A Conundrum Wrapped in an Enigma Bolted Together with 14 Million Tiny Freaking Screws

Hello everyone, today’s article is about what I like to call a “personal growth moment.” And by that I mean that after this happened I grew a little as a human being. After all, if one can avoid hurling a computer out a second story window and/or having an aneurysm, then one should be proud of the self control that was so judiciously exercised. Allow me to relate my tale to you.

My wife has a very trusty G4 iBook. It has many dings, nicks, and scratches; however, it works wonderfully and she loves it, so it remains a part of our loving family of computers. Sadly, however, it only has a 30GB hard drive. Oh, did I mention that we just had our first child? She is 7 months old and, quite possibly, the cutest baby in all of existence. As befitting such a beautiful child, my wife is constantly taking pictures of her. I hope you can see where this is going. After filling her hard drive virtually to capacity several times, I finally decided to upgrade her computer. I ordered her a nice 160GB hard drive and then set out to learn how to swap out hard drives.

Dear. Lord.

I found the directions. They were 17 pages long. Are you freaking kidding me? Want to replace the Airport card? 3 steps. Replace the RAM? 5 steps. Swap hard drives? 43 steps.

Shoot me. Please.

Did anyone ever try working on a G4 PowerMac? They had those great designs that allowed the computer to unfold like a suitcase. It was a brilliant design that allowed for extremely easy replacement of components. The team that designed the iBook decided to go with a different approach. More of a Chinese puzzle box approach. A marvel of engineering to be sure, however none too conductive to home enthusiast.

So, after assembling the required tools I proceeded to pry open my machine. And I do mean pry. In fact, I had to actually separate the case into its components and in the process heard some very frightening squeaks, groans, and grinding noises. However, I survived that and continued to disassemble my iBook. By the time I had gotten to the hard drive, my laptop was no longer even remotely recognizable. Dozens of screws lay around me as I worked diligently on not breaking anything.

Now, at this point you may be thinking this is just a gripe about how hard it is to take apart a laptop. Your first reaction might be along the lines of “grow up you whining pansy.” You might say that because you’re all a bunch of inconsiderate jerks. That’s why I don’t go to you people for sympathy, coldhearted bunch that you are. No, the whole “my-this-laptop-is-really-hard-to-work-on” story is just a prelude to my real problem. Which you shall hear now.

After assembling her computer, I turned it on and discovered two very upsetting things. First, her computer no longer went to sleep when you closed the lid. And second, her Airport card no longer seemed to be working. What ho Watson, a mystery!

As it would turn out, neither problem would be easy to solve.

My laptop’s sleeping disorder (ha, nerd humor) was caused by a small magnet that I hadn’t properly replaced. I found this out after I completely disassembled her computer for a second time. Oh, and for total breakdown/reassemble you need to figure about an hour or so, if that gives you some idea of how not-fun this whole process had become at this point.

So, I fixed the sleep problem. Moving on to problem two. Guess what? After much aggravation I disassembled her laptop a THIRD time. Everything is plugged in, life is grand, the airport card works, it just isn’t receiving a signal. So, there I am, sitting in my living room staring at her machine. Everything works fine, the Airport card is recognized and turns on, it just receives no signal. From anything. Clearly we have a problem.

After much thought, consideration, and google searching I gave up. And that is when I discovered a very interesting piece of knowledge. It appeared that my Airport card does indeed work. Ya! However, it works at about 1/10th its previous range. Not-ya. So, if I have my laptop 8 inches above my Airport base-station, then I get a 40% signal. Which doesn’t really do me much good if I’m going for the whole “wireless internet” thing. Wouldn’t you agree?

Now comes the scream-inducing, cherry-on-top moment of this whole ordeal. Not only have I now wasted something like 6 hours screwing with this machine, not only does the Airport (for all useful purposes) not work, but now my wife has to use my company laptop (a Dell, shudder) to get on the internet. So, in the end I have a broken Mac and I’ve reduced my wife to using Windows.

Huzzah. What a day.

I think I’ll have that aneurysm now.