Powerbook bitch...

[Hewy80]

OK, I have owned a powerbook for less than a year and it started to screw up.
Nothing major just some hardware problems. Keyboard working intermittently, trackpad a bit dodgy.
So I take it back to an Apple centre... after much fucking around I get my laptop back over a month later. They had to order a new top case as they had none in the country.
I turn it on, everything looks good. Software update does its thing, asks me to reboot. I walk away from it for a couple of minutes... it goes into hibernation... press the keyboard.. nothing happens
hit the trackpad button... nothing happens... the bastard thing wont turn back on
so what do i do? I pull the battery off... the thing still does its little light flash thing to show its in hibernation... does it for a good few minutes before it goes dark.
Plug the battery back on and nada... not a fucking thing. And yes the battery has charge... it said 40% before i rebooted...

Has anyone else had troubles with macs like this? I must say initially i was impressed with my mac but i am sick to fucking death of it now.
I think I can honestly say I will never buy another one.

/end rant

 

[James Murphy]

i'm typing this on my powerbook which i've had for 2 and a half years now. i've taken it across the planet and even dropped it, brutally, several times. it still works great... never had any problems at all like you describe. sounds to me like you just had bad luck and either got a bad unit or you did something to it inadvertantly. i think it's more likely just a faulty unit. Me, Kazrog, and Andy himself are all happy powerbook users here that have not had any problems like you describe after years of use.

 

[LydonB]

Have you tried holding the power button down? I know that when my Powerbook goes to sleep or hibernates or whatever I have to push the spacebar as opposed to touching the trackpad. Eh...sorry to hear about your Powerbook troubles. If it is still under warranty, you can take it back to your Apple Store again and make them fix it.

 

[Kazrog]

Ever try resetting your PRAM?

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238

This should get you going in the right direction. Also I'd suggest plugging in your mac to AC power at some point.

 

[Hewy80]

Yeah I tried holding the power button down...

I just got home and plugged it into the AC, seems to power up now. Maybe it was the battery... it said it had 40% tho... oh well its working, hopefully it will stay working.

ill stop panicking now...

 

[LydonB]

Good to see that it got resolved

 

[Andy Sneap]

yeah if it was only on briefly when it said 40% that may have been what it was at before and not when it shut down. sometimes I need to hold down ctrl, apple and the power button to get it to boot when the battery has died.

 

[006]

Had mine for over a year now, I use it to record band demos with a Digi002R as well as record band's live shows with it, I use it to play our beats for our live shows, I use it every single day...not one problem either. Chalk me up as a very happy user . I like mine so much, I bought a dual 2.0 G5 tower as well. I love Macs.

~006

 

[Kazrog]

Yeah I tried holding the power button down...

I just got home and plugged it into the AC, seems to power up now. Maybe it was the battery... it said it had 40% tho... oh well its working, hopefully it will stay working.

ill stop panicking now...

There's more to resetting PRAM than just "holding the power button down" but it sounds like you're up and running, so you won't need to.

Your battery probably died. When this happens, the PowerBook goes into reserve power sleep mode, to preserve your data. It will not wake from sleep unless you plug it in. If you don't plug it in, the battery will eventually die.

It takes a second after waking from sleep for the battery meter to refresh, so the 40% that you saw was probably inaccurate. Sleep mode still consumes a little bit of power, you have to be careful with it.