Apple should be required to do a recall for these motherboards.
They don't do recalls even on modern hardware. But soldering hacks are no longer possible, all parts are serialized. Louis Rossmann made many videos on this.
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The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory
31–40 of 269 posts
Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
What are you talking about? Capacitor technology hasn't changed substantially in decades, and it's just as possible to change caps with a soldering iron now as it was 20 years ago. I have no idea what you mean by "serialized".
not capacitors, but more advanced components, like the camera, have serial numbers embedded in them, and the serial number needs to match, otherwise it won't accept the component. Components off a stolen device are put on a list and won't work in admirer another phone, so stolen phones aren't even worth anything for parts, driving down the market for stolen phones. It also makes the job of repair shops harder, which…
Doesn’t Apple offer a way to re-pair components if they are genuine and not stolen (unregistered from the previous AppleId)?
Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
not capacitors, but more advanced components, like the camera, have serial numbers embedded in them, and the serial number needs to match, otherwise it won't accept the component. Components off a stolen device are put on a list and won't work in admirer another phone, so stolen phones aren't even worth anything for parts, driving down the market for stolen phones. It also makes the job of repair shops harder, which…
Doesn’t Apple offer a way to re-pair components if they are genuine and not stolen (unregistered from the previous AppleId)?
and Apple will very happily charge you for that privilege
Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
This. I’ve known a TV that was in more or less daily use for over 30 years. Not sure why we stopped expecting that from electronics.
Because electronics got so much better so much faster, that the vast majority of customers did not want to use old hardware. Especially if customers allowing shorter lifetimes allowed companies to lower the prices.
There are many use cases for which a decade-old computer is still perfectly serviceable and even where they aren't, those computers can be repurposed for the ones that are.
Moreover, we're talking about televisions and old Macs. TVs with higher resolutions might come out, but lower resolution ones continue to be sold new (implying demand exists at some price), and then why should anybody want to replace a functioning old TV with a newer one of the same resolution?
Much older computers continue to be used because they run software that newer computers can't without emulation (which often introduces bugs) or have older physical interfaces compatible with other and often extremely expensive older hardware.
If people actually wanted to replace their hardware instead of fixing it then they'd not be complaining about the inability to fix it.
Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory
#35There are so many cases of this sort of stuff it's unreal. But it gets even stupider.
I found one a few years back when I repaired a linear power supply. This required me to reverse engineer it first because there was no service manual. I buzzed the whole thing out and found out that one of the electrolytic capacitors had both legs connected to ground. They must have shipped thousands of power supplies with that error in it and no one even noticed.
Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory
#36Well, today I learned to install one capacitor in reverse orientation on the PCB on a 34 year old computer... Definitely starting Wednesday off productively.
I actually have an LC III in storage, so I might actually be able to make use of this article. I think this will allow me to classify today as productive.
Yeah, I have a Performa 450, which I believe is the exact same computer sold under a different name. So this is definitely important to know. I can go back to bed now, my job for today is done.
Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
This shouldn't be allowed at all: if the product was bad all along, they should be required to fix it, and shouldn't be able to say "well, it's old, so you should just trash it", which means they don't suffer any penalty whatsoever.
I don't think that's a reasonable expectation in general, and certainly not in this case. The affected TVs were all at least 20 years old - that's well beyond the expected useful lifespan of even a modern TV, let alone an older model like these. Nor is it clear what Sony could reasonably have done to repair them; even by 2010, a lot of the parts used in CRT TVs were out of production and unavailable.
"that's well beyond the expected useful lifespan of even a modern TV, let alone an older model like these"
People still run these Trinitron TVs to this day.
Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
> that's well beyond the expected useful lifespan of even a modern TV, let alone an older model like these A modern TV may have an expected lifespan of five years. TVs from several decades ago had lifespans of... several decades. Quality has plummeted in that market.
5 years? Is that really true? I’m currently using an LG from 2017 and cannot imagine needing to change it. I would be shocked if it stopped working.
I don't think it is true at all.
There's nothing inside today's monitors or TVs that can't run for at least 10 years. Our main TV, 42" 720p LCD, is from 2008, and I have monitors that are just as old.
Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
> that's well beyond the expected useful lifespan of even a modern TV, let alone an older model like these A modern TV may have an expected lifespan of five years. TVs from several decades ago had lifespans of... several decades. Quality has plummeted in that market.
5 years? Is that really true? I’m currently using an LG from 2017 and cannot imagine needing to change it. I would be shocked if it stopped working.
But when it does, it will probably be the capacitors in the power supply that have dried out.
Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory
#40In the mid 80's I was the head of the CS student chapter. We ran the computer rooms for the science faculty. We had a room with about 20 Mac 128k. I do not know where Apple sourced their capacitors from, but these were not A-tier. A Mac going up in a puff of white smoke was a weekly occurrence. We had a few in reserve just to cycle them in while they were out to Apple for repair. P.S. still my favorite Mac of all tim…
With things like the Mac 128k, reliability issues may partly be down to Steve Job’s dislike of cooling fans.