I tried to search for a thread but couldn't find anything recent.
I have a 2007 Macbook Pro that my son stepped on recently. The keyboard and trackpad fail to work intermittently and the iSight camera can no longer be found for whatever reason. If I plug a USB keyboard and mouse into the machine, I can still use the computer. I'm guessing my son snapped some cables (or worse).
I'm looking for advice or recommendations for a repair shop in Calgary that can fix my problems. Google tells me there's the Apple Store, macmechanic.ca, mymacdealer.ca, and probably others.
Does anyone have any experience with these other guys? Am I best to just head over to the Apple Store and take my lumps there?
I tried to search for a thread but couldn't find anything recent.
I have a 2007 Macbook Pro that my son stepped on recently. The keyboard and trackpad fail to work intermittently and the iSight camera can no longer be found for whatever reason. If I plug a USB keyboard and mouse into the machine, I can still use the computer. I'm guessing my son snapped some cables (or worse).
I'm looking for advice or recommendations for a repair shop in Calgary that can fix my problems. Google tells me there's the Apple Store, macmechanic.ca, mymacdealer.ca, and probably others.
Does anyone have any experience with these other guys? Am I best to just head over to the Apple Store and take my lumps there?
mymacdealer.ca - I'd recommend getting My Mac Dealer to take a look at it first, they are a bit more inclined to help you stretch the life out of older macs than the Apple Store. Sometimes the people there can be a bit hit & miss with their helpfulness & friendliness (sometimes they are fantastic, other times they seem disinterested) but I've never had them try & steer me towards a new purchase VS repair.
Another option if your comfortable opening up your laptop yourself is to look at the repair guides/parts from http://www.ifixit.com.
As backwards as it sounds I'd recommend the Apple store last, their repairs are the most expensive and it's just a little to easy to get sucked into the vortex of "well for only a few hundred more you can get into a brand new laptop! Look how much faster they've gotten" when immersed among rows & rows of shiny apple toys.
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I am a bit different as I would probably go to the Apple Store first. Since the initial visit to the store is free and if you get lucky to get a genius that knows what he's doing, he/she will be able to determine what is malfunctioning on your MBP. They will then give you an estimate of how much it will end up costing you to fix it at the store. At this point, you can go to another independent dealer to see what they have to say.
I'm not sure if an independent repair place will give you a free diagnosis or not but the Apple Store will.
Went to mymacdealer mostly because it was close to my office. They charged a $50+ diagnostic fee but called me on my cell with the results before I even got home.
Turns out I need a new upper case ($299 new) and a new display ($800 new). That's brand new laptop territory and, being Christmas season and all, not exactly in the budget. I'm probably going to try and get a used case on eBay (they're around $150 plus shipping) and just try replacing the iSight camera (about $40, including cables) using the ifixit guides.
Kind of wondering why replacing the glass (touch digitizer and LCD are fine) costs more than replacing the LCD.
I had my screen replaced by these guys in a 3gs. It was ok but it definately felt like it had been replaced. The home button felt like it was not quite right. The screen worked fine, until I dropped it again 2 months later.
I had my screen replaced by these guys in a 3gs. It was ok but it definately felt like it had been replaced. The home button felt like it was not quite right. The screen worked fine, until I dropped it again 2 months later.
Expensive and worked ok but not great.
That's the thing. I don't know if iphix is using genuine Apple parts. The majority of replacement screens out there are 3rd party ones made in Asia and I know that even if they were using genuine parts, their profit margins are about 200% because I have replaced a 3GS screen myself and it was 1/3rd the price to just do it myself and it only took 10 minutes. I know how to take apart iphones but not ipads. I could learn on google though I suppose.
That's the thing. I don't know if iphix is using genuine Apple parts. The majority of replacement screens out there are 3rd party ones made in Asia and I know that even if they were using genuine parts, their profit margins are about 200% because I have replaced a 3GS screen myself and it was 1/3rd the price to just do it myself and it only took 10 minutes. I know how to take apart iphones but not ipads. I could learn on google though I suppose.
With a user title of "Atomic Nerd" I would think you HAVE to try to do it yourself.
