Mac As-is Checklist

Work in progress.

Laptop incoming: Instructor sorts as-is machines from potential keepers (tentative evaluation method is PPCs and previous are as-is/recycle, Intel macs are keepers). As-is machines may also be keepers that have missing parts or major issues.

Current provisional procedure is to remove the HDD. This can be a 30 minute+ process for some models, depending on the builder's skill level. An alternative option would be preferable. Check processor type and speed (in OSX? In EFI/open firmware?/Ubuntu?) Check installed RAM amount (512 MB?) Affix As-Is label and have instructor sign off

Need

• General guidelines for categorizing systems with warranties/as-is/scrap there is this
• Legacy triaging process for Friday shifts (specifically what the other shifts can recycle)
• Clear evaluation documentation. May need to have some model-specific information (i.e which systems to remove hard drives from, and which models are best bad-blocked).

ifixit.com difficulty ratings by model

• PowerBook G4 Titanium Mercury: Easy
• PowerBook G4 Titanium Onyx: Moderate (flexible plastic parts, easy to lose parts)
• PowerBook G4 Titanium DVI: Moderate (same reasons as Titanium Onyx)
• PowerBook G4 Aluminum 15": Moderate to Difficult depending on exact model
• PowerBook G4 Aluminium 17": Moderate
• MacBook Core Duo: Easy
• MacBook Core 2 Duo: Easy
• MacBook Unibody: Easy
• MacBook Unibody A1342: Moderate
• MacBook Pro Unibody 13"(2009 onwards): Moderate

So basically without looking up the exact model disassembly guide, it's not very practical in a lot of cases to have an inexperienced builder remove the hard drive and reassemble. We'd also need to be pretty good about having drives available to install right away so a machine is only ever disassembled once.

Questions

• Are all mac as-is machines sold with hard drives for the time being, or should we remove them when possible?

  at this point all machines should have drives removed, as-is machines should be (tentatively) triaged as we triage as-is laptops (no more complete PPC testing?)

Also see this page MacBuild_Specs