Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!iuvax!bsu-cs!mithomas From: mithomas@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Michael Thomas Niehaus) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple Subject: Re: Beware... Message-ID: <6692@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> Date: 10 Apr 89 20:04:58 GMT References: <8904101252.aa26965@SMOKE.BRL.MIL> Organization: CS Dept, Ball St U, Muncie, IN, USA Lines: 44 In article <8904101252.aa26965@SMOKE.BRL.MIL>, ART100@PSUVM.BITNET ("Andy Tefft 862-6728", 814) writes: > Original note: > > > >From: Lewis Kreme Butler > >Daveharv@pro-novapple.cts.com wrote: > >| > >|I called my dealer. I called several dealers. Every one of them said that > >|Apple would NOT supply a replacement chip. The ONLY way they could fix the > >|problem was a new motherboard! $250 for parts and labor! ... > >|This goes beyond just DUMB. It's highway robbery on Apple's part. I still > >|can't believe it. > > This type of thing is EXACTLY why I am running my //c with only one drive. > I'm pretty sure it's only one chip blown, or maybe a capacitor, something > small, but if I take it to a dealer it's going to cost me approximately > 10-20 times the actual replacement cost. Well, normally I would defend Apple, but not in this case. I have had my own experience with their service last year. We had a keyboard cable that shorted out (one of the lines came in contact with the ground within the cable) which consequently burned out a fuse in the Apple Desktop Bus circuitry. Now, the Apple-recommended way to replace this fuse is to replace the entire motherboard. This ends up costing somewhere around $450 for the new mother- board and labor. Even when a new fuse would cost about 50 cents and maybe $30 in labor to install it... Granted, this was a Mac II and not an Apple, but the same type of thing applies. To make matters worse, the person in the lab with this keyboard connected it to two other machines, promptly blowing the fuses in these machines as well, before anyone could stop him and tell him what was causing the problem. That "little problem" ended up costing the university about $1500. But the university doesn't know any better, so they thought that was an acceptable price. Such is life... I'll be glad when modularity again becomes the rage in computer design... -Michael -- Michael Niehaus UUCP: !{iuvax,pur-ee}!bsu-cs!mithomas Apple Student Rep ARPA: mithomas@bsu-cs.bsu.edu Ball State University AppleLink: ST0374 (from UUCP: st0374@applelink.apple.com)