Apple Refurb Store ROCKS

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matt fury

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So after a ton of agonizing, I ended up ordering a black CD Macbook from the Apple Refurb store a few weeks ago for $999. There was still a bit of concern in my head if I made the right purchase. Anyway, 2 weeks ago, I bought 2gb of ram for it, and didn't get around to installing it until last night. Just now, I'm putting away the old ram chips and the screwdrivers and shit and for some reason I look at the label on the ram from my MB and I see "1gb"!!!! My MB must've been a custom order model, and it came with 2x1gb of ram! I just reinstalled it and double checked. I'm so happy...last day I can return the ram, too!

The point is: shop with Apple, maybe you'll get lucky!
 
matt fury said:
So after a ton of agonizing, I ended up ordering a black CD Macbook from the Apple Refurb store a few weeks ago for $999. There was still a bit of concern in my head if I made the right purchase. Anyway, 2 weeks ago, I bought 2gb of ram for it, and didn't get around to installing it until last night. Just now, I'm putting away the old ram chips and the screwdrivers and shit and for some reason I look at the label on the ram from my MB and I see "1gb"!!!! My MB must've been a custom order model, and it came with 2x1gb of ram! I just reinstalled it and double checked. I'm so happy...last day I can return the ram, too!

The point is: shop with Apple, maybe you'll get lucky!
Click to expand...

I had a similar experience. About 4-6 weeks ago, I ordered a refurbbed Black MacBook CoreDuo. It was supposed to come with 512MB RAM. I already knew I was pulling it to move to 2GB. When I pulled the factory-supplied RAM, I found two 512s. What made this even better for me is that my color laser printer (Dell 3110cn) uses the same memory. So now my color laser is up to 640MB - which is totally overkill for me, but since I had it sitting around. . .
 
After the ram I dbl checked the hard drive too...only 80gb. guess the original orderer cheaped out there. :D
 
matt fury said:
After the ram I dbl checked the hard drive too...only 80gb. guess the original orderer cheaped out there. :D
Click to expand...

Think about it this way, return the RAM and trade that in for a 120GB or 160GB hard drive. Replacing them on a MacBook is easy enough.
 
Oh no problems here, I'm super happy about returning the ram. I considered the hd upgrade, but I don't really need it and would rather spend the money on headphones or a vid card for sure.
 
can someone go into more detail about upgrading the hd of a macbook? Clearly spending an additional 125 seems ridiculous for 40 gig of space. I didn't think about buying the cheapest and upgrading it myself. is it a standard hd? does it kill my warrenty (on the hd yes, but on the whole thing?)

thanks.
 
It's very easy (supposedly, it only takes like five minutes) and doesn't void any warranty. Shit, even replacing the hard drive in the iBook doesn't void the warranty, and that involves stripping the machine to its constituent parts!
 
bpimmerman said:
can someone go into more detail about upgrading the hd of a macbook? Clearly spending an additional 125 seems ridiculous for 40 gig of space. I didn't think about buying the cheapest and upgrading it myself. is it a standard hd? does it kill my warrenty (on the hd yes, but on the whole thing?)

thanks.
Click to expand...

I don't know how much detail you feel you need, but OWC has videos covering the whole process. Check this out - http://eshop.macsales.com/tech_center/installation.cfm
 
I've bought two refurb mac minis. The Intel one I got last week came with an extra stick of ram :)

Refurbs rock really :)
 
Yeah it's really easy to replace the HDD on MacBook's. It's in the compartment perpendicular to the memory modules. It's just a little white tab you pull out, then refit your own HDD to the brace on the stock one; which is just a few screws, and then plug the new one in. Works like a charm.

I reccomend snagging an external firewire or usb powered 2.5" HDD enclosure though so you can clone your MacBook's HDD to the new drive, do the swap, and go right back in to your original configuration if you had stuff you want to keep.

I used SuperDuper! for the cloning, worked like a charm. I tried CarbonCopyCloner before, but it turned out that some things didn't copy over correctly, such as the fonts for my stickies widget and such, so I did it again using SuperDuper! and it worked perfectly. I have since purchased SuperDuper! and use it to do the periodic backups to an external 3.5" 160GB drive I have for this machine.

