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Recent Columns - John H Farr
• Photoshop Elements 8 - Review
Wednesday, 01/20/10
• Adobe Photoshop CS4 - Review
Thursday, 06/18/09
• Adobe Creative Suite 4 Master Collection - First Look
Monday, 12/01/08
• Drive Genius 2 - Review
Monday, 07/21/08
• The Principles of Beautiful Web Design - Book Review
Monday, 11/12/07
Recent Blogs - John H Farr
• The Great iMac Adventure, Part III
Thursday, 07/02/09
• The Great iMac Adventure, Part II
Sunday, 05/31/09
• The Great iMac Adventure, Part I
Friday, 05/22/09
• New iMacs, Minis Tomorrow
Monday, 03/02/09
• iPhone Roaming Bug with AT&T?
Friday, 02/27/09
Archive - John H Farr
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Mountain MacBook: R.I.P.?
John H Farr
Columnist
Thursday, 08/17/06
 The article description says it all. My beautiful new MacBook essentially died after about six weeks of heavy use, and now it's on its way to Small Dog to see what their tech department has to say.
But imagine my surprise this a.m. when I saw that Marc Zeedar has precisely the same problems with his own MacBook (read the full MacOPINION post). His article sounds like I wrote it. How utterly uncanny. That means my MacBook wasn't the only one, obviously, and since the symptoms absolutely match my own (and we're not the only ones), Apple has a problem.
Here's what to watch for:
1. The MacBook suddenly goes black. No sound, no fans, no nothing. Dead as a doornail.
2. Pushing the power button may restart it or MAY NOT! Aaaaghh!!!
3. Performing any sort of "fix" like resetting the PMU or reseating the RAM may get it going for a little while, then the shutdowns start again.
The worst thing is that when you do some research on the Web, you'll find that Apple's response to this through dealers, Apple stores, and AppleCare reps, is as Marc says, "all over the map." IMHO Apple needs to issue (irony) a general recall, capitalist's confession, amnesty, certificate of spiritual purity or something (/irony). This is a messy business, and God knows how it will turn out.
Right now I'm counting on the vendor. I'm not surprised that Apple hasn't said anything about the DeadBooks, because a) most of the hot-selling MacBooks are apparently just fine, thank you, and b) even when they do get their acts together, corporations change course more slowly than supertankers, and it's also a fact of life that thousands of different Apple reps will likely respond in thousands of different ways until the word comes down from on high.
And even then!
UPDATE: 8-18-06, 1:55 a.m. MDT -- Marc's follow-up piece is now posted at MacOPINION. The short version is, he took it to an Apple Store, and a week later -- they did a lot of testing -- Marc received a new MacBook. Well done, Apple. I'll certainly let everyone know how it turns out with mine.
But you know something's been improved in production when you read this:
In fact, the new computer is astonishingly cooler than the old one. On my original MacBook, as I reported in my MacOpinion review series, the CPU got very hot (to 70 degrees Celsius) without hardly doing anything (just launching a text editor would do it). The new one rarely gets over 27 degrees Celsius even when I've got multiple apps loaded and I'm using GarageBand to do some intense manipulations.
That's a pretty radical improvement, and Marc's new MacBook doesn't randomly shut down. The beat-up 500 MHz TiBook I'm using at the moment has never skipped a beat, either. Dependable as a sledgehammer and a railroad spike. Have you ever had a hammer failure? I didn't think so.
What a great computer, though. The MacBook's speed and glossy screen are fabuloso. If yours is running fine, don't worry, and I'd still recommend you buy one (evidently they're selling like cheap fast shiny laptops). I figure if the one Marc got in exchange runs so much cooler, things have improved at the factory.
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Had you done backups/archives of your precious new MacBook data files, John? [Nemo]
Posted by John Nemerovski
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Oh yeah. As soon as the trouble started, I made sure any Web sites I'd worked on were transferred to backup drives. Actually, there wasn't much that I needed to back up: HTML files, a few images, bookmarks... Mail wasn't a problem, since any of my other computers can download the messages.
