Macbrick wtf? UPDATED FIRST POST

freshmasterfresh

So it appears that my sister either gets to pay $800+ and labor to have her computer work, or she gets to stick with her broken Macbook. This just isn't acceptable, so I'm going to head over to the store that originally determined my sister to be at fault for the damage with these pictures. If the manager doesn't take care of it than I will try to get the partial refund on the applecare plan the customer service rep offerred.

Does anybody here have any better ideas?

Original message:

freshmasterfresh wrote:

I'm on hold with Apple customer service trying to get my sister's computer taken care of after terrible luck with retail stores. While I was waiting for the previous guy to get me to this stage, I tried to compile a page with the pictures of the damage, but I can't get it to actually render out: http://members.cox.net/lordfattius/macbrick.html

What the fuck is wrong with my HTML? Do you see pictures or just code?

ZackSchilling

It looks like you typed HTML into the text mode of a WYSIWYG editor. Pretty funny actually.

freshmasterfresh

At first I tried just using the <img> code from photobucket. When that didn't work I tried a bunch of stuff that ultimately led to this page.

So yes, I am a noob. It worked on that page.

blue tape

Do a "View Source" on your page. Like Zack said, it looks like you're editing it in a WYSIWYG editor and saving it as such.

Azio

I fixed your page for you. Right-click and save as.

freshmasterfresh

I used Textedit on my mac and saved it as an html file.

*mighty shrug*

I just got off the phone with the apple customer service jackass. He didn't even look at my pictures. He just told me that because the apple techs at the first store said there is liquid damage, that is apple's official stance and what I see means absolutely nothing.

ZackSchilling

In the pictures it looked like liquid damage too. What exactly happened? What were you trying to show with the pictures?

freshmasterfresh

The pictures show that she didn't cause the liquid damage. The computer is completely clean everywhere except around the logic board. If it is a soft drink or something like that, whoever caused the damage cleaned up every possible entry point with great skill. Out of all of the people who could have used the computer, I am the only person who could possibly have taken it apart to clean it to that degree, and I most definitely did not. I only took it apart after two apple stores said "fuckoff," and when I did, this is how I found it:

http://members.cox.net/lordfattius/macbrick.html

KiTA

ZackSchilling wrote: »

In the pictures it looked like liquid damage too. What exactly happened? What were you trying to show with the pictures?

If I remember the original story... he took his sister's laptop in to get serviced at an "Apple Bar" (Apple's trendy way of saying he took it to a store and had the resident mouth breather look at it) and the twit working on it spilled some of his green apple expresso in it, then claimed he (the customer) did it and it wasn't covered under warranty, and called apple to get that logged, so Apple won't help him either.

Or something like that.

The problem is that unlike PCs, Mac has a no touch warranty -- by opening the case you voided it again. There's this weird tape inside that supposedly they use to detect case intrusions.

Your best bet is to tell the people on the phone that the system shocked you and get a safety capture on it. You're going to get screwed otherwise -- the Apple tech covered his arse pretty darned well by calling it in and blaming you officially.

Blaine

Opening the case and documenting it all was a huge mistake.


Now I'm surprised if you'll even get a response from them.


Fuck it bro, Apple isn't going to do shit about this. The prices they charge for their hardware and their way of treating customers is criminal.

ZackSchilling

Actually, I believe that the no touch warranty is not true. Or at least it's not true as far as I know. I replaced the HD on my brother's iBook G4 (quite an ordeal involving stripping the machine down almost entirely) and when we sent it in because the logic board died, the person on the phone said that Apple could not cover problems with or caused by the hard drive, but as long as there was no evidence that I broke the computer in the process of replacing it, there was no warranty violation and everything would be fine.

bash

The "no touch" warranty thing is completely false. Nothing about opening the case on a Mac voids the warranty. Apple will not cover non-Apple components in a machine under the warranty, say if you replaced the hard drive or added third party RAM. They will also not cover damaged caused from you ham-handing a machine and breaking something. Besides that you can open cases all you want without voiding the warranty.

Taking pictures in of a machine you completely disassembled isn't the best idea. If they think you broke the machine in the first place taking in photographic evidense of you taking it apart does not help your case in the slightest. At this point it looks like your machine has liquid damage, you claim that one of the service people spilled something in it and blamed you, they're claiming the damage was there when you brought it in. Liquid damage is not covered by any warranty so you're going to have to figure out how to prove it was a tech that spilled something on it and not your sister. Pictures of the damage don't mean shit because they don't show how it happened.

Looking at the pictures it looks like it was set in a puddle of something and it got drawn up into the battery housing then into the RAM compartment.

Pemulis

So why didn't you just continue your old thread?
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=14516

Just in case anyone is interested, the real story is:

He took in the laptop a couple of times because of shutdown and then charging issues. Apparently the computer is completely unable to run off the battery. After the third time they checked the machine in for service. A few days later he gets a call saying there was liquid damage.

