#mj.rtf

hi y’all. the universe is stacking expenses on this household so i need some advice!!

TL;DR macbook broke, am poor—third party repair, or a new computer altogether? i’m based in PDX

since i lost my day job almost 6 months ago i’ve been relying on contract editorial work for income (servicescape SpinningYarns. hire me). apparently my 2017 MacBook Pro (13” no touch bar) has been quietly feeling the strain; after a software update on Monday evening, i sat down to work on Tuesday and found that i couldn’t connect to my wifi. my partner was actively working from home just fine, and none of the other devices in our house were having connection issues.

clicking on the wifi icon (which is grayed out with a superimposed ❕) only shows that wifi is “turned off.” i can’t interact further with my MacBook’s wifi settings at all in any way—not through UI, not through terminal. option-clicking the toolbar icon does not open any of the settings windows that redditors said it would. after hours of research and pursual of dead ends (that included deleting .plist files and resetting both NVRAM and SMC), i’m reaching the grim conclusion that my AirPort chip is probably fried. apple loves extortion, so they solder that thing onto the logic board with the RAM and the processor. just to make repairs that much harder. a wizard must either do computer brain surgery for me or give my computer a whole new logic board.

in these vile generative-algorithm times, being a freelance editor is NOT lucrative. i don’t even have bills covered with what i bring in. someone also recently burgled my car so i’m actively trying to replace about $250 in everyday possessions.*

what should my next move be/what are my most affordable options? if (obviously cheaper) third party repair is a good idea, how do i even find someone to trust to do that? is repairing this even worth it? i’m kind of sick of apple’s BS and i’d be comfortable moving to another OS, especially because my editing work in Word is limited when I do it on an Apple computer. would i be better off getting my current laptop repaired or should i just start scrimping for a better computer? like a desktop model for a real grown up? i do some limited print design work as well, so graphics aren’t a huge deal to me but are a plus