Nothing else is on the MacBook that matters.
Posted by John H Farr
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My MacBook Pro had that problem. I sent it back, Apple sent me a new one. No more problem. Why would Apple have to issue a general recall when only a fraction of all the units has this problem?
It sucks when you have a problem but generalizing to all MacBook owners is silly.
Posted by jdb8167
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Obviously I'm only talking about people with DEFECTIVE MacBooks. You may keep your new MacBook Pro, it's OK.
Posted by John H Farr
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Same problems here. I've confirmed that many (not all) MacBooks have shipped with faulty logic boards that eventually seize. Overheating, failure to sleep through any means, and eventual death led me to an Apple Store, where they replaced the logic board as well as the top keyboard case (although mine had not yet shown significant discoloration). Works great now, no further issues except for the power adapter hiss (ick) and the fan "mooing" (to be fixed with a new SMC firmware update just released). Do visit/call Apple; they aren't advertising about it, of course, but they will fix things up.
Posted by Spencerian
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Mine has gone back to Small Dog's tech department, and they may ship it off to Apple or fix it themselves, I have no idea. Mine also has the bad trackpad button, so I'm hoping for an outright replacement. Good to hear that yours is fine after the logic board transplant. Oddly or not, my MacBook never mooed or had its power adapter hiss at me.
But I do love that computer. Whether it's repaired or replaced, I'll enjoy having it back again.
Posted by John H Farr
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As many readers know here, I have serious issues with Apple service in general. Sometimes it is very good, sometimes is it not. One of my biggest gripes is that Apple likes to deny that anything is wrong with a system, and when they do that, the Apple Stores go along with the story. The hot spots on my 17" PowerBook's screens, which got worse and worse, Apple continued to say were not a design error, until one day, it was. Until that day, I could not get my screen fixed, even though I had a service contract. When they finally did repair it, it lasted about 3 weeks before spots began to show up again. They will not fix it again, and have made me wait so long to get an appeal on that, my service contract ran out, and now I am out of luck.
This is more of the same. Apple knows there is a problem, and in SOME cases, will replace the unit, but of course, these are issolated probelms and there could not possibly be anything wrong with the design of the machine.
SIGH! Good luck with your repair/replacement. I hope Apple proves mw wrong and comes through for you.
Posted by Owen Rubin
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A friend of mine, who lifes about 90 minutes outside of Munich has trouble with his MacBook - the hard drive died on him.
He called Apple support - toll free, and the first thing he gets, he is told off for dialing the toll free number, since 90 days had passed and he now had to call the premium rate phone support number (12 cents/minute).
This is rediculous and it makes me angry. Maybe Apple doesn't want to offer a toll free number, fair enough, but why not give us a normal long distance number.
With deregulations of the telecomunication sector a long distance phone call within Germany can be had for as little as 1 cent a minute. I think every company should be made to offer a normal phone number for the duaration of warranty (2 years in most parts of Europe, one of the nicer laws our friends in Strassbourg and Brussels decided upon)
The next thing that is rather outrageous, my friend bought the MacBook off the Apple website, but Apple expects him to take the MacBook to an authorized service center. Not mail it, they mean take it in person. 90 minutes to Munich, 90 minutes back and Munich ain't a small city either - so all in all it would take about 4 hours. It scares me to think where they'd want me to go - I would hope not much further than Frankfurt.
Fortunately the service center is nicer than Apple is, they ordered the hdd based on a call, so he only has to do the journey once, but this is outrageous. It isn't that difficult to replace a MacBook HDD.
I am sorry, I love my Apple products and so far (knocking on wood) I haven't had trouble, but I really was thinking of treating myself to a new MacBook before the VAT hike let's Apple decide on a price increase above the VAT hike (our government feels we all should pay an extra 3% sales tax (VAT = Value Added Tax) as of 01/01/2007).
I hope Apple can sort these issues, because I might just not treat myself and rather wait and pay a little extra as and when things seem to run better.
But with the MacBook there has been too much trouble in too short a time period. I so want one, but I can wait...
Posted by Claus Wolf
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