Repairing an Older Mac: Worth the Price?
- 2003.12.05
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Apple desktop hardware tends to be pretty reliable. My beige G3 still runs great (although I'm thinking the monitor may be on it's way out), and I've still got a Mac 512K that works perfectly as well - along with an external Apple HD20 hard drive, that, believe it or not, isn't dead yet.
Then there are the situations when a piece of Apple hardware breaks down when the machine is out of warranty. For minitowers and desktops, you can most likely do the work yourself (if you still have an Apple desktop, it's probably not worth paying someone to fix it). A bad CD-ROM drive or hard drive should be no problem for the user who has a bit of computer experience. Simply buy the part from a Best Buy and install it - 15 minutes max.
But what happens when you have an iMac? About the only real standard part in there is the hard drive. Your CD-ROM drive goes? Back to Apple or an Apple dealer - either that or you try eBay for a used CD-ROM from a dead iMac, hoping that it will work.
Unfortunately just this has happened to my sister's 450 MHz iMac DV+. The DV+ was the second revision of the slot loading iMac to include a DVD-ROM drive, and she found it useful, since she could have friends over and watch a movie in her room instead of using the downstairs television where other people might be around to disturb her.
The drive had been acting a bit strangely for a while. I managed to install Panther with no problems, and the drive worked for a couple weeks after that. Then one day I heard a loud grinding noise coming from my sister's room, so I opened the door and found her trying to import some music files into iTunes from a new CD - unfortunately it wasn't working very well. The grinding noises kept getting louder until the machine froze; then I restarted it. I held the mouse button down in order to force it to eject the disc. It didn't seem to be able to eject it after several attempts, but we finally got it out.
Thankfully the disc wasn't damaged, but the drive was certainly dead. What to do? The machine is worth relatively little these days, given that it's only a 450 MHz G3. It's probably not worth spending a fortune on, yet it's still perfectly useable, and therefore it should probably be fixed.
But how to fix it without spending a lot of money? There's always eBay, but how do you know the drive you're getting there is going to work any better than the drive that's already in the machine?
I thought about going external drive. USB CD-RW drives are pretty cheap these days, and Mac OS X supports many by default. This would also allow my sister to make music mix CDs on her own computer instead of using the PC downstairs. But they still run about $100, and she would no longer be able to watch DVDs - and forget about booting from a CD to install future versions of the Mac OS.
Then I thought, "How much would it cost for me to buy the part and install it myself?"
Well, Mac-Pro.com charges $67.77 for the DVD-ROM drive. That's a fair bit, and it wouldn't really be improving the machine any.
What about upgrading to a drive that both writes CDs and plays DVDs? It looks like MCE sells them for $299. Ouch, especially given that my sisters iMac is probably not even worth that!
At this point it looks like it's going to be an either external CD-RW drive or a replacement of the internal DVD-ROM drive. Given that I don't want to be stuck if there should be another problem, the replacement of the internal DVD-ROM drive seems to make more sense. But I'll leave that up to her - after all, it is her computer.
Recent Apple Archive articles
- iPods, notebooks, and other modern electronics more readily replaced than repaired, 12.07. Whether it's an intermittent failure or a broken display cable, more often than not it's cheaper to replace a broken electronics device than repair it.
- Options for replacing your older iPod, 11.19. Whether you've run out of space on your old iPod or want features it doesn't have, here are your options in new and used iPods.
- Could the $200 'green' PC with gOS Linux become a threat to Apple?, 11.14. The low cost, low power Everex desktop comes with a customized version of Ubuntu Linux, has a Mac-like Dock, and sells for $400 less than the Mac mini.
- Leopard different, a bit buggy, but worth the upgrade, 11.02. Leopard on a Power Mac G4 and a MacBook Pro: It runs well on both computers, but each has some odd bugs, and some of the changes are a step backwards.
- More in the Apple Archive index.
Links for the Day
- Mac of the Day: 'Yikes!' Power Mac G4, Aug. 1999 - The only Power Mac G4 with PCI graphics was built on a modified G3 motherboard.
- Group of the Day: SuperMacs is for those using Umax SuperMac clones.