The 80GB drive that was originally in this machine normally see's it's day to day uses as a storage drive for Movies and disk images of all my installed applications in case something happens and so I don't have to fill this main HDD up, but starting today it's going to get the 9A343 Leopard treatment which I've finally secured via the ADC and my CSCI 140 Lab assistant (huge Mac fan lol.)

Yup. Super easy to do, totally worth it in my opinion. Sad thing is, in order to burn the Leopard image I have, I need to use one of the new MacBook's with Dual Layer SuperDrive's... conveniently the girl down the hall just bought one of the new ones on my reccomendation and she's more than happy to lend it to me for a couple of minutes for the burning... I feel so innadequate... maybe it's time to hunt down a DL SuperDrive for my MB...
 
Apple giveth and Apple taketh away..kinda. Got an email today from one of my credit card companies offering me $100 off my Apple purchase of $1000 or more.. :mad:
 
Optional87 said:
Yeah it's really easy to replace the HDD on MacBook's. It's in the compartment perpendicular to the memory modules. It's just a little white tab you pull out, then refit your own HDD to the brace on the stock one; which is just a few screws, and then plug the new one in. Works like a charm.

I reccomend snagging an external firewire or usb powered 2.5" HDD enclosure though so you can clone your MacBook's HDD to the new drive, do the swap, and go right back in to your original configuration if you had stuff you want to keep.

I used SuperDuper! for the cloning, worked like a charm. I tried CarbonCopyCloner before, but it turned out that some things didn't copy over correctly, such as the fonts for my stickies widget and such, so I did it again using SuperDuper! and it worked perfectly. I have since purchased SuperDuper! and use it to do the periodic backups to an external 3.5" 160GB drive I have for this machine.

The 80GB drive that was originally in this machine normally see's it's day to day uses as a storage drive for Movies and disk images of all my installed applications in case something happens and so I don't have to fill this main HDD up, but starting today it's going to get the 9A343 Leopard treatment which I've finally secured via the ADC and my CSCI 140 Lab assistant (huge Mac fan lol.)

Yup. Super easy to do, totally worth it in my opinion. Sad thing is, in order to burn the Leopard image I have, I need to use one of the new MacBook's with Dual Layer SuperDrive's... conveniently the girl down the hall just bought one of the new ones on my reccomendation and she's more than happy to lend it to me for a couple of minutes for the burning... I feel so innadequate... maybe it's time to hunt down a DL SuperDrive for my MB...
Click to expand...

It's just a shame that external FW/USB enclosures for 2.5" SATA drives are still so expensive.

I've never had any problems with Carbon Copy Cloner. Just curious as to the font problem you mentioned about stickies. . .were the missing fonts available to other apps?
 
CreativeMac said:
It's just a shame that external FW/USB enclosures for 2.5" SATA drives are still so expensive.

I've never had any problems with Carbon Copy Cloner. Just curious as to the font problem you mentioned about stickies. . .were the missing fonts available to other apps?
Click to expand...

I reset them all and still no-go, it was an odd problem, but SuperDuper got it right where CCC slipped up, not that it's a bad app, just something happened in my case I think.

I got a USB-powered enclosure for 30$ at Fry's for my 80gb drive, didn't seem too bad to me.
 
It's really wierd that FW/USB SATA enclosures are so expensive when they're relatively cheap for IDE.
 
matt fury said:
It's really wierd that FW/USB SATA enclosures are so expensive when they're relatively cheap for IDE.
Click to expand...

ok yeah, what's with that? SATA is the future, learn to make it cheap already.
 
Optional87 said:
ok yeah, what's with that? SATA is the future, learn to make it cheap already.
Click to expand...

I guess I should clarify my response. If USB2 or eSATA will do it for you, then you can find 2.5" enclosures with internal SATA interface for ~$30. But if you need Firewire, then the cost more than doubles. I'm sure there are others out there, but so far this is the one I'm inclined to trust -
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MSTG800U2K/

In my experience, in OSX USB2 is about 20%-30% slower than FW400.
 