Other people in the thread say things like, an apple guy probably spilled espresso or something in it. I don't know about anyone else, but I got the impression from kita's post that this was actually seen or something.

Anyway, once the serial was tagged as water damage, the guy was fucked and couldn't get it worked on anywhere.

Now, anything can happen, but this seems likely to me. Your sister spills some shit on her desk and some goes under the laptop, or she sets it in a small puddle. The liquid gets into the battery compartment (as seen in the pictures). You start having problems with the battery (surprise?).

Of course it is possible that it was apple's fault, but I don't even understand the claim. The rest of the computer is spotless because apple had it apart and only spilled in a couple of places? How does that make sense?

BTW, the computer still works apparently, just can't run off battery (this sucks, I understand). Just my 2 cents.

Blaine

To me it doesn't look like Apple really damaged the computer anyway. Chances are his sister or someone carried the damn thing through the rain and a few drops fell through the back holes by the battery and settled there. Happens all the fucking time.

syndalis

It looks like water damage through a completely normal vector of entry.

This is 99% most likely user error.

ZackSchilling

Now that the damage is documented, have you tried cleaning it off with alcohol? It's possible that once the gummy stuff is no longer shorting out the little bits of the motherboard, you should be fine.

Ludious

Or you know, he could just keep complaining and complaining and complaining and eventually get it fixed for free no matter what because that's what happens when you complain and moan long enough.

KiTA

Ludious wrote: »

Or you know, he could just keep complaining and complaining and complaining and eventually get it fixed for free no matter what because that's what happens when you complain and moan long enough.

True.

As for the water Damage, I didn't remember the full story, so I was replaying what I did remember. It does look plausable as to that being what happened (system was sat down on something wet, drew water up and shorted itself out).

bash

I've seen several instances of laptops being set on a wet surface and sucking up liquid thanks to difusion and surface tension and other funny properties of liquids. That may or may not be what happened but it does look that way. It's not that hard to clean a MacBook off, it has a plastic casing and wipes up pretty well. If something was spilled/soaked into it cleaning the outside of the case would be trivial.

Reading the original thread you guys kind of fucked yourselves with this thing. You took it into three different Apple Stores and lied to at least one of them. Any store can pull up the repair history of your machine. You can't really get away with lying about taking it in, nor should you have tried. Even if you got a second opinion that said "this is not liquid damage" as soon as the machine was looked up the whole case history would be there.

Your best bet now is to call up AppleCare, tell them your claim of not causing the liquid damage, and see if they will accept it in for repair. All of the notes from Apple's techs will be available to the AppleCare agent so there's no use lying about any part of the situation. Your pictures of the machine being disassembled aren't going to do you any good either. Hopefully they believe you didn't cause the damage and fix it under warranty. You've got a 50/50 chance of that happening.

Remember these people see all kinds of fraudulent shit all the time. People routinely come in claiming their son/daughter/wife/sister would never spill anything on their computer.

victor_c26

I know my bureaucracies well. And when someone flags something/someone. You're pretty much blacklisted.

You could try, but I think they already decided what they think of the case.

The guy that spilled that Mocha Latte is a dick of the highest order.

Blaine

The more I look at those pictures the more I am convinced that it was indeed complete and utter user error. In fact I can't even imagine why I would have ever thought differently. If somebody spilled their espresso or Mocha Latte all over your logic board it'd be 10 kinds of fucked up, with gunk everywhere and in everything. The Apple people didn't do shit here. Chances are they took it to the back, where everything is dry and free of moisture, opened up, and saw the liquid damage immediately. You really think they are going to be drinking while working over dozens of computer parts?

My advice now is to pretty much quit wasting your time trying to get this fixed for free. No one in their right mind will ever fix this for free. And if they do then you have successfully scammed them. The best you can do is try to fix it yourself, and hey, if it breaks just buy a new Macbook for what, an extra 200 bucks instead? Then cannibalize the parts of the old one.

Trust me bro, if a cellphone can be damaged by putting it up to your ear to talk after taking a shower then this is child's play.

Wulf

Not only that, but I have never seen any Apple Tech or Genius Bar service person with a drink anywhere near the computers they are looking at. I mean no offense in saying this but did you approach them in a hostile manner? I've even taken in laptops with obvious stab wounds (long story) and they've repaired them under Applecare. The nicer you act to them the more willing to bend the rules a bit people tend to be. Sorry if that comes off as dickish, but honestly it sounds like you have been getting hostile and up in their faces from the tone of your post, and when it comes down to it, no they don't have to help you with water damage.

FaceballMcDougal

Ya this is why a lot of companies are putting those stickers on stuff now... they've been on cell phone batteries for a long time so when people go into the store claiming the phone just up and stopped working... oh lookie... there's a pink sticker saying IVE BEEN IN WATER.