The C2D MBP Quality Control Thread

[peiluns]

Doesn't sit flat on table

I ordered my C2D MacBook Pro the second the online store started taking orders on the day of its release. I was really excited about receiving the laptop until I took it out of the box, placed it on the table, and immediately noticed that the left front rubber foot doesn't come in contact with the table.

Once I opened the screen and started using the keyboard, my laptop kept rocking from one corner to the other... I thought the problem was my desk at home, but when I brought the laptop to school, the rocking was even worse.

I tried to see if an Apple Store could do an exchange but they wanted nothing to do with an online order. So if you want immediate assistance with your laptop, perhaps buying it from a physical store would be a better option.

I then called Apple Care, and to their credit, they understood my frustration with purchasing a $2800 laptop that doesn't even sit flat on a table. So they sent me a FedEx label for me to ship the machine back and are now working on a brand new C2D Macbook Pro for me. I have yet to receive it so the verdict is still out on whether or not I will own a problem free MacBook Pro.

BTW, when I closed the lid on my laptop, the gap between the screen and the laptop was much smaller on the left hand side than the right hand side. Otherwise, I loved everything else about it. I've always owned PCs and ran Windows so this was my first Apple computer. I was starting to really enjoy using OS X.

 

[Konfabulation]

So sweet!

Man am I ever happy with this computer. Everything is perfect, and it is smoking fast. It ran an xbench of 161.71!

 

[MacSyn]

This C2D MBP's qality is much much better than CD ones. No whining and the temp. is not hot like CD. I sold my CD MBP after 2 months but I'll keep this C2D MBP for sure.

 

[Soullink]

Mine works perfectly.

There are only three rather small issues, the esc and the eject keys are not as even as the other keys, and there seems to be something small stuck under the mouse button. But it doesn't annoy me, I'm just happy with this sexy machine.

When playing WoW the fan gets very noisy, but on the other hand the machine gets never hot

 

[PDE]

2nd Macbook Pro Core2Duo: comments on display, hard drive, superdrive and build

So got a MBP yesterday and returned it today because the aluminum above the latch started bulging out. If I had applied pressure on the palmrests, it would have buckled completely. They immediately swapped it for a new one at the apple store. My observations compared to the old one:

- Fit and finish 99.99% perfect. The only things is that there is a minute area above the latch button that does not completely line up, protruding ever so slightly. It's almost not visible, but because of the other one i just returned I'm a little concerned that it will get worse with time. This seems to be the weakest point on the computer - ridiculously thin aluminum that buckles very very easily.

- THE DISPLAY. Hmm, I thought the other display was fine even with slightly uneven illumination. I didn't like the restricted viewing angle though and it annoyed me that I couldn't have the computer on my lap and get a optimal viewing angle - the vertical viewing angles coupled with the limited tilt of the display was were too poor to allow that. Horizontal viewing was also bad and shifting my head only an inch side to side would result in distortion. This display is a 9C57 while the display on the one I returned was a 9C60. I would say that this display is more evenly illuminated than the previous one - I'll post pictures later. Horizontal and veritcal viewing angles are better which means that I can actually move my head without there being color shifts and brightness shifts. This display doesn't have the viewing angle of my cinema display by far, but it's certainly better than the 9C60 both vertically and horizontally. It seems slightly less bright than the other, but that might be in my imagination. UPDATE: White are really murky because the display is in fac quite unevenly illuminated from bottom up, making the bottom very white and the upper part brownish and murky.

-The superdrive has a completely different noise to it after sleep and when spinning. It's quieter in both instances. When I wake the computer from sleep there is a very quick sound instead of the protracted clunk of the previous systems and macbooks. the superdrive is a DVDRW GWA4080MA but I don't know what that means.

-the Fujitsu hard drive is more silent that the previous Hitachi but I don't think it uses the perpendicular technology like the other one. This means absolutely nothing to me, except that the more silent the better. I'm not sure if it performs as well, but I doubt the difference is huge.


As a whole, this machine seems great. I just wish Apple would be more consistent than this. It's such a hit or miss process. Will report more when I've used it more.

Here are some pictures of the display. As you can see, it's quite evenly illuminated except for the upper corners where one can see dimmer areas. In real life, the difference is not very visible. I notice it a little, but mainly because I've been looking for it. I'd say this is a pretty good display, at least for MBP standards. What do you think?

 

[MacGuffin]

I'd say this is a pretty good display, at least for MBP standards. What do you think?

Pretty good, but not as evenly lit as my five-year old iBook which cost much less.

