Your Mac accidents

Ok, so this happened ... oooh 2 hours ago. And on the powerbook i'm currently typing on.

I had a nice large cup of streaming gunpowder tea that i was staring at for oh maybe 30 seconds, my 17-inch PowerBook, my life... i.e. everything i need is on this, including a major lifeline (iChat) to the special one.

So as I'm reaching for this 18-ounces of steaming hot liquid, I noticed the second before I grabbed the cup that, hey, my fingers aren't really near the cup like i thought.

Instance later... it was a recreation of your favorite flood movie... i watched as a the complete cup of tea flooded across the dead center of the powerbook.. Gaaah...

Alright, so i'll admit enough that i actually work for apple in a technical format... in fact, this happening to me is going to fuel stories for years...

Wounded pride in hand, i slunk off to find tools...

(mental note, i'm still staring at 6 or so screws i gotta put in)

Took apart the computer and whew main logic board, and stuff underneath is fine (which surprised me since tea was literally dripping from the powerbook)

The only liquid was on the bottom of they keyboard ... whoa cool...

Ok.. well damn... i need to get online... run around see if anyone has a spare PB i can use for a while... no? grr.. ok

Well i'm hosed either way, so reassemble the powerbook and power it on.

Chime - teh win.
Backlight - teh win
Display - whoa i see stuff... ack... and more...

So oddly enough, the damn thing works... the only problem is that it needs a reaplacement display which now displays about 1/2 of hte screen with double the brightness.

So now after a few hours of use... it still works, and as everyone may know, the second best thing to a hair dryer's heat is a pbg4 :p

Guess the powerbook knew i needed to get on chat :)

(will add pix when i can)

Entertainingly, Dorn
 
i frequent the majorgeeks.com PC forum, and i can tell you that one never sees stories about how their PC survived an accident. only stories about how they didnt.
 
A stewardess spilled soda on my 2 week old iBook. I managed to get it mostly clean, the keyboard is still not the same. The crazy part was that before the flight I was planning on closing my lid when they came around to avoid this. Then when she came around I forgot. I just couldn't beleive that it actually happend.

Metal cases can't take anything. At work we have dropped numerious old surplus machines. The worst I have seen was a dell that fell off of a 4 wheel A/V cart (about 4 feet). The whole chasis was skewed sideways and all the PCI cards had been ripped out and bent to hell.
 
Dorn if I didn't know you and have seen evidence .. ie you were a "random person" I would prolly think that that'd be just too weird to really happen. But hey .. green tea is good for hard drives - maybe the Powerbook knew it and wanted to be a better one .. ;)
Anywayz, hope you get the spare screen asap ..
 
i've ruined about 3 apple usb keybaords...... of course from spillige from my drinks that i always keep near by.
 
Many years ago when my son got his new first gen, 5 gig iPod for xmas. He put it in the front pocket of his hoodie. Then he put an OPEN can of coke in the same pocket. This was fine until he bent over to get out of a car and the coke poored directly into the firewire port and filled the ipod up. I think we had one of the first iPods in the UK. And may have the first replacement. After cleaning and drying it out, I contacted Apple and claimed it just stopped working. They replaced it without question.
Go Apple!!!
 
The story in short: I lost balance, rolled myself onto the road to absorb the impact, and heard the TiBook hitting the hard surface of the road. My first thought was, 'there goes my TFT...' - but there was only a very minor notch in the display hinge. Worked flawlessly ever after.

Other examples of my 10 years of portable Macs include milk inside the PowerBook 180c (no harm done), a very major bump in my 1st generation iPod, and some other minor incidents. Also did a bypass operation on a Power Mac G4 logic board once, but that was a colleague disrupting the power rails, *not me*!! See http://kleeworld.de/projekte/loeten_e.html
Hard drives seem to be more susceptible to damage when they're running, seen that a couple of times.

Best regards, and happy landing.
 
Our puppy climbed in behind my desk and chewed through several of the cables and connectors for my iBook. Thankfully she didn't bite any power-leads. However, all of the cables had to be repaired or replaced.
Now I've actually re-designed both my desk and the TV-Stereo cabinet to keep the cables well out of her reach.
 
This is pretty bad. I have a velco case for my 15inch titanium powerbook. It was cold out and the pavement was very icy. I was getting out of a friends SUV and i had the velcro upside down. The velco unlatches as i step onto the ground. It hits the pavemnt with a hard thud. The screen, hingh was compleatly broken. Case damaged. Well because of the damage they could not just take my old screen out and put it in a new case. So i payed $900 to get it fixed. And that sucked
 
Funny that i came across this thread today. Well. Today i was waiting for a friend to meet up at the dining hall so i was listening to my iPod (4th Gen, 20GB) and i don't know what happened, but it slipped out of my hand and starting falling out of my reach over the railing i was leaning over.

this is the weird part....
there was a kid walking into the building (underneath me, the railing is kind of on an overpass) carrying his laundry basket and my iPod fell directly onto his newly folded laundry. I couldn't believe it. it was the most insanely lucky thing that has ever/will ever happen to me, ever. Very weird i came across this thread today, too.

i went out and bought a case for my ipod, and some glue for my fingers....
 
