Background:
Bought a Macbook nearly a year ago for my wife. Apple Care is about to run out. The computer stays on a table, never moved around, gets about an hour worth of use a day, and has worked pretty well barring one issue:

The harddrive failed a few months ago, and fortunately Apple Care got the harddrive replaced for free within about a week.

Just a few days ago however, the computer waited for her to hit the enter key on boot, as the machine wanted to know which device to boot from (The HDD is the only choice). I don't know if that might be a one-off or an indication that more harddrive or IDE controller troubles are on the way.

Anyway, if a logic board, DVD drive, or display connector issue arose in the next year or two, what sort of costs would someone have to repair said board/drive/connector?

I can do HDD and memory replacement with parts off the shelf. If any of those things went, I'd rather replace them myself with a larger, faster drive, than spend $300 (20% cost of a new machine) on two years of Apple Care.

Thoughts?

Thanks.

FWIW, you can get it here for $200 or even less on eBay last time I checked.

SIG Electronics, Apple Products (http://www.sigelectronics.com/Apple-i/Mac-Software;jsessionid=0a01034d1f438f65edf19d9147258a c3a54b1900624b.e3eSbNmTb3mTe34Pa38Ta38Nbxz0)

Logic board would run you around $1000, a display around $600-$700, and a DVD drive around $300 (estimates, all three).

Logic board would run you around $1000, a display around $600-$700, and a DVD drive around $300 (estimates, all three).

Good lord.
I thought these prices didn't look too bad, but your estimates essentially double what I thought they would be. MacBook Parts, Repair Services (http://www.dttservice.com/macbook.html)

Checking ebay.

The thing is that anything *other* than the hard drive or RAM failing is going to cost you well over the price of AppleCare, except perhaps for a power adapter failure. Read (http://www.ehmac.ca/anything-mac/45183-applecare-s-new-math-revisited-buy-applecare.html).

I think the $200 you'd spend for AppleCare more than pays for the grief you'd go through if anything else fails in the next two years. Isn't your time worth something? Seems like a no-brainer to me.

I think the $200 you'd spend for AppleCare more than pays for the grief you'd go through if anything else fails in the next two years. Isn't your time worth something? Seems like a no-brainer to me.

Just thought this would look better in bold.

Remember you have not only to buy it but REGISTER the machine with Applecare before the 366th day.

Well, I bit the bullet. No matter what happens over the next 24 months - covered either way - piece of mind. Thanks for the Sigs Electronics link above. $100 off isn't too shabby.

Couldn't ever see myself buying such a warranty for a desktop computer, but come to think how often laptops get moved around, powered off and on, very much sounds like a good idea to get the warranty.

Thanks.