I'm in New Zealand right now, and it conked out sometime during the 11 hour layover I had in LAX.

Tried everything, even reseating the RAM. I think it's a bad logic board. The computer does not chime, no video. The light comes on. That's it. It's exactly like a problem I had with my G4 back in the day. I'm thinking that I'm going to repair it via shipping it to apple, and selling it. I'll get a windows PC for use on the road from now on, and either buy a Mac Pro for production or build a hackintosh. The latter seems the best option right now.

Where do you guys send your MacPros for out-of-warranty repair?

-- Brian.

Why get a hackintosh? If you don't like fixing a computer that comes with a warranty and has authorized service centers all over the planet, why would you switch to something with no real warranty and no service centers? I'd suggest getting it fixed. Probably isn't going to cost that much, perhaps something got damaged on the plane.

Noah

Someone a few days had the same problem
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/non-linear-editing-mac/137003-my-mac-pro-quad-dead.html


I found someone (Mac Media) to fix it for $400! Apple quoted me $1200! I'm so happy I found them.

Where do you guys send your MacPros for out-of-warranty repair?

-- Brian.

AppleCare has saved me the last time my G5 broke down after 2 years. For machine in this price range I think it's not that bad a deal. Also, the one I got for the G5 at the time included onsite warranty.

Dino

Why get a hackintosh? If you don't like fixing a computer that comes with a warranty and has authorized service centers all over the planet, why would you switch to something with no real warranty and no service centers? I'd suggest getting it fixed. Probably isn't going to cost that much, perhaps something got damaged on the plane.

Noah

There's a couple reasons to get a hackintosh.

I DO like fixing computers, actually. My first job was fixing computers. My passion and hobby is fixing computers. I love it.

But more importantly, when it came to my MacBook Pro, I couldn't even get at the RAM to reseat it until I got to New Zealand. There's an outside chance I -could- fix this myself, if I could get to the parts. Or that if it's a hardware problem, that I could fix it quickly with a replacement here in New Zealand - if I could get to the parts.

The problem was not that the MacBook Pro broke. The problem was that the MacBook Pro broke when I'm literally 10,000 miles from home, and that to send it out for repair would defeat the purpose of bringing it with me to New Zealand in the first place!

If a more accessible laptop broke, I could just buy a replacement part, swap it out, and be on the go.

Instead, I have to walk to an Internet cafe every time I need to edit a document or print out a map - which is often.

I've also been very frustrated with the lack of upgradability on the MacBook Pro - that is, I know it's a laptop, but I figure that there should be SOME eSATA expresscard that actually WORKS and doesn't cause kernel panics. I tried like, three different cards, two different chipsets.

By selling the laptop, which will probably fetch around $2000 US after fixing, I can buy a $300 Eee PC for portable reporting, while spending the rest on a much more powerful desktop Hackintosh for production. (Less, considering that I've got some good parts already from my gaming computer.)

Or, and this is a big option but I'm seriously considering it at this point, I might just chuck the whole thing in the bin and recapture all of my tapes and start from scratch in Sony Vegas.

I love Final Cut Pro, but this is ludicrous.

try this

remove the battery, pull the power let it sit for a minute. only have the original apple supplied ram in. remove all connected peripherals. power it up on the EXTERNAL PS only. then replace the battery. this usually fixes weird boot problems including failure to start up. also hold COMMAND + OPTION + P +R at least twice will reset PRAM. don't need to do it more then twice. first time is a quick reset, second time is a full reset.

look for a apple store in NZ. might be able to get walk in service, especially under the circumstances.


and gear breaks sometimes... no matter who makes it. apple hardware is really solid compared to some PC stuff out there. once you get into real PC hardware, you'll find its the same price or more then apple. you _really_ don't want to run a hackintosh for mission critical work. any software update can kill it. see Psystar Corporation - Information Technology and Communication Consultants (http://psystar.com/) for a OTS mac clone, but its only a 4 core machine. YMMV

Tried all that. And there's no apple stores in NZ. Closest one is in Australia. There are apple certified dealers but they can't repair the thing before I fly off.