Mac Pro a1186 at apple store, feeling like they are giving me the runaround...

I know you are irritated but please remember these employee's don't make very much and they only pass very one-sided tech exams to get their Genius positions also most are in High School or limited college. It is almost like a non-profit for some of these folks. They love Apple so much they take pay cuts and Apple capitalizes on this. Apple Stores are modeled after The Gap and Banana Republic NOT an uber-tech testing ground.

audinutt said:

Received an email from the apple store, that the computer is repaired.

Called them, to figure out what is going on... Turns out they changed the logic board (which I had insisted).

Well guess what, the system boots now... I am still frustrated that they told me 2 cpus were bad and never tested them.. Both CPUS are good... wow what a shocker! (not)



Very odd.. I will be talking to the manager of the store and send an email to corporate...

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Told ya so.

NEVER in 20+ years of tinkering with computers have I ever encountered a CPU that went bad that wasn't a result of my own stupidity. As long as they're properly installed and adequately cooled, they're very reliable.

The only CPU I ever fried was an older Althon XP chip like 10 years ago. And that was only because I was pushing it the extreme with overclocking.

Anyway, I'm glad the machine ended up getting fixed. Just out of curiosity, what did they charge for this?

ancelrick said:

the car analogy works perfectly fine... OEM parts from the dealer are always way more expensive than used parts found elsewhere, and dealer doesn't scrounge around on ebay looking for parts.

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Customer comes in with a 7 year old computer, er - car what happens?

I am glad too, this was for a client of mine.. I perform onsite pc services.
It was a little under $500 for a new logic board and $39 for labor..
at least that is what I was quoted.

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Well, that's actually pretty reasonable, considering that the logic board by itself gets around $600 used.

CaptainChunk said:

Well, that's actually pretty reasonable, considering that the logic board by itself gets around $600 used.

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Yea, I was going to bring that up..

actually it makes me wonder if he got a "new" board..

GermanyChris said:

Yea, I was going to bring that up..

actually it makes me wonder if he got a "new" board..

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and the answer is.... grab your pitch forks...... NO, it's not a new board. It's refurbished.

ancelrick said:

and the answer is.... grab your pitch forks...... NO, it's not a new board. It's refurbished.

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can you buy them as service parts?

At $500 I could flip a couple three and made enough money to have a free board for me

GermanyChris said:

can you buy them as service parts?

At $500 I could flip a couple three and made enough money to have a free board for me

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i don't think they sell parts.

Logic boards have the most to go wrong on them.

In 20 odd years of using Macs I have seen 1 motherboard failure, 1 PSU burn out, 2 sticks of RAM go bad and 1 hard drive death. Hardware failure on PCs I have fixed were motherboard failure, PSU burn out and a stick of RAM that went bad. Never seen a CPU fail, never even had a GFX card break. In fact 90% of the problems I have fixed on Windows machines were caused by software or malware.
It makes sense to start with the most likely hardware failures: Logicboard, PSU, RAM sticks after checking the software first ofc.

To break the car analogy, I took my Corsa to a Vauxhall garage, they wanted £160 + labour for a new fuel pump.
I bought a brand new Vauxhall fuel pump off eBay for £75 and they fitted it for just the labour.

gpzjock said:

In 20 odd years of using Macs I have seen 1 motherboard failure, 1 PSU burn out, 2 sticks of RAM go bad and 1 hard drive death. Hardware failure on PCs I have fixed were motherboard failure, PSU burn out and a stick of RAM that went bad. Never seen a CPU fail, never even had a GFX card break. In fact 90% of the problems I have fixed on Windows machines were caused by software or malware.
It makes sense to start with the most likely hardware failures: Logicboard, PSU, RAM sticks after checking the software first ofc.

To break the car analogy, I took my Corsa to a Vauxhall garage, they wanted £160 + labour for a new fuel pump.
I bought a brand new Vauxhall fuel pump off eBay for £75 and they fitted it for just the labour.

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What I was getting at is they're 600-800 on ebay, if I can get refurbs from Apple for 500 tha'd be great!

gpzjock said:

In 20 odd years of using Macs I have seen 1 motherboard failure, 1 PSU burn out, 2 sticks of RAM go bad and 1 hard drive death. Hardware failure on PCs I have fixed were motherboard failure, PSU burn out and a stick of RAM that went bad. Never seen a CPU fail, never even had a GFX card break. In fact 90% of the problems I have fixed on Windows machines were caused by software or malware.
It makes sense to start with the most likely hardware failures: Logicboard, PSU, RAM sticks after checking the software first ofc.

To break the car analogy, I took my Corsa to a Vauxhall garage, they wanted £160 + labour for a new fuel pump.
I bought a brand new Vauxhall fuel pump off eBay for £75 and they fitted it for just the labour.

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It is obvious that Apple store personnel are limited in what they are allowed to do after warranty expires.

I have had Macs since 1984 and also had my share of malfunctioning parts through probably 20 plus Mac computers. Had to learn with my first experience that once there is no warranty it is not worth dealing with Apple.

Wouldn't even let them look at an out of warranty Mac these days unless it was free.

Best bet : test your Mac, check out ifixit, then buy on ebay the parts you need or find some internet Mac repair shops.

Saves a lot of money.

And, depending on the age of your computer consider a new one every 6 years or so.

I used to buy new Macs only to always have it in warranty, but that gets expensive and I don't always need the latest.

Did have to switch when they went to Intel.

Now I buy the new ones, one generation back at very good discounts.
I buy the low end models on ebay which are cheaper and harder to sell for the owners and add HD's and memory to top them out.

Worked fine for me so far

gpzjock said:

In 20 odd years of using Macs I have [...] never even had a GFX card break.

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I can assure you - it happens! Had a GFX card die on me in the MP, even taking the monitor input with it (voltage regulators gone bad after about 3 years of moderate load operation).

Not saying it can't happen.

Neodym said:

I can assure you - it happens! Had a GFX card die on me in the MP, even taking the monitor input with it (voltage regulators gone bad after about 3 years of moderate load operation).

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I know it does happen, I'm just saying I've never had it happen to any computer I've had to fix (quite a few in the last 2 decades).
The biggest weakness in any system seems to be the parts with the heaviest workload or most complexity; graphics cards do fit that category so they should be one of the things to check. Motherboards with their long lines of connections on the PCB and myriad individual chips and capacitors have let me down more often though. Purely subjective experience talking ofc.