Replacement for Mac Pro superdrive?
Okay, so I got one of the "early 2008" Mac Pro's with the dual quad-core 3.2ghz Xeons (8-cores total), with AppleCare (£141).
Recently however, I've discovered that the super-drive that came with it is defective. It reads DVDs/CDs but extremely slowly, it took over an hour to import a CD with read-rates in iTunes ranging from 0.5x to 15.4x. I assumed it was just the CD, but I've since tried to play a DVD and am having the same trouble, with every disk that I try.
I've done some searching around and get the impression that the drives included in the Mac Pros are actually pretty rubbish, heck, you can buy them online for £15, in a machine that cost in excess of £3,000 that's a bit of a blow.
So anyway, I phoned AppleCare and they said a lot of conflicting things. Firstly, if I want to replace the drive, I have to take it into an Apple certified repair shop. That's not happening, as it would cost me more than £15 to get TO the place, double that for the return trip to get it back, and factor in productivity lost and you're looking at a good £200-300 for three days without the machine. Not really worth it. The guy however is adamant that I can't just get a replacement sent out despite how easy it is to install, but also said that AppleCare is void if I even open the machine? Huh? I couldn't get transferred to someone else to confirm this so just lost patience and gave up with the support line. Can anyone confirm/deny if this is the case? I mean what's the point in having an easily expandable/upgradable Mac with included step-by-step instructions on how to add and replace stuff if you're not allowed to touch it?
This of course is a problem because I opted to save myself around £1,000 by installing extra RAM and hard-drives myself, didn't touch the DVD drive or anything else, didn't have to as Apple have engineered the machine well.
If someone could clarify my options regarding the AppleCare then it would be much appreciated, as I don't see the value for money in spending £141 for peace-of-mind when it actually costs me more money to get things replaced than it would to do it myself. If I can't get the part under AppleCare then I'd much rather just have them give me the money to get the part myself; this isn't what I'm paying for. I also can't find anywhere in the ****** guide book anything that says what can and can't be replaced by the user, it just mentions a lot of repair options but apparently I don't have any options at all.
Secondly, since getting the replacement done under AppleCare seems to be pointless, can anyone suggest a good alternative drive? I'm not looking for anything higher than £50 as I don't need super-high speed DVD writing, heck, I rarely write disks at all, but it's nice to have the option.
Recently however, I've discovered that the super-drive that came with it is defective. It reads DVDs/CDs but extremely slowly, it took over an hour to import a CD with read-rates in iTunes ranging from 0.5x to 15.4x. I assumed it was just the CD, but I've since tried to play a DVD and am having the same trouble, with every disk that I try.
I've done some searching around and get the impression that the drives included in the Mac Pros are actually pretty rubbish, heck, you can buy them online for £15, in a machine that cost in excess of £3,000 that's a bit of a blow.
So anyway, I phoned AppleCare and they said a lot of conflicting things. Firstly, if I want to replace the drive, I have to take it into an Apple certified repair shop. That's not happening, as it would cost me more than £15 to get TO the place, double that for the return trip to get it back, and factor in productivity lost and you're looking at a good £200-300 for three days without the machine. Not really worth it. The guy however is adamant that I can't just get a replacement sent out despite how easy it is to install, but also said that AppleCare is void if I even open the machine? Huh? I couldn't get transferred to someone else to confirm this so just lost patience and gave up with the support line. Can anyone confirm/deny if this is the case? I mean what's the point in having an easily expandable/upgradable Mac with included step-by-step instructions on how to add and replace stuff if you're not allowed to touch it?
This of course is a problem because I opted to save myself around £1,000 by installing extra RAM and hard-drives myself, didn't touch the DVD drive or anything else, didn't have to as Apple have engineered the machine well.
If someone could clarify my options regarding the AppleCare then it would be much appreciated, as I don't see the value for money in spending £141 for peace-of-mind when it actually costs me more money to get things replaced than it would to do it myself. If I can't get the part under AppleCare then I'd much rather just have them give me the money to get the part myself; this isn't what I'm paying for. I also can't find anywhere in the ****** guide book anything that says what can and can't be replaced by the user, it just mentions a lot of repair options but apparently I don't have any options at all.
Secondly, since getting the replacement done under AppleCare seems to be pointless, can anyone suggest a good alternative drive? I'm not looking for anything higher than £50 as I don't need super-high speed DVD writing, heck, I rarely write disks at all, but it's nice to have the option.
MacPro (2 x Quad-core 3.2ghz Xeon), Mac OS X (10.5.2), 10gb RAM, 4 x 750gb hard-drives (RAID-0)
