YESSSS!
Funny thing, but this exercise proved me a genius. Why? Well, when I first took the Cinema Display to The Apple Store's Genius Bar, the resident Genius who worked with me declined to take the display's power supply. In fact, he used the store's power brick to test the monitor and confirm that it was dead... but he never tested my brick. So, when I got the repaired monitor back and plugged it in with my supply, the monitor was uncannily bright. I mean, it was like sitting in front of one of those light therapy boxes people use to treat Seasonal Affective Disorder. I dimmed it as much as the controls allowed, and it was still brighter than my seven year old lucite 23" Cinema HD WFO (Wide Fucking Open. LOL!). When the monitor burned out after a mere thirty hours, I figured that my power supply must be malfunctioning, and sending the display too much power. Way too much power.
At my second appointment, a different resident Genius - both of them were nice guys, mind you. I'm not slamming them at all - took my case, and went through the same test as the first, with the same results, natch. When I told him I suspected that my power supply was burning the monitor out, he quick plugged it into a 20" Cinema HD he had for testing, and I thought it was too bright, but he thought it was fine. I got him to send my brick in with the monitor this time - "OK, if it will make you feel better." - and guess what? Yup, I WAS RIGHT! The original power supply I got was malfunctioning and wrecking the monitor, so they gave me a new one, free of any charges but the original repair. Oh, that was $275.00, which still made my original purchase good, but not screaming great like it would have been without any troubles.
I was thinking about actually buying another G5 and Cinema HD display for a backup, and then I had another masterstroke: BUY AND HOT ROD AN OLD G4 CUBE! Since my old lucite 23" display is still fine, all I'd need would be the Cube, a pair of those special Cube USB speakers, and a GeForce 2 Dual graphics card, and I'd have a very inexpensive backup system! Long time readers will remember I had a hot rod Cube before the Mini - and, truth is, the Mini is still no replacement for a Cube - so that's what I did. I can't believe how cheap Cubes are on eBay now! Bought a Cube, 1GB of RAM, the GeForce 2, an original AirPort card, the Cube USB speakers, and another MiniMate Firewire/USB HD and Hub (It will be a CubeMate, while my original MiniMate will go with my AirPort Extreme Base Station as a network HD), plus, I bough a second complete Cube system for my mom! She currently has an old PC I hate - have no idea how to fix the thing except by trial and error when it messes up - and so now she'll have something Apple, something cool, and something I can work on. I did all of this for WAY less than my G5/Cinema system cost too.
Damn, I'm good.
She looks like she has doubts about my extreme awesomeness.
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