SURVIVAL TACTIC: If it’s your MacBook’s screen that gets scratched, don’t attempt a home repair. Anything that’s strong enough to remove scratches will also strip away the screen’s protective coating. We’ve heard about people who take the screen to a jeweler to have scratches buffed out or squish a little Vaseline into the scratch to disguise it, but we can’t recommend these approaches. If the scratch seriously bothers you or obscures a key portion of the display, your best option is to have the screen replaced. Your Apple Care Protection Plan probably won’t cover this, however, as it’s likely to be classified as accidental damage. Companies like TechRestore (www.techrestore.com) can replace MacBook displays for about $350 to $500, depending on screen size. A 17-inch Display for an aluminum G4 PowerBook costs $449.99, including installation, overnight delivery of the repaired machine, and a one-year warranty, but it doesn’t include shipping the notebook to TechRestore, which could range from $29 to $69. If you’re handy, you can buy a new display from PowerBook Medic (www.powerbookmedic.com) and install it yourself. Here, an Aluminum G4 17-inch Display LCD Screen costs $349.95, with a one-year warranty, shipping not included.
SURVIVAL TACTIC: So you dropped your iPod or iPhone into a body of water (bathtub, toilet, deep puddle, the ocean). If the gods of technology happen to be smiling on you, it may be fixable. Fish out the device and shut it off immediately if it was on when it took the dive—in which case it’s very likely dead, we’re sorry to say. If it was off when it got dunked, your goal is to get the device dried out completely. To facilitate this, place it near the vent on the back of your cable box or air-conditioner. Or bury it in a deep bowl of dry plain rice or a container with a few silica packs—you know, those small packets often rattling around in boxes of new shoes that say, “Warning: Do Not Eat.” If it seems to have absorbed a lot of liquid, prop the device up so that any water can drain out without leaving it sitting in the puddle, or put it on an absorbent surface like a stack of paper or cloth towels (that you should check frequently for moisture). If you know how to open the device’s case (guitar picks are our tool of choice for prying open iPods), do so and remove the battery (this voids the warranty, but, hey, it’s an emergency), which will greatly facilitate the drying-out process. Let the device air-dry for 72 hours, then try turning it on. If this doesn’t work, let it dry for another 48 hours. And depending on what type of liquid it was dropped in, you may also need to open the device and clean it out with some denatured alcohol to remove any residue that might come back to haunt you later.
SURVIVAL TACTIC: Tiny font files can cause huge problems. Corrupt fonts can cause printing and display problems and even crash applications. And font caches can become hopelessly muddled, causing all sorts of jumbled-type display problems onscreen.
In OS X (Tiger and Leopard), you can check for bad fonts by going into your Applications folder and launching Font Book. Once there, Command-click to choose a group of dicey fonts—perhaps fonts you recently purchased or downloaded for free from possibly shady websites—then go to File > Validate Fonts. If a font is corrupt, you’ll see a round icon with an X in it. Click the checkbox beside the bad font(s), and then click the Remove Checked button to purge the evil from your system. If you see a yellow warning icon beside a font, it may be causing trouble, so remove it from your font folder, restart, and see if the problem is resolved. If you’re using an older version of OS X, you’ll have to manually test groups of fonts half-a-dozen at a time to see which trigger the problem, but this takes more patience than we possess. It’s smarter to buy a font-management application like Extensis Suitcase Fusion ($99.95, www.extensis.com) or Insider Software’s FontAgent Pro 4 ($99.95, www.insidersoftware.com). Both of these apps also offer myriad ways to organize and work with fonts, and both offer 30-day free demos, so you can try before you buy.
SURVIVAL TACTIC: If Safari is moving at less-than-gazelle-like speeds, purge it of all the data it’s binged on by choosing Safari > Reset Safari. This will give you the option to delete stored login info, favicons, cache, history, and cookies. If you do a full reset you’ll likely see noticeably improved browser performance, but you’ll need to log in to all the websites that normally “remember” you, so if you doubt you’ll be able to recall all of your login info across the Web, try deleting everything but login info and cookies first to see if that speeds things up.
