Thread

Possible Conquest Macbook Core Duo?

· Troubleshooting · 15 posts · Jan 13, 2010 — Jan 22, 2010 View original thread ↗

#1 Wed, 13 Jan 2010 - 23:02

I have been offered a Macbook Core Duo with 1.25GB RAM for $150

The Catch...

Screen is cracked and it is pretty dirty with a few hairline cracks on the front of the unit. Thinking it would be a nice headless media centre.

Worth it?

#2 Wed, 13 Jan 2010 - 23:04

With a busted screen, its effectively a mini....so find out what the going rate for a Core Duo mini with similar specs is.

#3 Wed, 13 Jan 2010 - 23:32

With a busted screen, its effectively a mini....so find out what the going rate for a Core Duo mini with similar specs is.

The going rate is much more than $150. The minis have held their value insanely well.

#4 Thu, 14 Jan 2010 - 01:16

With a busted screen, its effectively a mini....so find out what the going rate for a Core Duo mini with similar specs is.

Click to expand...

The going rate is much more than $150. The minis have held their value insanely well.

It's probably because of how versatile they are. Who do you that can just pick up their desktop with such ease and move it into the living room to the tv?

#5 Thu, 14 Jan 2010 - 02:01

MacBook= Worth it.

I paid 140$ for mine, even worser condition, bad hinges, bad screen, missing keys, case destruction, and the 1.25gb of ram is an added plus, I had only 512mb on mine. What color and more info. I say go for it.

Also, you could try to haggle the price down, by offering arbitrary things such as data recover and an OSX disc or something, like I did. I lowered it 20$ by installing a Tiny7 (Hacked Windows 7 Install, no key needed) on his current mbp.

#6 Thu, 14 Jan 2010 - 06:24

I've been in contact with the seller and seen a photo. Looks like the screen did not survive the trip back from Ontario. The bad news is he left the power adapter there. The good news it that it is being shipped to him and will contact me when it arrives.

If everything goes as planned I hope to remove the broken screen and use the Macbook as a headless laptop for a home theater. Probably set up with XBMC, FrontRow or some such similar program and stream files from my Mini.

#7 Thu, 14 Jan 2010 - 11:19

Dude fix the screen, MacBook screens are down to like 50 or 60$ USD on eBay these days! I have two spare working screens in my inventory and like 8 broken ones to test the backlight board (Cannot remember the name of it for the life of me, the thingie in the macbook hinge.).

#8 Thu, 14 Jan 2010 - 13:04

Dude fix the screen, MacBook screens are down to like 50 or 60$ USD on eBay these days! I have two spare working screens in my inventory and like 8 broken ones to test the backlight board (Cannot remember the name of it for the life of me, the thingie in the macbook hinge.).

Sounds to me like you are referring to the inverter?

i too think you should replace the screen, i saw one on ebay recently for $63 shipped, and it would be great to have a $213 macbook!

#9 Thu, 14 Jan 2010 - 13:27

Yes, Inverter. My MacBook's screen has some uneven backlighting at cold boot, is that the inverter?

Yeah screens are dirt cheap these days if you buy just the panel. I also found some 20$ screens that are guaranteed to work but have some scratches on them.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-MacBook-A1181-LTN133W1-L01-13-3-GLOSSY-SCREEN-RD_W0QQitemZ250558052926QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item3a566c7a3e#ht_2378wt_1167

I paid zero dollars for my screen because I had it in my parts, after I received the two water damaged macbooks.

#10 Thu, 14 Jan 2010 - 13:51

they are actually $30, but still 1/2 the price of the other screens

and you are lucky, the only mac things i got from friends was a nano w/ a smashed screen and a pb 140, they won't even sell me their broken macbooks!. i might get an iphone that only has 1/2 a working touchscreen though

#11 Thu, 14 Jan 2010 - 13:56

There are some that are 20$ but I picked the best specimen out of all of them. search ebay MacBook Screen and sort them from price lowest to highest.

#12 Tue, 19 Jan 2010 - 06:10

I think I just might. If I can get one for less than $50 there is almost nothing to lose. Now I just play the waiting game for the Macbook Adapter.

In the meantime...I have picked up a Mac Mini G4 1.25/1GB/Combo/Airport with a dead HD. I am trying to bring it back to life but no luck yet.

#13 Tue, 19 Jan 2010 - 11:52

Try smacking the mini and hard drive. It worked for me!

#14 Tue, 19 Jan 2010 - 15:08

That is a step I plan to try down the road. Right now I plan to try Disk Warrior as it can 'see' the drive but not access it. I ran Disk Utility - First Aid but was stopped by an 'Invalid Sibling Error'. Some Googling has suggested that Disk Warrior may work. I have not tried a format yet of the drive but I am hoping to pick a few files off the drive for the previous owner before I go down that road.

#15 Fri, 22 Jan 2010 - 03:43

Update on the Mini. I was asked to pull some files off the drive, which diskwarrior allowed me to do even though it could not repair the error. I just finished wiping the drive and installed 10.4.11 on it. Works perfect! (so far)