<p>She had to have all this replaced: logic board, hard drive , display( it had already cracked), key board,optical drive.
I am not sure if there was anything left that was working?</p>
<p>She didn’t have her hard drive backed up, as her storage disk was full ( I reminded her about free/low cost cloud storage available- which she now has), & she didn’t realize they were going to fix it after accepting it, but they didn’t charge her anything.</p>
<p>We were both surprised.
Nice to have AppleCare.:D</p>
<p>ek, your daughter is lucky–Apple Care doesn’t always cover liquid spills.</p>
<p>I’ve spilled Diet Coke on my laptop, and the kids once spilled water on our home laptop. No damage, in part because I knew what to do if there’s a spill. Immediately flip the machine over, power it down, disconnect from any power cords, take out the battery, and let the machine dry for a couple of days resting upside down on something absorbant like a towel. Then power back up and cross your fingers.</p>
<p>My Diet Coke spill was on my work machine, so I had one of our IT techs crack open the case and make sure that it was safe to turn back on. No problems. Regular Coke would have been an issue, since it leaves a stick trail that can short out the motherboard. It’s possible to clean off any gunk before powering the machine back up, using distilled water, but we didn’t have to go that far.</p>
<p>Wow, she was lucky. My understanding is that AppleCare is just an extention of the manufacturer’s warranty for 2 years, and when it comes to accidents, you are on your own.</p>
<p>I was * really* surprised as the total was almost $800.</p>
<p>She spilled a milkshake into the laptop that we shared several years ago ( she balanced it on her knees for some reason) & while she attempted to clean it up, she didn’t do a very good job & from where I found milkshake I surmised that it was quite a bit spilled.:eek:</p>
<p>That one wasn’t under AppleCare- but I got a new keyboard through ifixit.com & changed it myself.</p>
<p>User error isn’t generally covered, but I am wondering if her model of macbook, was a bad design that allowed for more damage as she swears it was only a tiny bit of water.</p>
<p>EK4 - how long did it take them to repair her laptop? My son dropped his laptop (PC) and cracked the screen. CSI insurance has now had it for over 4 weeks for repair and won’t tell me how much longer. Since son is back at school, he’s getting desperate for a computer. I’m about to raise a stink but am not sure what is reasonable length of time for this sort of repair. They say they are waiting on parts.</p>
<p>momlive they had it 2 & 1/2 weeks- which is much longer than I have ever had to have anything fixed they often can do it right there.</p>
<p>I did get her the CSI ins- but this was through Apple.
I didn’t even know there was anything wrong with her computer, she dropped it off when she went to Portland before Christmas to see her sister & then told me when we picked them up to go skiing.</p>
<p>It was supposed to be be ready after Christmas ( according to D2), but it wasn’t so she had to go back to school without it. ( & I still was in the dark what was wrong- although I don’t think she knew either)</p>
<p>Before we went back to Seattle, I made her go to the Apple Store to see if they could either send it to our house or to the Seattle store when it was done.
They couldn’t- which made me really frustrated. ( they were also so swamped with after Christmas, that you had to get a # to go into the store!)</p>
<p>She did sign something so her sister could pick it up, so last Sunday- ( since I didn’t want to drive) I took the train down, picked it up & came back that night & took it up to her on Mon. When I pulled out the receipt and saw all the things they had to replace, I gasped. </p>
<p>I’ve had Apple laptops since my 540c with 240 MB HD! I think it ran me $4,000! ( which is probably why I still have it )in 1994 money :eek:- I’ve also had a logic board replaced under Applecare & they then upgraded me to the new OS for free & I have had optical drives replaced ( they don’t have good luck with those lately), but I have never had the guts replaced & had it covered.</p>
<p>I warned her not to count on it again.XXXXXfingers</p>
<p>I spilled an entire glass of strawberry nesquik (the gritty, powder kind) on a computer once, and when it dried NOTHING was wrong. It was a miracle.</p>
<p>Thanks, Ek4. I think I’m going to call CSI tomorrow and raise a fuss. If they can’t fix it within 4 weeks, then they need to pay us, so we can replace it.</p>
<p>I’m seriously thinking about switching to an imac for my next laptop. Am so tired of dealing with Windows issues. I generally end up replacing our PCs or laptops every 3-4 years. Before son dropped his laptop, he was already having problems with Windows on a $800 Samsung laptop that was less than 3 months old! He got the blue screen of death and lost everything on his laptop and had to take it to the school’s computer center and have everything reinstalled. Ugh!! I tried to talk him into a mac before we got this laptop but he thinks they’re ‘too trendy’.</p>