SURVIVAL TACTIC: Proving that even Apple can release seriously flawed products, MobileMe is troubled by a variety of issues including outages, syncing problems, and more. Assuming that you want to continue using what Apple has admitted is a flawed service, back up all of the data you’ll be syncing via “the cloud,” and then try resetting iSync. Go to System Preferences > MobileMe, click Sync/Advanced and then click Reset Sync Data. From the pop-up menu choose All Data, unless you’re having a problem with specific sorts of info; if so, pick just the data you’re having problems syncing. Click the right arrow button and you should see text that says “On MobileMe with sync info from this computer.”
SURVIVAL TACTIC: If the advice in #16 doesn’t fix the problem, or if you’re getting error messages referring to inconsistencies in data, reset the Sync Services folder by choosing Preferences from the iSync menu and clicking Reset Sync History. If you have multiple Macs you may need to do this on all computers that are syncing with MobileMe. Start with the machine that has the most current info. You may also need to reset each computer’s Sync Services folder. Just make sure to back up that data before you reset syncing, as it’s possible it may get overwritten or deleted.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, a stitch in time saves nine, and so on. Those old wives obviously knew how to maintain a computer. It’s much easier to prevent problems before they happen than it is to fix them after the fact. Here are five ways to lessen the chances that one of the 17 Mac disasters outlined in this article will befall you.
1. Stay Dry
Keep the beverages away from electronic devices—make it an unbreakable rule not to drink and compute. Ditto any watery activities: Leave the devices at home or buy a waterproof case.
2. Stay Up-To-Date
Mac owners can get blasé about keeping their software up-to-date, as they aren’t plagued with the plethora of PC viruses/spyware/hack attacks. But Apple software does have security holes, and it’s important to get those patches onto your machine. Ditto the fixes from outside vendors—even if the patches don’t address security issues, they do make programs more stable and efficient. To make sure that your machine is up to date, go to the Apple menu, choose Software Update, click the Check Now button, select the items you want to download, then click Install. Reboot and repeat, as some software will only be available if other software is installed. To keep your other applications in shape, drop by the vendor’s site once a month or so to see if there are any updates.
3. Stay Secure
Security always requires trade-offs in usability, but protecting your data from prying eyes is worth it. Don’t enable automatic login, and set password protection for key files by customizing the Account settings in System Preferences.
4. Stay Clean
Keep your Mac happy inside and out with a monthly cleanup, blow the gunk out of its innards (see #5), repair disk permissions, delete or archive old files because a less cluttered hard drive is a more efficient hard drive, purge your Desktop of everything that really doesn’t need to be there, and run those UNIX scripts (see #4).
5. Back Up. Period
Just do it—OK? We’ll buy you a pony. Backing up your data is the single most important thing you can do to ensure that you—and your precious files—will survive any technological trauma.
corina
November 01, 2009 at 12:01am
I can consider this article a good guide for anyone who's attempting to buy a new MAC ;)
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benm
October 30, 2009 at 5:13am
Great collection of Mac Problems. Definitely will be beneficial in knowing mac more better.
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October 22, 2009 at 2:04pm
If you ever spill something on your keyboard and it still doesn't work even after all the components dry because the circuits oxidize, you can use an eraser to get rid of the oxidation.
