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frostrambler

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 14, 2007
112
40
NYC
Bought a brand new MBA 11 ultimate on Monday at the 5th Ave store in NYC. Perfect screen, great keyboard (one clicky key that you need to press extra hard to adjust the backlight) but thats no problem.

Wed morning, I notice a buzzing in my bedroom, I pinpoint it down to my MBA. The buzzing isn't high pitched, almost a very rapid clicking. Seems to be coming from top left corner of the base where the fan is, and I know its an SSD so no HD to click.

I turn it on and off a few times, open the lid a few times, each time its turned on or awoken I hear a quiet click click for a split second as the fan turns on, then a very rapid buzzing clicking noise. Its very quiet but very noticeable in a quiet room.

It kinds upsets me since the thing was silent just the day before... so I assume its a bad bearing.

Now its Wed night and the fan seems to be getting worse. It sporadically clicks, a loud audible click, not quiet at all. Sounds like a HD head crash.... but again, its an SSD, so I know its the fan. Its sporadic so it won't happen for 20-30 min, then start again for a few min.


I've set a genius bar appt for 1:40am this Saturday to get the laptop looked at.

Here is my issue... I do NOT want them to exchange it. I know I'm within my rights to get a brand new exchange and thats great BUT I don't want an exchange, the screen is perfect, the clamshell is perfectly straight, it looks and feels great. I do NOT want to risk the brand new exchange having a backlight issue or a pixel issue (I've had 5 plus apple laptops in the family over the last 4 years and EACH one has either had dead pixels, uneven lighting or washed out picture).

Can I ask the genius to simply replace the fan? I assume is the macbook air was out of exchange range (feb 28th), they would HAVE to replace the fan rather than the whole computer... can I just ask them for this? New fan and this computer is perfect.
 

jrabbit

macrumors member
Jan 30, 2008
66
0
St. Louis, MO
I had a fan unit on my Rev. A MBA that would "click" but not start up. I could tap on the case, and the fan would start.

I took it into the Genius Bar, and because they didn't have the part in stock I had two choices: they could order the fan unit and do the replacement at the Bar, or I could send the unit out to have it replaced at the depot.

It turned out to be faster to get the unit fixed by sending it to the depot. They replaced the fan unit without touching anything else. I was without my machine for 72 hours.

If the fan was working reliably, I would have had the part ordered in so they could have done it locally. If you haven't opened up your MBA, the fan unit is simple; it's not rocket science for them to do it...

I would think from a cost standpoint they would also prefer to just swap the fan unit, so I'd be surprised if you met with any resistance.
 
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