<p>We buy our laptops with our Costco AmEx (Sony from Costco & HP from Office Depot). We have gotten a full refund on both kids’ laptops as several repairs did not fix their problems & the folks AmEx sent both laptops to deemed them cheaper to refund than repair. We did not pay anything extra for this, just charged it on AmEx and got no hassles–even got a credit for the repair estimate. AmEx also paid postage to get the computers evaluated & all repair attempts. They were pretty quick–I think within a week or two for each attempt and a few days when it was obvious that computers were beyond repair.</p>
<p>The kids bought netbooks as replacements & saved the price difference to pay for a desktop with some $ leftover. They’ve been happy with the netbook/desktop system, as netbook is MUCH more portable for getting around campus & travel. S will see what he needs as he starts his job.</p>
<p>Neither of their laptops lasted beyond the manufacturer’s warranty & the extra year AmEx provided.</p>
<p>I think that whether Apple covers something is at the descretion of the Genius Bar person or the store manager. I have seen many people refused repairs on their iPhones due to water damage so my experience is that they generally enforce corporate policies.</p>
<p>That said, I read that Apple ended restocking fees for systems purchased from their retail stores and returned within a certain period for a full refund.</p>
<p>BTW, I have purchased AppleCare on only one of our MacBook Pros, the one that I bought for my son this past summer. We have four laptops for three people. If one goes down, then we use the spare. Before getting the fourth, my laptop was the backup in case the kids lost the use of theirs during repairs. Computers are a critical part of an undergraduate education today and being without one and your data is a hardship to be avoided.</p>
<p>^We also have a ‘spare’ laptop which son took back with him since his laptop is in the shop. Unfortunately, it is a piece of junk Dell that is as slow as molasses and is prone to crashing, so son is not thrilled to be using it. It was still under warranty with Dell until a few months ago (it’s only 3 years old) but I couldn’t get them to do anything about it. They kept blaming the operating system. That’s the last Dell I will ever buy (and Dell is all we bought for nearly 10 years at home and for my husband’s business).</p>
<p>So, BcEagle91 - do you think the Mac is a better product than your PCs? Just looking for feedback since I’m thinking my next laptop will be a Mac.</p>
<p>“I think that whether Apple covers something is at the descretion of the Genius Bar person or the store manager.”</p>
<p>Maybe the Appledude was so busy looking at EK’s D and chatting with her that he missed the water damage. Just kidding.</p>
<p>When did they end the restocking fee policy? Last August, it was still in place (10% if the product had been open, no fee if the box was still unopen, and zero refund after 2 weeks).</p>
<p>A three-year-old laptop shouldn’t have performance problems. My daughter’s MacBook Pro is 3.5 years, mine is 3 years. No problems that haven’t been fixed by Apple. The major problem with laptops from 2007/2008 was defective nVidia graphics chips which affected all manufacturers.</p>
<p>There may be viruses or spyware issues on the old Dell laptop along with some hardware problems. Dell has had a hard time the last few years on laptops. They go through ups and downs on quality.</p>
<p>I prefer Apple Mac products because I prefer Mac OS X over Windows. Especially on laptops. That said, Apple is placing more of their R&D resources on mobile products today and they typically lag the rest of the PC companies on getting the latest technology out there. I am going to replace my six-year-old desktop shortly and it will be a Windows 7 desktop that I am going to build myself. I would prefer an iMac but there is no indication that Apple is going to start using Intel’s latest chip anytime soon.</p>
<p>My 10yo has a macbook required for school. When the school told us last spring they were going to require the entire 5th grade to have them I had nightmares about D: losing it, dropping it, spilling stuff on it, or going on line and getting some kind of virus. So far, so good. Our experience with Apple regarding all the Apple products in our house has been positive although I am still a PC person.</p>
<p>EK: count your blessings! S2’s 4-mo old MacBook Pro was destroyed over New Year’s with “liquid damage” (don’t ask). We were told that the damage was “catastrophic” and it would be “uneconomical” to repair. The “liquid damage” negated the Apple Care warranty, so we had to purchase a new computer. Wish we’d had CSI to cover what the manufacturer’s warranty does not.</p>
Our D spilled a liquid on her laptop, got full replacement value from CSI . College tech folks were able to salvage most of the info on her hard drive and certify that is was dead due to water damage. Easy and I will advise all students to look into CSI.
For Christmas we got her an external hard drive since next time the data may not be salvagable.</p>
</p>
Just kidding.</p>