When it first arrived I was not very encouraged by the way it was packed, simply slipped into a UPS Bubble Pack Envelope and dropped into a box with a little crumpled brown paper to keep it from bouncing around too much. The box was kind of accordioned on one side but the book arrived in one piece.

Now I have to stop here and say this was by far the dirtiest ,most scratched up, POS excuse for a laptop I have ever seen! This thing must have been used by someone in the field, as it was covered with dirt and deep scratches and gouges as if someone had ridden down the side of a gravel pile on top of it! Strangely the keyboard was perfectly clean and white as if it was new...

Since no battery is included I grabbed the brick from the wifes iBook, plugged it in and pushed the power button...bong...moments latter the screen lit up and I was greeted by the familiar gray Apple boot screen! The CD drive popped open with push of F12 and after reaching the desktop I stuck a CD into the drive, the Mac promptly spit it back out at me, repeatedly. Oh well, not bad I thought, at least it starts and runs!

Now that I had taken a quick check I had to decide what course of action I was going to take, blow it out AS-IS, or try to polish up the sows ear. Being that I just can't leave well enough alone I quickly chose the sows ear!

I laid out my tools ( and an ice cube tray to keep the screws organized ) and went to work. I wound up taking the book apart all the way down to the mobo/chassis in order to clean all the dirt out of it! Yes, light brown dirt! (guess I should have taken some pictures)and also found that virtually every screw in the thing was loose! After a thorough cleaning inside and out I reassembled everything, making sure that all the screws were of course tight! Only three screws were missing from the book which is pretty good compared to most I have had my hands on. The screen unfortunately is marked up from the keyboard, since the little rubber bumpers that hold the lid up had been sheared off flush with the bezel, and there was not a whole lot I could do for that.

After cleaning and reassembly the CD-ROM drive still wouldn't mount any disc so I popped it open and swabbed the laser with a lint free swab and some CD disk cleaning fluid and viola! the CD-ROM now works perfectly too! Aside from the scratched up case and screen the only other flaw is that the back lighting on the screen is a little uneven, it has a couple of spots that are noticeably brighter than the rest of the screen.

Put a battery into the machine and it charged up and runs from battery perfectly and
Mac Test Pro now reports PASS for all test after looping for 24 hours!


So I now have iBook G3/500 320MB 40GB CD-ROM for $43.65 and a little elbow grease!

Hope your getting more of these Larry!

PS. were are all the Power Supplies that mate to these iBooks????

---

Aloha, Ken


“I have developed significant attachments to several members even though I wouldn't recognize them if I sat next to one on a park bench. I'm often tempted when in an airport to walk around, hollering "The Løpe", to see if anyone other than the Homeland Security people will acknowledge me. ” - The Løpe

"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us." Justice Robert Jackson

Dirty Leader! Good work.

---

Da Good Life

Elbow Grease Leader.

Joe

Recycle Leader !

And, of course, we envy you. Not as much as $109 MacBook boy, but we envy you. Him we envy to the point of hatred.

Until we see photographic proof of that $109 deal I'm calling it an urban legend...

---

Aloha, Ken


“I have developed significant attachments to several members even though I wouldn't recognize them if I sat next to one on a park bench. I'm often tempted when in an airport to walk around, hollering "The Løpe", to see if anyone other than the Homeland Security people will acknowledge me. ” - The Løpe

"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us." Justice Robert Jackson

I went for the $105 G3 500 from last batch. The hard drive was 30 not 20 and the CD worked from the start, Over all clean for a used laptop. Great for internet and Office for my wife to carry back and forth to work and meetings. Installed Tiger, iPhoto and iTunes. Less to worry about than keeping a constant eye on MacBook.

Quote
slbett
I went for the $105 G3 500 from last batch. The hard drive was 30 not 20 and the CD worked from the start, Over all clean for a used laptop. Great for internet and Office for my wife to carry back and forth to work and meetings. Installed Tiger, iPhoto and iTunes. Less to worry about than keeping a constant eye on MacBook.

I thought that might have had a 30 GB drive. The OWC catalog number had a "30" in it, even though the description said 20 GB.

---

My question: WHEN does OWC have the same bargain again? My uncle is looking for a bargain and I want to prove to him that an used/refurb Mac is still better than a Windows machine

---

SoCal for now.

Maybe the keyboard was replaced since all the screws were loose?

---

Ken, you are truly my hero...I especially love the part about the cleaning of the optical drive lens so the thing would work!

You get a Used/Abused OWC iBook

L E A D E R!!!

_________________________

---

What's the difference between reality and fiction? Fiction has to make some sense.

I just ordered one for $52 shipped. The logic boards are going for twice that amount on ebay. Then there's the keyboard and the case. Maybe I'll have as good luck as Harbourmaster and it'll work after a little fixin'
Worth the risk and I have plenty of spare time and several ice cube trays.

Harbourmaster, what was the description of your iBook? I mean, it sounds like the only issues with your machine were the optical drive and a scratched-up LCD.

The ones on there, with a bad LCD, would cost more to fix, no?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/18/2007 07:23AM by IronMac.

Ironmac

Mine was the bottom of the barrel $39 job listed as having a Bad LCD and Bad Optical Drive.

The item code was APLIBG351BCDLCD and the specs were listed as G3/500MHz 320MB/10GB CD-ROM

---

Aloha, Ken


“I have developed significant attachments to several members even though I wouldn't recognize them if I sat next to one on a park bench. I'm often tempted when in an airport to walk around, hollering "The Løpe", to see if anyone other than the Homeland Security people will acknowledge me. ” - The Løpe

"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us." Justice Robert Jackson

I picked up 2 for ~$50 each that were listed with bad LCDs, latches, and optical drives. In both cases, there was some slight marks on the LCDS but they work and only one had a broken latch. No stuck pixels at all. Haven't tried the optical drive, but I am planning on turning them both into digital picture frames for my parents and parents-in-law for Christmas presents. Just need to pick up some adapters on eBay.

Your card wil now be charged accordingly.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/18/2007 03:43PM by billb.