#FF00AA

It wasn’t easy (having a transporter deliver a package to your home is about as easy and pleasant as canceling an AOL account), but I finally did receive the replacement power supply on due date — only 48 hours after I ordered it. That’s nice service, isn’t it?

Nevermind that prying the faulty PSU from the iMac was insanely difficult — now that I’ve done it, I’m a bit puzzled they actually let users do it themselves; how many inconveniently-placed capacitors must have been ripped out of the logic board by iMac owners desperate to get their PSU out? Well, I wanted to do it myself, so I’m not going to complain.

What I’m going to focus on, though, is that the replacement power supply they shipped wasn’t new. The laser-printed instruction leaflet is very specific about that: your replacement part may be new, or refurbished, or made of matchsticks and peanut butter. And mine was (refurbished), as evidenced by the screwdriver marks on the logic board connector, and the wear marks caused by the iMac’s case screw. Well, fair enough, I guess. They must have salvaged it from a broken iMac. Or it was a previously returned power supply that they fixed, and tested, and put back into the system. Or it wasn’t faulty at all, they only tested it. Because they must have tested it, right? Right?

Listen to this (MP3, 590KB, it sounds a bit more electric in real life, but the sound volume is pretty much right). Oh, yes, my computer works, and I could finally reinstall OS X (which is amazingly simple, actually — when I saw people recommending an “Archive & Install” when something went wrong in your system, I was outraged, traumatized as I was by Windows, but it really is pretty innocuous) without losing power, and I’ve been able to use it for a few hours now. But it sounds like it’s going to explode. Yes, the sound comes directly from the power supply, and it starts as soon as power is on and only stops when power is off, and I have exactly zero doubt that it was returned by a “picky” customer and Apple decided it was just a cosmetic issue and it worked just fine. It doesn’t seem to be particularly overheating, but it doesn’t sound very reassuring, does it? I’m weary of leaving my computer on for too long, and leaving it on unattended is out of the question until I manage to get an other replacement. Why does technical support always have to be a losing fight? Why do they have to be so petty? Are they going to test my previous power supply for five minutes, decide it works, and send it back to another poor unsuspecting soul?

Sure, I’ve only been Mac-less for 48 hours — so far; can’t assume that the new PSU isn’t going to fail within a few hours — but I’m still pretty close to actualizing the worst fears I had when I switched to the Mac. How are hacked OS X-on-PC installs doing these days?