I wasn't really keen on paying the quoted prices for repairs at MyMacDealer so I went online and ordered a replacement cable from Powerbookmedic.com. The cable itself cost $24.99 but with a few tools and other materials and shipping I ended up spending a total of $54. Last night I set about replacing the upper case flex cable using a guide on ifixit.com. Took me a couple hours from start to finish (kids wanted to "help") and it was moderately difficult as far as computer repairs go, but I now have a functioning laptop again.
I'm more than a little POed at MyMacDealer for a few reason. First, I was already fairly confident that the cable had failed and told the tech as much. In my mind, there wasn't a whole lot of diagnosin' to do.
Second, he told me the entire top case had to be replaced. I explicitly asked if just the cable could be swapped out and he told me no. On top of that, he said that you couldn't buy just the cable anyway so it didn't really matter. This is false on so many levels. The part I purchased had the same model number and other markings as the part I replaced. If it's a Chinese knockoff, they went through a lot of trouble to make it look authentic.
Third, when I opened up the case last night, I noticed three or four loose cables that the guy didn't bother to reconnect when he had my laptop in the shop. I'm not sure if that's lazy or sloppy or both. I paid $62.42 for him to diagnose the problem so it's not like his time was free or anything. The least he could have done is to put things back together properly.
My iSight camera still doesn't work. He told me I needed a whole new display because, again, you can't buy and replace just the camera or the camera cable. That's a $600+ repair. I call BS on that one and might try to undertake this repair on my own too.
In fairness to the tech, perhaps this is the practice he is forced to adopt from above. Maybe it's even an Apple policy: make repairs sound expensive and onerous so that the customer will purchase a whole new machine.
Long story short, I highly recommend the parts from powerbookmedic.com and the guides on ifixit.com. If you have the time, patience and a little bit of know how, you can probably fix most problems on your out of warranty Apple products and save yourself some cash.
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Kind of wondering why replacing the glass (touch digitizer and LCD are fine) costs more than replacing the LCD.
I just had a really bad experience with them the last couple weekends and wouldn't recommend them at all.
My girlfriend and I went in to get her cracked iPhone 4 screen fixed so we took it in thinking they would be a bit faster than the apple store. We gave them the phone for an hour, everything looked physically okay with it afterwards, paid them $140 (they said the apple store charged $170), and were on our way.
A couple days later, we start noticing that the proximity sensor didn't work at all. So the touch screen wouldn't turn off during calls and it would accidentally end calls, start facetime, etc. We give them a call and they tell us to bring it in again.
So it's another weekend, we take it in, they say it will take an hour. After we come back, they say that they still can't get the sensor working.. We ask how long it will take, and they just say that they don't know and they're going to keep trying different parts. After about another hour of "trying different parts" and being told to just wait indefinitely, I start to get a little irritated. I ask to talk to the manager who was "busy" repairing another phone. I literally stand in the store and wait until he's free (which for some reason is another hour, when they're about to close for the day).
His solution is to take the phone back, and back up the data. Bring it in again, and he'll give us HIS used iPhone 4, which had the same storage capacity and was also on Rogers. I was kind of iffy with it, but my girlfriend just wanted to leave, so we say okay.
After 3 trips to that place and over 4 hours of waiting, we get his old iPhone 4 with a new screen. I examine it a bit closer this time and noticed the screen felt plasticy, the home button was loose and didn't click quite right, it just felt kind of cheap in general. But my gf said it didn't bother her so we just took it and left.
So yeah. I thought they were pretty unprofessional with the whole situation (I believe it's run by college students), and I wasn't really happy with the quality of parts used, considering they were charged us $140 for it.
I'd definitely try another place if you're looking for repairs. Next time I'll just pay the extra $30 and get a working refurbished phone from Apple.
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I just had a really bad experience with them the last couple weekends and wouldn't recommend them at all.
My girlfriend and I went in to get her cracked iPhone 4 screen fixed so we took it in thinking they would be a bit faster than the apple store. We gave them the phone for an hour, everything looked physically okay with it afterwards, paid them $140 (they said the apple store charged $170), and were on our way.
A couple days later, we start noticing that the proximity sensor didn't work at all. So the touch screen wouldn't turn off during calls and it would accidentally end calls, start facetime, etc. We give them a call and they tell us to bring it in again.