CreativeMac said:
I guess I should clarify my response. If USB2 or eSATA will do it for you, then you can find 2.5" enclosures with internal SATA interface for ~$30. But if you need Firewire, then the cost more than doubles. I'm sure there are others out there, but so far this is the one I'm inclined to trust -
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MSTG800U2K/

In my experience, in OSX USB2 is about 20%-30% slower than FW400.
Click to expand...

Right, gotcha, yeah FW400 is a must for any external enclosure for the Mac because Mac's can boot from firewire, and if you have a system failure you still have your backup FW drive to boot from to restore the main drive.

My 160GB drive is a 3.5" FW/USB enclosure and cost me 50 bucks (and that's because I bought the open box one at Fry's), normally 65.
 
Optional87 said:
Right, gotcha, yeah FW400 is a must for any external enclosure for the Mac because Mac's can boot from firewire, and if you have a system failure you still have your backup FW drive to boot from to restore the main drive.

My 160GB drive is a 3.5" FW/USB enclosure and cost me 50 bucks (and that's because I bought the open box one at Fry's), normally 65.
Click to expand...

Actually, the Intel-based Macs can boot from USB2 drives as well as FW. Anything previous will only boot from FW drives. As I mentioned, the biggest problem I have with USB2 drives is I find them to be significantly slower than FW under OSX.
 
I just recently bought a refurb as well. 15" MBP 2.33 c2d, 2 gb of ram. I love it.
 
CreativeMac said:
Actually, the Intel-based Macs can boot from USB2 drives as well as FW. Anything previous will only boot from FW drives. As I mentioned, the biggest problem I have with USB2 drives is I find them to be significantly slower than FW under OSX.
Click to expand...

I totally did not believe you, then I put my 80GB back into it's original external enclosure and went to the startup drive panel and sure enough, there it was, asking if I wanted to use it as the startup device...

Man, I wasted so much time with that other MacBook for the dual layer burning today.. gah.
 
Optional87 said:
I totally did not believe you, then I put my 80GB back into it's original external enclosure and went to the startup drive panel and sure enough, there it was, asking if I wanted to use it as the startup device...

Man, I wasted so much time with that other MacBook for the dual layer burning today.. gah.
Click to expand...

May I suggest these two pieces -
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827129001
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817146607


:)
 
i have that 5.25 macally External, its for sale if you like. ill take 15$ under new price.

let me know.


its a wonderful enclosure. its just sitting here not getting used though.

my aol name is kgeier82

ill even throw in a dvdburner, for another 20$.

its also new, not used barely at all. no need now that i have the pro.

more specs on the dvdrw drive.




i know this isnt a for sale thread, but i saw the interest arise.
 
Upgrade the harddrive so you can download more... are you ready for this?

PORNOGRAPHY!

It's an absolute must for any respectable computer users nowadays to be sporting over 100GB in their mobil porn station.

All kidding aside, congrats on the purchase. I bought an iPod refurb around Christmas and it was immaculate. Needless to say, the next purchase I make will be refurbed as well. I'm waiting for Mac Pros to show up in their stores.
 
a ronin said:
Upgrade the harddrive so you can download more... are you ready for this?

PORNOGRAPHY!

It's an absolute must for any respectable computer users nowadays to be sporting over 100GB in their mobil porn station.

All kidding aside, congrats on the purchase. I bought an iPod refurb around Christmas and it was immaculate. Needless to say, the next purchase I make will be refurbed as well. I'm waiting for Mac Pros to show up in their stores.
Click to expand...

Apple has been offering refurbbed Mac Pros for a while now. The 2GHz is currently $1900, the 2.66GHz @ $2200 and the 3GHz @ $3299.

Apple Refurb Store
 
CreativeMac said:
Apple has been offering refurbbed Mac Pros for a while now. The 2GHz is currently $1900, the 2.66GHz @ $2200 and the 3GHz @ $3299.

Apple Refurb Store
Click to expand...

