga of my own when my trusty Powerbook 12” suddenly started to forget that it had a built in LCD. Putting it to sleep would rouse the issue and I’d be forced to perform a rebooting, PRAM zapping, PMU resetting ritual that never conclusively worked. Long, long story cut short, I paid $300ish to Apple to repair the screen.
Since I had it repaired, it’s been rock solid. Or, it was. I woke my Powerbook to find a blank screen. Instant panic set in. Brightness buttons were pressed many times. The Powerbook was rebooted, PRAM zapped, PMU reset, battery removed. Nothing had an effect.
Out of desperation, I did what I always fall back on. I put my Powerbook in the refrigerator. While I waited, I started to wonder what all Mac owners wonder at some point. Is it time to move up to the next model? At what point is this problem going to become a constant (and expensive) problem? It’s not constant for everyone. I typically like to replace my Macs every four years, but that adds up with a laptop and a desktop.
After getting lost in my revery (and watching an episode of Heroes), I returned to the fridge, put my Powerbook on its AC adapter and exhaled heavily in relief as the screen lit up when I pressed the power button. I don’t know if this will hold and having to keep my laptop in the fridge to keep it fresh like that order of bologna certainly doesn’t appeal to me.
i normally buy a new laptop every time apple releases a new one (a wait a few months for bugs to be fixed tho).
since they do little refreshments thru the laptops lifespan, i wait for a new model design to come out...
my desktop, however, is 5 years old and still rocking...
I hope your 12" PowerBook lives on forever, Derik.
got a g3 ibook 600 mhz. never a problem, still going strong, just slow.
So do I Wes. So do I.
;)
If you need a backup 12" PowerBook (one that's never had display problems I might add), just let me know. I'm thinking about replacing mine around say October 15th ;). It just doesn't keep up with me anymore.