[X4U] AppleCare Status codes

[Zane H. Healy]

My dual G5 2x2 is in for repairs at the local Apple Store, and Applecare
expires on the 31st.  It is in becuase of the cyan artifacting that I
reported on my screen a couple months ago.  It returned a few days ago, and
I was able to get TechTool from the Apple website to tell me that it is VRAM
corruption.  Of course by the time I got in to them it had stopped doing it
again.  They were going to run their special diagnostic's on it, as my word
doesn't seem to be good enough.  They have to see the problem before they
replace the faulty part.  Considering I went weeks betweek the problem
appearing, and that I now have less than a week left on my Applecare to get
a $300 video card replaced, I'm more than a little nervous.

I've been checking the "In-Store Repair Status" webpage. I took it in
Tuesday evening and yesterday (Thursday) it finally showed up as "Repair
Pending", and then later went to "Repair in Progress".

According to http://www.apple.com/support/help/getstatus/ which shows what
the different codes mean this translates to the following.

"Repair Pending" = Repair will begin shortly once the product has been
recieved.

"Repair in Progress" = Repair work has begun on your product

My question is, what does this really mean?  Have they finished the
diagnostics and are waiting on the Video card?  They were supposed to have
ordered the Video Card on Tuesday while I was standing there.  Any
idea's/experience?  This is my first time dealing with Applecare, actually
this is my first time dealing with someone other than me repairing a
computer I own.  I've been known to go as far as taking a soldering iron to
previous Mac's motherboards to repair them, and using oscilliscope to
troubleshoot faulty core memory in another system.  Basically what I'm
saying is I know what I'm doing and it makes me nervous to have someone else
working on my hardware.  The reason I got Applecare was as an insurance
policy to cover any dead parts, figuring they'd just send me a new part, not
make me take the system in for them to repair it.

BTW, I feel rather ripped off.  I bought the G5 in the middle of November,
and there records show it was the 14th, yet the Applecare expires on the
31st of October.  This does not make me happy.  Is this standard?

		Zane