Older iBook G3 Has Bad Smell That Fills Up Living Room When Lid Opened

Question

Folks, a client dropped off an older iBook G3 Friday and it was placed into a large plastic bag, along with its power supply and was closed. Yesterday I opened the lid and plugged it in, went outside to water the garden and after several minutes when I returned, the whole living roomed smelled like BO, or like someone who had been drunk for a week and passed out without a bath. I know the lady who uses it and she is a very tidy person, so she wouldn't have caused it
Granted, this is an older laptop and I always clean all laptops, the keyboard, screen, mousepad, etc with several special cloths and cleaners. My iBook G4 that I clean at least twice a week has no aroma, odors at all, always smells clean and fresh like any laptop should.
The computer had major problems and after 2 hours of troubleshooting, I just erased the HD, installed Panther on a 9GB HD and then a big kernal panic message and frozen cursor. Smell is still there. Could the HD be causing this odor, it is the org and quite ready to upgrade.
I have heard from others about this same odor problems. Any suggestions on how I can safely clean it up with sprays or whatever? We were going to give the laptop to a friend as a gift when it's fixed until she can afford to buy a new ProBook
Thanks SteveB

Answer 1

Seriously, I just got back from the Apple Store after waiting 2 hours for "genius" support. Apple refuses to acknowledge this problem -- the tech says unless he hears it from an Apple engineer it could be "anything". I asked him to smell the iBook and he agreed it smelled bad, but he couldn't confirm exactly what was causing it.
I pointed him to this post and the numerous others on Apple's Discussions and Support forums, but this is just "anecdotal".
I think if you have this many people publicly suffering a problem, there are undoubtedly 10 times that many suffering in silence or who dumped it on someone without telling them about the problem (I mean how many people want to buy a USED SMELLY IBOOK?) Yeah, it's a huge joke on the forums... 31,000 hits on google alone for "ibook smelly".
How many people have to report this problem or take their ibooks in before someone at Apple DOES DIAGNOSE THE REAL CAUSE OF THIS PROBLEM?!?! Look, I'll gladly donate my laptop, take it, ship it back to Cupertino, have the hardware engineers pour over it for 2 months. But you won't take me up on the offer or anyone else for that matter, will you?
Apple Support, I think you are full of it. You know exactly what this problem is and for product liability reasons you have decided to treat your customers like stupid sheep and simply refuse to "confirm or deny" any problem exists.
I don't appreciate it and it will weigh in my mind heavily as I decide my next computer purchase. I can't stand Vista, but Ubuntu is looking very good these days and it doesn't SMELL like sweaty armpits!
(I realize a lot of other iBook owners don't have this problem, which is wonderful, because it really is a great little notebook. But I'm sure you would feel the same way if it didn't smell so sweet.)
Message was edited by: Larry Kyrala