- November 21 in LEM history: 00: OS upgrades, downgrades - AltiVec vs. Pentium III - 01: Saved by the clones - Computer of the future - 02: Apple Education: Let's get to it - 03: Panther lets Macs and PCs work together, - Lombard SCSI bug - 05: 3 survivors from the 1970s - Real world battery life inadequate - Windows to Mac file transfer with Zip disks - $99 alternative to Microsoft Office - 06: Parallels 1.0 far more polished than beta
Recent Content on Low End Mac
- Just Right: Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear MacBooks, Charles W. Moore, 'Book Value, 11.20. Some people like small and light notebooks, others prefer huge desktop replacements, but the best value tends to be in the middle.
- Virtualization Shootout: VMWare Fusion 2 vs. Parallels Desktop 4, Kev Kitchens, Kitchens Sync, 11.20. Both programs do the same thing, but one runs Windows XP smoothly alongside Mac apps, while the other bogs down everything but Windows.
- Apple Caves to Hollywood with DRM on iTunes Videos, Frank Fox, Stop the Noiz, 11.20. HDCP on the new MacBooks means that you may never really own those videos you buy from the iTunes Store.
- Leopard Runs Very Nicely on PowerPC Macs, Simon Royal, Mac Spectrum, 11.19. Some claim that Mac OS X 10.5 is so optimized for Intel Macs that it runs poorly on PowerPC hardware. That's simply not the case.
- No High Definition iTunes Video for You, Dan Knight, Mac Musings, 11.19. The October 2008 MacBooks are preventing users from viewing some high-def iTunes content from being viewed on their external displays. Poor form!
- Every Working Computer Is Useful to Someone, Allison Payne, The Budget Mac, 11.19. Whether it's a PowerBook 1400, G3 iMac, or Power Mac G4, it could be all the computer someone needs.
- 3 WeatherBug Options for Apple Users, Charles W. Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 11.19. Have instant access to current local weather conditions with a Dashboard widget, iPhone app, or Firefox plugin.
- Anticipating Macworld: Nehalem, Snow Leopard, and Updated Desktops, Dan Knight, Mac Musings, 11.18. Intel's Core i7 CPU has to make it way into the next Mac Pro, nVidia GeForce graphics will drive the iMac and Mac mini, and 'Snow Tiger' will unleash the animal within.
- Love My Refurb MacBook Pro, Eudora Forever, and the Lightest AA Batteries, Charles W. Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 11.18. Also questions about nVidia GeForce 8600 problems in earlier MacBook Pro models and importing Eudora mailboxes into Eudora successors.
- More links in our archive.
Recent Deals
- Best Power Mac G4 and AGP Video Card Deals, 11.20. Used 400 MHz, $50; 733, $100; 800, $199; 1.25 GHz, $300; 800 MHz dual, $200, 867, $300; 1 GHz, $350; 1.42, $400.
- Best iBook G3 Deals, 11.20. Used 300 MHz clamshell, $150; 366, $199; 800 CD, $180; 600 CD-RW, $240; 700 Combo, $290; 900, $369; 14" 600, $360; 900, $449.
- Best Power Mac G3 and PCI Video Card Deals, 11.20. Used beige 300 MHz, $25; blue & white 350, $80; 400, $90; 450, $105; PCI video cards from $15; shipping additional.
- Best iMac G4 Deals, 11.18. Used 15" 700 MHz Combo, $243; 800 MHz, $280; 1 GHz, $380; 17" 1.25 GHz SuperDrive, $400; 20", $549.
- Best MacBook Air Deals, 11.18. New 1.6 80, $1,150 after rebate; 120, $1,744 a/r; 1.8 80, $1,794 a/r; 1.6 128 SSD, $2,150; used 1.8 64 SSD, $1,500; new, $2,200 a/r; 1.86, $2,398 a/r.
- Best Mac OS X 10.0-10.3 Deals, 11.18. Mac OS X 10.0.3, $30; 10.1, $20; 10.2, $60; 10.3 CD, DVD, $100; CD, $119; 10.1 Server, unlimited users, $58; 10.3 Server, unlimited, $150.
- Best iPod nano Deals, 11.17. Refurb 3G/4 GB, $79; new, $114; refurb 8 GB, $99; new, $125; 3G/8 GB, from $134; 16 GB, from $189. Prices include ground shipping.
- Best Titanium PowerBook G4 Deals, 11.17. Used 1 GHz with SuperDrive, $478 plus shipping.
- Best Xserve deals, 11.17. Used G4/1 GHz, $999; G5/2 GHz, $1,288; new 2.0 4-core Xeon, $1,900; refurb 3.0 4-core, $2,599; 2.8 GHz, $2,499; 3.0 8-core, $3,499.
- More deals in our archive.
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