Macbook woes... GRRR!!!

[dblvsn]

Well I am extremely frustrated at this point. For the 4th time now the hard drive in my Macbook has failed. This POS has been a problem since day 1. So far it's had a new motherboard, battery, case top (for the lovely discoloring), and 4 frickin hard drives!!! Now I have to spend another 3-4 hours of my day driving to the Apple store and standing in line... AGAIN!

 

[tgrier]

I would call Apple and/or report via email and ask for a new one.
If you yell enough .. I bet you would get one.

Did you get apple care? If so. Leverage that.

I have had a white one for over 2 years.. and works the same as the day I got it.

I am sure you got a lemon...

 

[GregR]

wow. that sucks. definitely a lemon. . . complain loud enough and maybe you can get one of the slick new ones in aluminum and the back lit keyboard.

 

[Laurel]

Mine works like a champ too. I'd be willing to bet that you got a lemon. Of course my case top's been replaced, but that's a known problem and replaced for free under warranty.

 

[DUCCCC]

I'm on my second HD on my first gen white 13" MacBook.
I'm on my second casetop, but that's because my 3 yr old decided that my discolored original keyboard's palmrests needed cleaning with dish soap. I got a black second gen casetop combo off eBay and it works great.

Honestly this notebook has been less hassle than any other I've had. My old Thinkpad had a video chipset failure. A work provided Sony Vaio had both HD and Motherboard failures. I've seen numerous Dells go belly-up, but that's probably because my job now is all dell.

No notebook is all that indestructable. If you are on the move alot you might consider a solid state HD for the next one....

 

[thataintchicken]

For the 4th time now the hard drive in my Macbook has failed.

sorry to hear that. I hope you had a backup.

If you have Applecare, and your Macbook is within the three years Applecare allows for - then you may want to consider looking into a replacement unit.

If you call applecare and request to speak to a tier two agent, they can transfer you to someone that can help with that. If that doesn't work - you can PM me and I will give you another option.

-Shawn- former mac genius

 

[dblvsn]

Yeah I have Applecare fortunately. I've definitely gotten my moneys worth out of it. Have an appointment at the Apple store soon and we'll see what they say and do. I'm going to be pretty demanding as we can't even depend on it for general usage anymore. I've been an Apple guy for about 7 years now but this is making me question ever buying another Apple product again.

 

[Chriso]

Dual Dell-Apple cert tech here... Don't blame the hard drive on them, it's not inherently their fault - currently all SATA hard drives made by Seagate, Toshiba, Fujitsu, Hitachi, are all experiencing faster-than-usual failure rates. My wife's is on it's 3rd HD in 16 months. I spend pretty much 8 hrs a day replacing poor college kids' hard drives, on which are countless lost papers and theses.

The other problems, I am afraid, I cannot soften the blow on. Some laptops are just pickier than others, and break down more often. I have no real explanation, they're just a lot like cars, some are just temperamental.

It's for this reason I recc. AppleCare on *any* apple laptop, and CompleteCare on any Dell. On portables, the cost of any small repair exceeds the cost of extended warranty coverage. It just makes sense. Similarly, I explain backup methods and effectivity countless times a day to students who never thought it was necessary. I know, some days technology just blows... There's no real excuse for it, sometimes gadgets are just pieces of sh|te to us. I pretty much can only ask for your understanding and forgiveness. We geeks do the best we can, sometimes we're just dealt sh|te hands from events far removed from us - specifically, HD manufacturers, etc.

Cheers, and best of luck. I really hope the situation is resolved top-notch.

 

[dblvsn]

Well the laptop is fixed. (for now) They didn't want to humor me with an upgraded macbook, but I fought for it. The one thing I do like about Apple is the service has been great. The thing that just burns my hide is the fact that I have spent too much time at the genius bar. I need to get everything reloaded but I'll post some interesting macbook info for your reading pleasure in a bit.

 

[Flyin' Lion]

I bought SWMBO her new macbook in February, I hope this isn't what I have to look forward to. I'm posting from our ibook G4 ATM, which is becoming decreasingly useful--I can't run firefox or hotmail now due to their upgrades.

 

[Chriso]

Flyin' Lion: What you may be seeing is a fatal flaw on all G4 iBooks - over time, the logic board starts to fail, usually starting with applications not loading / quitting, eventually resulting in random power-offs and eventually, no-boot. Fix is a $300 flat-rate mail-in to the repair center. (Also, watch for dying hard drive on G4 iBook, can cause the same not loading/quitting symptoms... then once failed, you'll either get gear-freezes-when-booting-into-OS, or missing-folder-icon.) So... if you're experiencing trouble... how sure are you it's Apple's "upgrades" (I'm guessing you mean Software Updates?).... or could it be failing hardware? And if it is failing h/w... where's your backup?

As far as the MacBooks.... The solution is simple.
- Get Leopard
- Get an ext HDD (you have one already, right? RIGHT????)
- MAKE BACKUPS WEEKLY USING TIME MACHINE.
It's that easy.

I am actually somewhat pissed, I think all manufacturers should be INCLUDING ext. hdd's these days. Hardly ANY users know, much less understand, that if the HD fails, their info is gone, and companies like Apple or Dell are not responsible for any data. Ever. At all. It's not Apple or Dell's "fault", per se... It's just a lack of user-education on the subject.

As far as flipping a lemon into an updated new one... It's definitely do-able, but not by anyone in an Apple store.. That stuff has to come from on high... So you'll almost certainly have to call AppleCare and plead your case. Usually it takes 3 documented repairs under warranty to qualify.

But overall... They're good laptops, just remember that any and every consumer electronic is going to fail sometimes. Some are luckier than others, some are more accursed than others. I can tell you this: No matter how expensive AppleCare coverage is, or how expensive Apple parts are............ in my experience, Sony parts are even more costly!

 

[Flyin' Lion]

Thanks Chriso, but what I meant was my version of OSX (10.3.9) cannot run hotmail or firefox's new versions. I'm thinking of updating to Leopard, but maybe its just not worth it for a six year old laptop.

Sorry for the threadjack, dblvsn.

 

[dblvsn]

Sorry for the threadjack, dblvsn.

No apologies necessary!


Chriso, you provide some great feedback. Good news for me is I work in I.T. and understand backups. Not real happy I have needed to use 'em so many times. I agree that companies should be more educative about the importance of backups as people are using computers more for everything these days. I think Apple has the right idea with Mobile Me and being able to sync contacts, calendars and such but man is that an expensive service for what you get.

 

[Flyin' Lion]

No apologies necessary!


I think Apple has the right idea with Mobile Me and being able to sync contacts, calendars and such but man is that an expensive service for what you get.

I'm not sure how much Mobile Me costs, but I don't like shelling out $100 bucks a year for SWMBO's .mac account.