I accidentally ran over my PowerBook with my dad's SUV today.
It's not very often that someone gets to say that. But perhaps what's even more surprising is the fact that I'm writing this on that very same PowerBook. Hold a 12" PowerBook G4 and you can just tell it's sturdy. It's thin, but not flimsy, and the aircraft-grade aluminum case makes it feel like a lump of metal, rather than a sophisticated high-tech gadget.
But how durable is it, really? Well, it turns out it's sturdy enough to withstand 1100lb of pressure (assuming that pressure under a wheel is a quarter of the total weight) and survive more or less the same way it was before.
Show Rest of Post
Background
Okay, for those of you who don't know me, let me explain a few things before you go accusing me of being an evil Mac abuser. Those of you who know me know that I'm a big Mac head, and that my laptop is the most important thing I own. As such, I usually treat it with great care, and often even read it bed time stories and sing... er, well, you get the point.
So what happened?
Here's what happened. I had to drop off a few things at my dad's office, to have shipped to Chicago, before I headed out on my 8 hour drive up to Chico. I told my dad I'd leave around 11:30, but I decided to do some last minute grocery shopping, and didn't get home until around 11:45. My dad called me telling me that he was putting the truck to Chicago on hold until I showed up with my stuff. I told him I'd be off in 10 minutes, assuming that 3 boxes, a bike, and some luggage would fit in the car without any problems. That assumption proved wrong very quickly. For 20 minutes, I furiously loaded and unloaded things, trying different possibilities to find one that wouldn't force me to drive half blind. At some point, I took out my laptop case and temporarily put it on the ground and propped it up against the body of the car.
Some time later, with most of my stuff in the car, I jumped in the car, and headed to my dad's office. But before I got far, I realized that I'd forgotten my ice cream maker, so I drove back to the house, and to my horror, found my laptop case on the ground when I entered the garage. As I approached the bag, I immediately realized what had happened: the tire marks that ran diagonally across the top of the case were unmistakable. Quickly, I picked it up, and opened the case. I'd heard of PowerBooks surviving this kind of thing, so I knew not all was lost. I noticed the sleep light glowing and dimming, as if nothing had happened, although there were noticeable deformities in the PowerBook's outter casing. Alas, when I opened the display, I was ecstatic to find the LCD in one piece, and the machine apparently functional.
The State of the PowerBook
Over all, the machine is in excellent shape. In fact, if you saw it and I told you that it was run over by a 4500lb SUV, you probably wouldn't believe me. Anyway, I haven't had the chance to check everything yet, but so far, the only damage I've noticed are:
- Underside of front left corner is crumpled in
- Seam separation along the upper front edge of plam rest
- Stiff (but functional!) latch
- Plugging a device into front USB port causes system to freeze
- Horizontal band of "dead" pixels a third of the way down the screen
I haven't run a full diagnostics on the hard drive yet, but it seems to be working just fine so far. I also haven't checked the modem, firewire, video out, audio in/out ports. But everything else works fine. AirPort works and the optical drive works, as do one of the USB ports and the ethernet port. The battery's fine, and the AC adapter seems okay (although it feels like it might be running a little hotter than usual).
Now some pictures...
The case the machine was in when it was run over. I bought this case for 6000 yen in Japan about 4 years ago, and have been using it since. There's a suspended pouch for the laptop, and the paddings are pretty thick. It has just one side pocket and a pocket in the flap, but otherwise, it doesn't really have storage space for much else (which makes it easier to carry around). This bag has saved a PowerBook before too; I accidentally lost grip of it while running to work, but the PowerBook G3 inside survived the 6ft flight, and the rough landing that followed.
The case, with the machine and AC adapter on top to indicate an approximation of where they would have been inside (the red lines indicate, approximately, where the tire marks are). To be honest, this is really a guess. All I know is that the front of the PB faced towards the opening (i.e. towards the handle). Other than that, I'm guessing the bottom faced up since that would be consistent with the indentation in the front left corner, and the AC adapter was probably on the side of the optical drive; without it there to take the pressure, I'm fairly certain the drive would've crumbled under the weight.
A somewhat blurry picture of the horizontal bands of "dead" pixels. There are 5 rows, 9 pixels high (Inclusive) top to bottom (i.e. there are 4 "live" lines interspersed). It's about a third of the way down the screen, and corresponds to where the lock hole is when the display is shut. The bands actually aren't dead, but appear to be receiving some signal (just not the right ones). All 5 rows show the same colors/pattern, and the colors shown appear elsewhere in the display, which seems to indicate that the pixels are getting signals intended for other parts of the screen. I'm guessing a LCD replacement would fix this problem, but it would likely be prohibitively expensive...
A view of the bottom. You can sort of see the "crumpled" front left corner. Amazingly enough, the hard drive appears to have survived unharmed (I don't have the system CD with me, so I can't run diagnostics on it).
A side view of the crumpled corner.
A full frontal view. Notice how it's warped, so instead of sitting on the rubber legs on the side, it's sitting on the center. Amazingly enough, there's no noticeable wobble at all while typing.
Close-up of the front edge. The "seams" have come apart, but otherwise, the latch is functional (albeit a little stiffly) as are the track pad and button.
What's Next?
Well, I can't afford a new machine, so I'll be using this until I can. Besides, how cool is it to have a laptop that survived this kind of thing? It'll be a great conversation starter to say the least... Oh yes, I can see it:
Someone: "What'd you do to your laptop?!"
Me: "Oh, I accidentally ran over it with a SUV."
Someone: stunned silence...
Posted Sat, September 6, 2003 13:05 by jack
Perhaps driving an SUV poses more than environmental, and liability and safety issues... :)
[moderate]