Firm uncovers evidence of iBook G4 flaw

I had that dreaded logic board problem repaired 3 times until I finally gave up and bought a new MacBook. It was a real pain, and I always suspected it was a design flaw.

Shame on Apple, if the article is true. Did anyone ever hear or experienced such a fault? Someone should know of a similar issue since the article claims "original design defect" implying an old problem.

Come on.. this is simple business logic. To quote Fight Club

"Take the number of computers in the field (A), multiply it by the probable rate of failure (B), then multiply the result by the average cost of repair (C). A times B times C equals X. If X is less that the cost of a recall, we don't do one."

My iBook G4 is coming up on one year old this coming july. I just hope there are no more problems after 3 botched repairs. I mean, with apple there really is no grey area. You get a great product and it lasts forever, or it's a nightmare, and sometimes they compensate you exactly perfectly after the nightmare. But, i suspect, this is less of a headache than the horrible experience winders provides.

Apple really flubbed it on these models. I had a iBook G3. Pretty good little machine, that is until it went through 5 logic boards! Apple never offered a replacement and now it sits, 18 months out of warranty-dead as disco. I still think there should be a class action aiming at a discount offered to the victims of these cheesy excuses for laptops, so that a replacement can be had with some compensation for buying the Edsil of the Apple line.

Every other Apple I've owned aged out to a dignified end, with a Power PC 6100 doing it's thing for nearly a daily basis for a decade.

My Powerbook is champ (knocks on wood) without a single day's problem in two years of daily use. Booo-Hissss for the G3/G4 iBooks.

Denmark is a Troll !

I've owned four Macs, and three have been great. My current G4 Tower is seven years old and still going strong. My G3 iBook, however, is newer and had to have the logic board replaced twice. In November of last year, the logic board died for the third time, but it is out of warranty, and Apple will not fix it.

In my mind, it should be illegal to fix a computer by using the same defectively designed part to replace the non-functioning part. This problem effected both the G3 and G4 iBooks.

These were quite probably the most unreliable products Apple ever sold – nearly everyone that had one has a horror story.

I know someone who had one in a shop, used it for their point of sale. The thing never got moved, and had really light usage (ok, it was on 24 hours a day, but most of that it was asleep). Two months after the warranty runs out the screen goes blank, exactly as the report describes.

Totally uneconomical repair, it's just got a life as a doorstop now. Some people I know that run a repair centre say that they get *lots* of these machines for repair - most people just buy a new machine after they hear the cost.

My iBook G4 (that I just sold) has worked flawlessly for 2 years. Guess I was one of the fortunate ones.

The problem that has blighted a number of families of laptop is the use of the Ball-Grid-Array method of attaching processors (particularly) GPU's to motherboards. The method cannot accommodate undue flexing of the board. Whether it fails or not depends heavily on working temperatures and level of use and abuse. It's not a design flaw per se but it certainly isn't best practice either! Speaking from the experience of both failed G3 and G4 iBooks (Repaired under applecare extended warranty), I am slow to consider another Mac laptop without at least factoring the additional necessary cost of the Applecare extended warranty!