Just after I had the Charger for my iBook replaced under AppleCare, and I just Purchased my iPod, I decided to Complete my M4A collection.
I ejected a CD a pushed my Chair Back so I could get to my CD Cabinet without getting up. Unfortunately, the Brand-spanking Cable was wrapped around one of the Coasters of my chair. My iBook came crashing down and the CD Drive was bent at about 30º. AppleCare doesn't cover that sort of stuff.
Luckily, my Rental Insurance does, so after a Au$220 excess, I had a nice new $700 Hitachi Combo Drive.
Now I know why the G4 iBooks have Slot-loading Drives.
 
not quite an accident, but a stupid story, haha!

Back in April, I took my iPod and iBook to school with me in the same case. i listened to the ipod for a while and then put it in a pouch in the laptop bag where no one could find it, not even me!! i looked all through the bag, classroom, house, car, etc... and couldnt find it. talk about a bummer!!! then i was at my girlfriends house tonight and my phone rings and its my brother calling. he found it in the laptop case right where i NOW remember putting it. that was a LONG summer without an iPod. i had even bought a cd player for the car cause i no longer had anything to use my fm modulator with except ibook (btw,... not to easy to use while driving). now im off to look for the power cord. i have the power brick and case in a bag, but not cord. im thinking i gave it to my sis for her mini when she left for school. oh well.
 
I fell down some stairs at school today.. and my powerbook went down with me. It was pretty funny actually... and I'm fine, but now there's a big dent in my powerbook's case in the front near the cdrom drive. I was able to flatten it out somewhat with a rubber mallet.. and it's pretty much unnoticible.. sucky though. Apple needs to build sturdier casing.
 
This was back with my LC575...I remember I spilt various juices on it, strawberry ice cream topping, you name it it was done. Never unplugged, never stopped working. Also lots of crumbs :p
 
I have a few:

story 1
I saw a buddy of mine spill a "bladder buster" of dr. pepper from 7-11 on his keyboard. it dried out and worked fine after that but some of the key stuck down from time to time. he took it apart and cleaned it out and it worked for at least two more years (i quit that job).

story 2
i had a performa 630 (headless) in my apartment at school and when i came home from break it had a huge puddle of water on and around it from a leak in the ceiling. It was still running and the fan was slapping some water out. i shut it off and pulled it apart and soaked up as much of the water as i could. i then let it dry out for about a day. turned it back on and it is still running (8 years later).

story 3
the same thing happened to my powerbook 520, but a different leak (same crappy apartment). that one i did not take apart, i just let it dry out for about 4 1/2 days. it worked great for a few years after that until i sold it.

story 4
most recent story is of me and my ibook about 18 months ago. My "computer lab" is in the basement. I got home from work and was carrying my laptop in the case downstairs and i took one step down and then shoulder strap hooked on my other foot (carrying the case by they handle). It pulled the case out of my hand and threw me off balance. both of us when tumbling all the way down the entire flight of stairs to the concrete. The ibook still works great and did not even get a scratch. me on the other hand just layed there for a few minutes and ended up walking with a limp for about a day.
 
oh forgot about this one:

Story 5
my sis-in-law dropped my brothers clamshell ibook on the corner where the power outlet is while it was plugged in. it damaged the outlet on the ibook but actually made the plug go into it much nicer after apple fixed it under warranty.
 
If I EVER dropped my powerbook I'd freak out. My dad has a Centrino Laptop which is similar (15 inch though), but it has a much thicker screen, as do all the other laptops. BUt I look at my powerbook, and it looks like I can bend it! but so far no problems.
 
First week of school, decided to head over to my girlfriend's place on the bike. It was around 8 at night, and I swerved off the sidewalk, and then for some reason decided to get back on. Well, the ramp that normally comes installed where the sidewalk meets the road at an intersection wasn't there. I took a hard left, slammed on the brakes and did a frontwheel wheelie. Minor scrapes on the knees...no biggie...yet. Got to my girlfriends', and while she's practicing those new nursing skills on my knee, I panically remembered I had my brand new powerbook 15" with me in my back pack. So I quickly grabbed it out, and sure enough, a good dime sized dent in the left back corner near the power port. I still have problems keeping the plug in sometimes, but it still charges and works perfectly. I sometimes get a little sticking in the screen hinges, but nothing major at all has occured since. I can guarantee that short of a panasonic toughbook, any wintel laptop would have keeled over by now. Anyone know anybody in the Applecare department? Maybe I can claim a spontaneous implosion! ::ha::
 
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