So it's another weekend, we take it in, they say it will take an hour. After we come back, they say that they still can't get the sensor working.. We ask how long it will take, and they just say that they don't know and they're going to keep trying different parts. After about another hour of "trying different parts" and being told to just wait indefinitely, I start to get a little irritated. I ask to talk to the manager who was "busy" repairing another phone. I literally stand in the store and wait until he's free (which for some reason is another hour, when they're about to close for the day).
His solution is to take the phone back, and back up the data. Bring it in again, and he'll give us HIS used iPhone 4, which had the same storage capacity and was also on Rogers. I was kind of iffy with it, but my girlfriend just wanted to leave, so we say okay.
After 3 trips to that place and over 4 hours of waiting, we get his old iPhone 4 with a new screen. I examine it a bit closer this time and noticed the screen felt plasticy, the home button was loose and didn't click quite right, it just felt kind of cheap in general. But my gf said it didn't bother her so we just took it and left.
So yeah. I thought they were pretty unprofessional with the whole situation (I believe it's run by college students), and I wasn't really happy with the quality of parts used, considering they were charged us $140 for it.
I'd definitely try another place if you're looking for repairs. Next time I'll just pay the extra $30 and get a working refurbished phone from Apple.
Yeah, as I said earlier in the thread, I have a good feeling that iPhix is not using genuine parts but the same knockoff parts you can get for pennies on the dollar on places like dealextreme, ebay, alibaba, etc.
You can get the whole LCD + glass + touch digitizer for only $37 shipped. If you buy them separately, it's only about $10 each part. That's probably what he pays for his replacements, even less because he probably buys a ton wholesale. http://www.dealextreme.com/p/replace...4-black-118742
They used to run their business out of the UPS store. You'd drop the stuff off and come back to pick it up later. You know that it's just a random guy sitting in his garage or basement with a screwdriver fiddling with your stuff.
Last edited by Hack&Lube; 03-08-2012 at 02:25 PM.
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This seems like as good a place as any to ask this question, rather than bumping another thread.
I recently got my wife's old iPhone to try out, and both of the volume buttons don't work. Anyone have experience replacing these? Is it just the button, or is it possibly another piece as well?
I have an old phone that I can take the button from, or I can buy one for $5, so it isn't like it is expensive, but I would hate to do it and have it not work and potentially wreck the phone.
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"Wake up, Luigi! The only time plumbers sleep on the job is when we're working by the hour."
A 3GS is easy to open and the buttons should be easy to swap IIRC. I've had microswitches that died in other electronics before and they are just too small and not worth it to repair rather than to replace.
To open a 3G or 3GS, you just have to remove the bottom screws. Some people then pry the glass off but that can cause damage. The trick is to use a good suction cup on the glass and you can actually just lift it free from the housing. There will be a bit of resistance.
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So you think a suction cup is better than one of those plastic pry tools? When I was playing with the dead 3G iPhone I have I kinda scratched the metal edge and made small indents on the glass but I was just using a regular tiny screwdriver.
Rathji
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"Wake up, Luigi! The only time plumbers sleep on the job is when we're working by the hour."
So you think a suction cup is better than one of those plastic pry tools? When I was playing with the dead 3G iPhone I have I kinda scratched the metal edge and made small indents on the glass but I was just using a regular tiny screwdriver.
Rathji
When's the last time you scratched anything with a suction cup?
Last edited by Hack&Lube; 03-08-2012 at 07:40 PM.
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Ok, so I have ordered some parts to fix the volume button my current phone. Is there anyway for me to adjust the volume while making a call without this button or am I stuck asking people to yell if they want me to hear them?
I can adjust the ringtone volume no problem, and when playing music or a video I can use the in-app volume controls, but I cannot figure out how to do it for a phone call.
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"Wake up, Luigi! The only time plumbers sleep on the job is when we're working by the hour."
Ok, so I have ordered some parts to fix the volume button my current phone. Is there anyway for me to adjust the volume while making a call without this button or am I stuck asking people to yell if they want me to hear them?
I can adjust the ringtone volume no problem, and when playing music or a video I can use the in-app volume controls, but I cannot figure out how to do it for a phone call.
The headphones with the mic/volume control would probably do it, but that's the only way I know of adjusting the call volume that's not the physical buttons on the phone.
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Apple Repair in Calgary
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