Thanks for posting; I'm looking at info like this to determine if enough kinks and defects have been worked out of the MB line to buy one.

 

[Mallow005]

Man am I ever happy with this computer. Everything is perfect, and it is smoking fast. It ran an xbench of 161.71!

What the hell? I consistently get 105 and I have the exact same specs as you! I closed all extra apps/services before running the tests... I'm definitely going to get mine repaired since it shuts down randomly and the fan turns on full speed right when I turn it on, and it doesn't turn off unless I bring the core temps to 61C.

Oh, link to my issues: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/254649/

 

[PDE]

Pretty good, but not as evenly lit as my five-year old iBook which cost much less.

Thanks for posting; I'm looking at info like this to determine if enough kinks and defects have been worked out of the MB line to buy one.

Yeah, of course it SHOULD be evenly illuminated throughout with no light fall off in the corners. However, it seems that most notebooks are now using displays that are very bright at the expense of even illumination and viewing angles. I'm beginning to think that we should blame the manufacturers of the LCDs more than than Apple. I'm certainly not an Apple apologist, but it may be that 15.4" displays at this time actually look like this across the board. There must be better quality ones, but Apple also needs to find a supplier that can keep up with demand.

I don't know. Just trying to understand. The display is OK, but the more I use it the more the dark corners bother me. Especially the right side, where whites look more brownish because of it. It's not very pronounced, but I notice no such problem on my macbook and I've not had that problem with previous powerbooks either. Well, I'll have to work with it for a few days to see if I can accept it - not that I'm happy to have to ask the question whether this will be ACCEPTABLE to me. I should be loving my display, not trying to decide if it will just pass the mark....

 

[tekmoe]

i've owned five (count 'em 1-2-3-4-5) apple notebooks within the past 3 years before purchasing my new 15" c2d mbp. i have to say without a doubt that this c2d is by far the best apple notebook i have ever owned with regards to the quality of the unit itself. not a single problem with it. screen is evenly lit, no dead pixels, casing is perfect, no weird noises. just a fantastic unit. this one is a keeper!

 

[Mallow005]

I think there should be a "My MBP C2D is fine!" thread, but this one is a Quality Control (lack thereof) thread. I'm sure there are many happy customers with perfectly working MBPs... no need to rub it in our faces.

 

[daveL]

I think there should be a "My MBP C2D is fine!" thread, but this one is a Quality Control (lack thereof) thread. I'm sure there are many happy customers with perfectly working MBPs... no need to rub it in our faces.

I have a 17" C2D that's perfect, as was my 4 year old 1 GHz Tibook (last rev) and my Powermac dual 2.5 GHz. I thought I might have a warped MBP, but I found it was the 14 year old office table that was the problem. I put it on our granite countertop in the kitchen - flat as can be. Sometimes the problem is the observer, not the observed.

 

[MacGuffin]

Sometimes the problem is the observer, not the observed.

True, but that's saying no more than that people sometimes see what they want to see. This may be true of you, too, in your perfect satisfaction.

Do refer to the poster's photographic evidence for a real world metric.

 

[daveL]

True, but that's saying no more than that people sometimes see what they want to see. This may be true of you, too, in your perfect satisfaction.

Do refer to the poster's photographic evidence for a real world metric.

It was a general statement, not directed at anyone in particular.

 

[Mallow005]

I have a 17" C2D that's perfect, as was my 4 year old 1 GHz Tibook (last rev) and my Powermac dual 2.5 GHz. I thought I might have a warped MBP, but I found it was the 14 year old office table that was the problem. I put it on our granite countertop in the kitchen - flat as can be. Sometimes the problem is the observer, not the observed.

That's true. But it goes the other way as well. I took my MBP in to the San Diego Apple store where two Genius acknowledged my problem and said it was very weird, never heard of it before, and couldn't fix it. I reproduced it twice and solved it twice by raising the temperature of my cores to 60C. They said to leave it in the shop, but unfortunately I was flying out to San Diego that night.

The next day (today), I took it to the San Diego apple store and the Genius there said the fans sounded normal. It was clearly, very clearly, not normal if you listened to it up close (it was very loud in the store). He installed a third party Fan Control app on it but I checked it out and the fans were still going at high speed. He went to the back where it was quiet to see if the fans truly were at normal speeds and when he came back he said it was running whisper quiet. At first I didn't believe him but I checked and it was. He was gone for 5 minutes, I'm not sure what they did (he said they didn't do anything) but the problem was gone. It is possible that the temp hit 60C and the fans went back to normal, and on reboot the problem stayed away due to the Fan Control app.

