I changed the motherboard of a 27 inch iMac. It is just a question of proper tools, documentation, skills and training.
I’d like that things would be easy to repair, as in Wozniak’s claim, but I see this may have an impact in cost and sustainability.
I buy some Apple products because I like the innovation and product specifications, but if I want to enjoy, I build my own computers. But DIY always has a limit in my view.
I hope you understand my point. All the best, Rafael
I am not sure Steve W was saying repairs and modification were or should be necessarily easy - its just that is has been and in his view should be possible with the right aptitude, experience and tools by the user.
Where did you get the motherboard from? As I assume it was not an official Apple retail channel.
It’s the retina screen that is going on mine - as the purple tinge is creeping in from the edge - no good at all for my photography work
I take from Wozniak that repairability is an environment that fosters innovation, skills development, etc. Which is a good experience I had in the past, and more difficult to access for my kids.
I purchased the motherboard in eBay, probably coming from a deceased iMac strapped for parts.
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For repairs I find very useful Ifixit: tools, videos, parts, etc.
For the retina display try to find information in the web. I had a display problem in an older iMac, but it was sorted out changing the power supply board. Good luck!
Probably a MacMini. The wallpaper scrapers (or other thin pieces of metal) were used to push plastic ‘tangs’ back out of the way to allow the chassis to slide out. Then (for the 2011 or so) there were another half a dozen steps to get to the memory slots. I still run Roon on the one I bought over ten years ago, it runs faultlessly (so far) only rebooting when there’s a power cut.
The current version, sadly, has the memory integrated into the package containing the processor (I think) or at best soldered to the motherboard making it impossible to user upgrade and this applies both to the ‘hard drive’ and the RAM. While I can see this makes the machine more reliable due to less risk of poor connections etc. it certainly is a pain. I’ll still buy one sooner or later though- they are expensive but they just seem to work without any drama, at least IME.
To revive the kettle art of this thread, as I’ve just had a 6 week old kettle start leaking, I can see the Dualit Classic seems to be a favourite - has anyone had leakage problems with this model? We want a kettle that isn’t plastic but I find that about 25% of reviews for all the mainstream kettles complain about leakage. Any other recommendations or is the duality the one?
They look like something from Fisher-Price too in my view - I need a new Mac, but I really don’t like the way these new ones look. The previous iMacs were a compromise thermally, hopefully something the ARM based ‘Apple Silicon’ will improve significantly.
I keep meaning to buy a reurb M1 Mini but never seem to get round to it.
I’ve got a Samsung monitor which is a few years old but was adequate - display goes off after a few secs (from memory), and searching I found this was a common failure and a cheap component would fix it but I think I’d rather get a decent new one - the Samsung is in storage with a lot of other rubbish I ought to get rid of.
Apple, expensive? Nah! Then again…
I thought my 8 core Xeon 2008 refurb Mac Pro in 2010 was a bargain, maybe £2000, doubt I’d be able to justify the current ones.
These days I’d just want an M1 Mini and better Naim gear 
The Dualit is great when it works, and would be my first choice for sure if you’re prepared to pay for a quality kettle. Sadly mine is constantly unreliable with no spares availability, and is therefore the one kettle I would now suggest one should avoid at all costs, although at least it doesn’t leak.
I’m coming to the conclusion that if you find a fairly cheap kettle you like then buy a few as you can bet it won;t be available again a few years down the line.
Current kettle is plastic Breville 3kW thing which replaced older now unavailable Philips kettles. No perceptible aftertaste afetr half a dozen boils, unlike several metal kettles I’ve purchased and returned in the last 10-15 years.
Have been tempted by some of these new fangled (!) glass kettles.
The thread keeps catching my eye because I wish there was! [a right to repair legislation]
There has been so much poor legislation, or legislation put together without adequate care or checks in drafting, or prepared as a knee-jerk reaction to something that I really wish there was a straightforward way of going in and correcting it!
Seven years after purchase? That doesn’t sound like a significant length of time. Last year we had our 20 year old refrigerator repaired against the advice of the repairman.
My experience has been that every major appliance can be repaired at a cost. Just today I had a plumber repair one of our water heaters. The bill was $310. I could’ve purchased a new heater installed for $1,600. The heater is 15 years old but the heating elements were replaced in 2012 at a cost of $350. It’s also a plastic tank designed to last forever vs more common steel tanks that always need to be replaced at 10 years.
