Report: Smoke While Using a Mac and They Won't Fix It When It Breaks

• No good opera plot can be reasonable, for people do not sing when they are feeling rational.

• So like 3 laptops weren't fixed, who really cares???

• I started my computer tech back when a gigabyte drive was a millionaire's dream and one thing we were quite clear on with these expensive little machines, don't smoke around them. It's not so much the toxins in the smoke as the resins. If you've ever tried to clean a lamp from a smoker's home you'll know about that resin that yellows walls and leaves it's smelly funk on every surface. The resin molecules are small enough to infiltrate every component, even the hard drive, and gradually coat said bits with a thick sticky resin. This slows moving parts, reduces electrical transmission, and causes overheating. It absolutely should void warranty. Go get your fix outside. You'll spare your family, pets, equipment, and furnishings a lot of grief.

• I was a "Mac Genius" at an Apple Store in NYC for several years. In that time, I saw quite a few computers that were obviously used by heavy smokers. I say "obvious" because it was: these computers' innards were caked with sticky yellow gunk. It was a thin layer, but it was on everything. People often forget that computers "breathe": they suck in air to cool themselves and then blow out the hot air. If you smoke in front of the computer, it sucks in the smoke and all the nasty stuff in it, and it gets all over the inside. The CD drive and fans tended to suffer from it the most. We usually fixed these under warranty regardless, but there were certainly times where the problem seemed related to the smoke damage. In those cases customers had to pay for the repair.

• Also, Powerbook warranty? Every Powerbook in existence is out of warranty by now.

• No, the air in midtown is NOT on par with cigarette smoke.

• The air quality in LA (especially at sundown) and NYC (in midtown) is on a par with being exposed to cigarette smoke. Does that mean I void my Powerbook warranty by using it daily in Starbucks on Madison Ave?

• It's worth pointing out that Consumerist has found a whopping total of <i>two</i> people (in cases separated by several months) that had their warranty voided for that reason. I'm betting that there are a lot more smokers than that who have sent their Apple computers in for repair; these two are probably edge cases.

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