3 ms·

That's the dream, isn't it? :P Repairable, or, especially, upgradeable Macs are absolutely a fever dream of mine.

google234123 6y ago
How many hours of specialist work would it be to find and replace a single tiny faulty IC on a large PCB? I can't imagine it's actually cost effective.
- MrTastie 6y ago
  Not many. When you work with the same boards over and over, you tend to know the places to check when certain issues come up. Fewer dollars in man-hours than the cost of a board replacement.
- PurpleFoxy 6y ago
  It’s not so bad if you can get enough customers and it’s all the same laptop. Lewis Rossman has a very good knowledge of the MacBook internals and he can very quickly identify which chip is dead because it’s often the same chips that fail and they give the same symptoms so with a few voltage checks with a multi meter you can work out what chip needs replacing. The problem is the suppliers for apple have tightened protocols and they won’t talk to him anymore so what used to be $1 in new parts and $40 in effort is now telling the customer to throw their MacBook in the bin. The economics also changes in other countries where the cost of a laptop far exceeds the wages of the people living there so having someone mess around with it for a few days is still more cost effective than getting a new one.
- genmud 6y ago
  Depends on the fault. If the schematics are readily available and replacement parts are there, it would take maybe 20-40 minutes of troubleshooting? Sure its complicated, but if you charge $150-200/hour, it can certainly be cost effective when the alternative is $1200 for a new PCB or $2500 for a new laptop.
  - 908B64B197 6y ago
    > $1200 for a new PCB That's probably not what it costs Apple. Especially with the M1, they pay per square inch of wafer, not chip...
    - genmud 6y ago
      Definitely not, but the way they probably calculate this is: Total Bill of Materials = display + motherboard + laptop case + keyboard + trackpad + charger + cable Then they figure out what percentage each subassembly costs in the BOM and then divide by the retail price of the product, maybe rounding up a hundred or two. So if for example the motherboard is 40% of the total BOM of a $2500 laptop, you have a $1,000 motherboard right there.
- devwastaken 6y ago
  Lookup louis rossman. It's very effective - especially when macbooks have common failures.
- simion314 6y ago
  Many times the same parts fail over and over, you do not start checking from A to Z. Honestly I am expecting somone to comment that he made a neural network that will detect the exact problem just from the error codes and a board picture, maybe an infrared one too.
- stefan_ 6y ago
  You are forgetting that many faults are from more or less design issues on the particular product revisions so there is a lot to be said for identifying the fault pattern once, then just applying it over and over again. Then, the cost you are competing with is the replacement cost for typically the entire logic board, which can easily be $800 - that buys a lot of hours. That said there is a kernel of truth here which is that component level repair requires diagnostic acumen, creativity and some mechanical skill. That requires some actual expertise, training, .. in your repair business instead of hiring monkeys that replace full boards no matter what.
- rasz 6y ago
  0.1 to 2 hours at ~$350 flat fee.

How many hours of specialist work would it be to find and replace a single tiny faulty IC on a large PCB? I can't imagine it's actually cost effective.

MrTastie 6y ago
Not many. When you work with the same boards over and over, you tend to know the places to check when certain issues come up. Fewer dollars in man-hours than the cost of a board replacement.
PurpleFoxy 6y ago
It’s not so bad if you can get enough customers and it’s all the same laptop. Lewis Rossman has a very good knowledge of the MacBook internals and he can very quickly identify which chip is dead because it’s often the same chips that fail and they give the same symptoms so with a few voltage checks with a multi meter you can work out what chip needs replacing. The problem is the suppliers for apple have tightened protocols and they won’t talk to him anymore so what used to be $1 in new parts and $40 in effort is now telling the customer to throw their MacBook in the bin. The economics also changes in other countries where the cost of a laptop far exceeds the wages of the people living there so having someone mess around with it for a few days is still more cost effective than getting a new one.
genmud 6y ago
Depends on the fault. If the schematics are readily available and replacement parts are there, it would take maybe 20-40 minutes of troubleshooting? Sure its complicated, but if you charge $150-200/hour, it can certainly be cost effective when the alternative is $1200 for a new PCB or $2500 for a new laptop.
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  > $1200 for a new PCB That's probably not what it costs Apple. Especially with the M1, they pay per square inch of wafer, not chip...
  - genmud 6y ago
    Definitely not, but the way they probably calculate this is: Total Bill of Materials = display + motherboard + laptop case + keyboard + trackpad + charger + cable Then they figure out what percentage each subassembly costs in the BOM and then divide by the retail price of the product, maybe rounding up a hundred or two. So if for example the motherboard is 40% of the total BOM of a $2500 laptop, you have a $1,000 motherboard right there.
devwastaken 6y ago
Lookup louis rossman. It's very effective - especially when macbooks have common failures.
simion314 6y ago
Many times the same parts fail over and over, you do not start checking from A to Z. Honestly I am expecting somone to comment that he made a neural network that will detect the exact problem just from the error codes and a board picture, maybe an infrared one too.
stefan_ 6y ago
You are forgetting that many faults are from more or less design issues on the particular product revisions so there is a lot to be said for identifying the fault pattern once, then just applying it over and over again. Then, the cost you are competing with is the replacement cost for typically the entire logic board, which can easily be $800 - that buys a lot of hours. That said there is a kernel of truth here which is that component level repair requires diagnostic acumen, creativity and some mechanical skill. That requires some actual expertise, training, .. in your repair business instead of hiring monkeys that replace full boards no matter what.
rasz 6y ago
0.1 to 2 hours at ~$350 flat fee.