In 2015 our Bosch dishwasher stopped working. It was only five years old. The purchase price was ~ $1,100. The diagnostic fee would be $200. After that it’s $95/hr + parts. The maths favors replacements since that includes removal and installation. Dishwashers are never worth repairing. We replaced it with a rather expensive Miele based on reputation and it was the quietest dishwasher available. Almost six years to the date of installation, we purchased a five year extended warranty, it now does not effectively clean the dishes. Don’t even want to imagine the parts cost if we attempt to repair.
As a contrast… the dishwasher in our condo was manufactured in 1975 and has never had a single issue. Well… it wastes water, consumes massive amounts of energy, and operates at about 65 dB.
Why are modern dishwashers so unreliable? We anticipated 10 years of problem free use of the Miele but only got 5.5. This is supposedly a well built thing and a product of fine German engineering. My thinking is that the modern constraints placed on design (water conservation,energy efficiency, and quiet operation) have exponentially increased the complexity creating numerous new potential points of failure.
Currently, game theory shows the optimal strategy for dishwasher selection is to purchase the least expensive model and replace it upon malfunction. I’ve seen models under $500 installed. Sad thing is it doesn’t matter which model you buy as there isn’t a single brand at any price that is likely to remain problem free beyond five years. (In the US you can always buy a five year extended warranty for a reasonable fee. I’ve never found a company willing to sell a six year warranty.) Also… anecdotally… I’ve owned two dishwashers and they both failed just after five years.
Can’t remember the point of this… sorry… Maybe the magic of capitalism where repair people charge “trip fee” + $95/hr and mark up parts 200% makes dishwasher repair economically unfeasible? (I just paid $150 for a small bronze piece of plumbing stamped “made in China”)
Teslas are the only productS that I know the “right to repair” is currently an issue. Fortunately I own a Volvo where the need to repair is nearly nonexistent. Unfortunately Volvo refuses to sell certain diagnostic equipment so they have a bit of a death grip on cost of repair if necessary.
But that has 1.5TB RAM. The last software I created interfaced with various market data providers. This data isn’t cheap and they bill per data point retrieved. Legally we could not store the data after the api call. It was, however, acceptable to keep the data in memory. The software was running billions of simulations to aid in portfolio optimization. We had 256GB of ram mostly allocated to caching the market data. My guess is if I had 1.5TB RAM my client could easily save $30k/week in data fees. So… this looks cheap to me.
Actually despite being built like a brick, there is some plastic, not least in the base… but it is study and robust, and no leaks from ours, but to be fair ours is only a few months old… I was sick and tired of kettles breaking after a short time… and I am not aware that our kettle usage is particularly violent…
Fascinating example. I was being a little tongue in cheek, as very high spec machines will naturally attract a premium, though Apple do charge a hefty premium for RAM on build to order machines which is annoying in those cases where it is not upgradable later by the user (I assume those Mac Pros can be upgraded by the user).
Yes the current iMacs, at least the 27 inch screen versions are all user upgradable, and is very straightforward.
I hope I am not tempting fate, but our Bosch dish washer is reaching 10 years old, not one single problem. It replaced a previous Bosch dishwasher that was 10 years plus, and was only because there was an internal slow leak that had caused internal corrosion that it wasn’t cost effective to have repaired into a new chassis. They are so reliable we don’t take out repair insurance now… just remember to do a regular service wash cycle and they should last a decade.
Our washing machines on the other hand are nearly always repaired… we buy repair insurance, which is quite cost effective from memory around three or four pounds a month… our washing machine has had replacement drum and seal, motor bearings, logic boards, one of its pumps and some internal structure parts… and still going strong, we joke it’s a bionic washing machine… ‘we can rebuild you’ although perhaps high speed spin is a little noisier than when new all those years ago. I think.
In my experience you pay only a small premium for reliability and is worth its weight in gold. The old adage low cost means low value is so often the case with mass produced white goods.
We have a nine month old Miele tumble dryer which Miele have just replaced with a brand new one because the original one was beyond economic repair at 9 months old. It had three different intractable faults causing it to be extremely noisy.