I'm in Canada. None as yet, but I'm also not in any particular hurry as I'm still enjoying the MBP I received for Xmas. It would also be advantageous to wait for Leopard to arrive which brings up an interesting question. Would Apple furnish all their refurb stock with updated OS or ship them with whatever version that it originally came with? I'm thinking the former since they wouldn't want one cannibalizing the other.
 
a ronin said:
I'm in Canada. None as yet, but I'm also not in any particular hurry as I'm still enjoying the MBP I received for Xmas. It would also be advantageous to wait for Leopard to arrive which brings up an interesting question. Would Apple furnish all their refurb stock with updated OS or ship them with whatever version that it originally came with? I'm thinking the former since they wouldn't want one cannibalizing the other.
Click to expand...

Couple things -

- Check Small Dog (www.smalldog.com) once in a while. They often have refurbbed machines as well, and shouldn't have an issue taking orders from Canadian residents. I just checked their site and no Mac Pros right now.

- I would disagree with you with regards to waiting on Leopard. Based on everything I've heard, we're still at least 4-6 weeks out from release - probably more. I have a very hard time advising clients to delay a hardware purchase unless I feel a hardware revision or OS release is absolutely imminent - say within two weeks. It's too easy to convince yourself to wait for the "next big thing" - and if you adopt that mindset, you'll never buy anything. You'll simply wait for the next thing to come along.

Traditionally, when Apple releases a new version of OSX, they say that anyone who purchased a machine between X day and Y day will get a copy of the OS for free - well, free + like $10 for shipping.
 
matt fury said:
So after a ton of agonizing, I ended up ordering a black CD Macbook from the Apple Refurb store a few weeks ago for $999. There was still a bit of concern in my head if I made the right purchase. Anyway, 2 weeks ago, I bought 2gb of ram for it, and didn't get around to installing it until last night. Just now, I'm putting away the old ram chips and the screwdrivers and shit and for some reason I look at the label on the ram from my MB and I see "1gb"!!!! My MB must've been a custom order model, and it came with 2x1gb of ram! I just reinstalled it and double checked. I'm so happy...last day I can return the ram, too!

The point is: shop with Apple, maybe you'll get lucky!
Click to expand...

Same thing happened to me as well. I ordered a refurb Mac Pro last month and I thought I was getting 2GB of RAM But I got 4GB of RAM and I thought I was getting a 250 GB HDD but I got a 500 GB HDD. Thanks Apple for the extra grand of upgrades! :) For the record I always buy refurb or open box Macs.
 
EricTheOracle said:
Same thing happened to me as well. I ordered a refurb Mac Pro last month and I thought I was getting 2GB of RAM But I got 4GB of RAM and I thought I was getting a 250 GB HDD but I got a 500 GB HDD. Thanks Apple for the extra grand of upgrades! :) For the record I always buy refurb or open box Macs.
Click to expand...

Considering the price of RAM for the Mac Pro, an extra 2GB RAM is indeed a big friggin deal :)
 
OC 335i said:
I just recently bought a refurb as well. 15" MBP 2.33 c2d, 2 gb of ram. I love it.
Click to expand...

How much did you land it for after tax/shipping and all? BTW nice laptop to purchase. I just played with a lower end MBP and it was awesome. I'm totally going to sell my 15" G4 Powerbook which I upgraded the HD from 5400rpm 60gb toshiba (stock) to 80GB seagate 7200rpm.
 
It was $1999 plus tax. Shipping was free. Also used the deal where I got a $100 rebate off a coupon.
 
I think that price is for a 15" high end MBP. You can always check prices at www.apple.com (I was just curious as to how much others pay for their setup as I'm looking into a MB)
 
/Orders MBP 15" the ship date says "Ships by: Feb 16 - Feb 21" Do you think they will get it shipped out tomorrow, (I ordered it @ 1:02 if that matters) or will it be shipped out Friday, or is it just hit and miss?
 
I barley slept last night /geek


So do you know if I get a tracking number? I did overnight shipping, so it should in theory be here Friday (provided it goes out today) Also who did they use to ship it, and will I have to sign for it?

thanks!
 
Just checked and a whole bunch of stuff has popped up since yesterday. They even have a couple of CD MB's in there!!! Damn good pricing and with my school discount I get the AppleCare at a discounted price, however no discount on the refurb:( oh well still will be a good deal once I get the money to get one!!
 
How do refurbished Macbook pros looks cosmetically? Do they come with any dings or scratches, or are they basically like new?
 
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