4/10/98: a reader, Chao.

My comet was only five mouths old, but the display had a problem. As reported in this page several times, the display color went brick-red, especially the lower right part where was the place of モTrashモ was pretty bad and I could not see the text around the part.

I contacted the shop where I bought it, and their comment was, メ The reparing will take at least a week because the machine will be sent back to Apple.メ I could not dispense with the machine because I usually used it on my work. So, I checked the web to find an NCR quick-garage (one of the most famous repair service provider in Japan) that was often appeared on this page, and I found it near my living place, Hakata. I called them immediately. They said, メ We have some spare parts and we could repair it in about one hour. I took my PB2400 to their shop right after that.

There was no other customer in the garage because it was daytime, so two staffs worked to repair it. I asked them whether this sort of malfunction often happened. Their answer was they had never had an experience about the LCD unit problem in Comet before, and almost all troubles were in the logic board, track-pad button and the screws (they told me that PB2400 that caused screw looseness seemed to have a certain lot number and those machines seemed to be assembled at same place).

Although their first thought about the cause was the LCD unit or the inverter, but finally only the display unit was exchanged.

There is a number on the displayユs flame. The number of the broken one was 97/37 and that of the new one is 97/36. The numbers seemes to indicate that the old one and new one were assembled 37th week and 36th week in 1997 respectively, suggesting the display unit was exchanged to1 week older one. This made me to be doubt because both of them were almost same lot, meaning that same malfunction might happen. Then timely, the staff said, メIf the display unit is broken, the cost torepair would be pretty high. Would you like to join AppleCare?モ Althoughthe cost is JPY 23,000, finally I did not join it because I believedthat the staffユs words of that this kind of malfunction is rare.