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kiddzy
October 22, 2009 at 1:05am
I was so excited when I finally made the move from PC to Mac. I had it a whole two weeks or so before our son knocked over a glass of sweet tea all over the keyboard. I say definitely shut it all off and take it to a specialist, as I tried to clean it out with alcohol and cotton swabs and was never able to recover it
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October 14, 2009 at 9:01am
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yinka23
October 07, 2009 at 1:24pm
I was so excited when I finally made the move from PC to Mac. I had it a whole two weeks or so before our son knocked over a glass of sweet tea all over the keyboard. I say definitely shut it all off and take it to a specialist, as I tried to clean it out with alcohol and cotton swabs and was never able to recover it. Fat Loss 4 Idiots Diet
brwilliam000
October 03, 2009 at 6:47pm
Really great article for any mac owner. I haven't had too many problems, but I remember searching forever before finding the answer to mine not starting up. "When you see the # command prompt, type /sbin/fsck –fy (“fsck” is a file system consistency check utility) and hit Return. " Every mac owner should write this down and keep it in a safe place.Toronto Real Estate Listings
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MartinB090
September 30, 2009 at 2:33pm
Are you serious? I used a pc for many years and finally took the advice of my friend and got a mac. I haven't had to deal with the problems above since I got it... and hope I never have to. Much better than my PC was. driver detective review
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September 29, 2009 at 9:57am
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September 20, 2009 at 4:47am
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ma.joelint
January 03, 2009 at 11:10pm
I have had this problem several times when using my macbook. I had read the apple manual and it had said to remove the battery (and power cord) from the computer and hold the power button for 10 seconds. My MacBook worked right after that.
LeftClicker
December 04, 2008 at 4:51pm
I'm trying to get Mac OS X Leopard to run on my iBook. It's a G4, but it "malingered on the startup screen for an hour or so with no apparent intention of booting up," and I took their advice an ran the system check or whatever it was. The C key had no effect however. Is it possible? Please say yes Please say yes Please say yes...
lojoma
November 17, 2008 at 3:31pm
Hey, in Disaster 2 it says "when your Mac has malingered on the startup screen...."
"Malinger" means to fib or fake. I think you mean "linger". In my health profession we refer to patients who fake an illness as "malingerers".
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November 13, 2008 at 4:22pm
A dying hard drive can easily be fixed by using SpinRite from grc.com. Unfortunately you have to remove the drive and mount it in a PC, because SpinRite uses PC BIOS interrupts. Buy a USB shell or mount the drive directly into your PC.
SpinRite isn't guaranteed to fix the drive, but it makes a huge difference in extending the lifetime of a dying drive and recovering a dead one.
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November 13, 2008 at 2:54pm
Man, the pictures that come with this article are really, really, REALLY, freaky.
rbj
November 13, 2008 at 2:29pm
the stuck dvd/cd to me is extremely scarey. the first time i absolutely freaked. the machine wouldn't start and the disk just ground away. luckily i could access help on my linux box and learn how to do the cardboard trick. after i got it out then i learned about leaving the thing on for 15-20 mins until it gets tired of not being able to boot and the disk spits out.
both of my experiences with this were with DVD-RW's. guess my machine doesn't like to rewrite. needless to say i don't feed it any more rewritable disks.
SkinnyLard
March 05, 2009 at 3:19pm
Ii has the same exact thing happen to me it was with an iMac G5 and it only does it with Dual-Layer DVDs it wont mount them. The super Drive makes some squaking noises and trys to spin then makes clanging sounds. Then it will try to spit it out and it cant os i hade take apart the machine and take out the hard drive and start it up again and shake it with the super drive facing down and i t finaly came out.
gariepyjeanmichel
November 14, 2008 at 1:20pm
My experience involved the bundled blank dvds you buy stacked on a tray with a stick. There was a clear plastic dummy disc at the top to protect the real discs. Without looking I put it in the slot of my Powerbook and the rest is history. It didn't mount properly, it started to spin up and down and smell. I had to send it in for repair right away. When I got it back they said they couldn't salvage the superdrive but they removed the disk and the computer still worked. They gave me back the blackened piece of plastic. The ordeal cost 500$. To my suprise it could still read dvds, but it was unable to write anything (couldn't spin up properly). After a few years though, the whole thing started working again. Technology is very strange.