The point is, the two at the San Jose store acknowledged the problem while the San Diego store didn't, even though they were both observing it in a noisy environment. In this case, it was the observer and not the observed.

Since the fans are controlled by an XML file, it's possible that some setting was somehow defective (although I've tried checking the settings before and they looked ok). It still "moos", in that the fans oscillate every 5 seconds (whisper quiet, audible speed accompanied by harddrive activity, back again. Even though I closed all apps/unnecessary services). But, I can ignore this pretty easily by listening to music whereas before I could hear the fan through the music. In a quiet room, it's extremely annoying. It also means the harddrive never sleeps.

As for the random shutdowns... can't really reproduce them since they're random, but I haven't had one all day.

 

[Mallow005]

Scratch that, had another last night. Now, my Macbook pro does not turn on. When I press the power button it powers on for exactly 1 second (fans on high) and then shuts off. I tried resetting the SMC, no effect. If I hold the power button, it stays on for longer but nothing comes on the screen, and then it turns off. If the power cable is plugged in, it keeps trying to turn on. If it isn't, it doesn't try again. Shop time! Hopefully they don't take a week to get it back to me. Hopefully they just replace the damn thing, it's only 11 working days old.

 

[e12a]

OK so i go to the apple store in pasadena and ask the cashier about my problem with my squeaky space bar. he says he'll take a look at it before i make an appt with a genius. So i take it out, at first he says he doesnt hear anything, so he says he'll get a air spray can while i try to recreate the squeak. i do, and he comes back and spray air through the keyboard keys. He listens to it and he says that he knows what i mean and he'll make an appointment with a Genius for me. I thank him and leave to go to church.

Good experience, very courteous and helpful--so far.

I come back later that day and sit at the bar. There's one genius working at the time and i look at the screen and all the spots are filled up for the day. I'm thinking wow that sucks for this guy. so i explain my problem to him, mentioned that this computer is 3 weeks old, and this forum cause someone said it can be fixed. He responds that if it wasnt from an apple.com forum that it doesnt have any credibility, or some excuse like that. I'm thinkin this guy is lamee. So he proceeds to bend up my spacebar with the plastic wedge he had and takes it off. He explains that there's a metal hinge that contacts wtih a metal bar on the key so that makes the squeaking noise. I was getting frustrated and even considered talking to the manager. He then looks around the spacebar, then takes the next 20 minutes trying to put the spacebar back on. when he finally finishes, he says that he can take the computer in for a "diagnostic" but it'll take a few days (but he's giving me that look and tone that i'm really making a big deal out of nothing). I tell him i cant do that cause i have school (duh) and my finals are next week.

by now i'm thinking, "whats so hard to diagnose..its a freaking space bar." but continue to keep my mouth shut. I leave and look up the apple.com discussions and surely enough there is a whole bunch of posts regarding MBPs and PBs with squeaky spacebars. So far i've found none where an apple tech has responded to. if anyone can give me a link i'd be much obliged.

what a waste of 1/2 hour and now i have a slightly bent spacebar (higher on the left). I will take it to an apple store near my university when i have the time. very disappointed with the "genius" service.

edit: as i read more discussions on apple.com i should have asked for a replacement keyboard. The genius did not mention that option.

 

[Zadillo]

OK so i go to the apple store in pasadena and ask the cashier about my problem with my squeaky space bar. he says he'll take a look at it before i make an appt with a genius. So i take it out, at first he says he doesnt hear anything, so he says he'll get a air spray can while i try to recreate the squeak. i do, and he comes back and spray air through the keyboard keys. He listens to it and he says that he knows what i mean and he'll make an appointment with a Genius for me. I thank him and leave to go to church.

Good experience, very courteous and helpful--so far.

I come back later that day and sit at the bar. There's one genius working at the time and i look at the screen and all the spots are filled up for the day. I'm thinking wow that sucks for this guy. so i explain my problem to him, mentioned that this computer is 3 weeks old, and this forum cause someone said it can be fixed. He responds that if it wasnt from an apple.com forum that it doesnt have any credibility, or some excuse like that. I'm thinkin this guy is lamee. So he proceeds to bend up my spacebar with the plastic wedge he had and takes it off. He explains that there's a metal hinge that contacts wtih a metal bar on the key so that makes the squeaking noise. I was getting frustrated and even considered talking to the manager. He then looks around the spacebar, then takes the next 20 minutes trying to put the spacebar back on. when he finally finishes, he says that he can take the computer in for a "diagnostic" but it'll take a few days (but he's giving me that look and tone that i'm really making a big deal out of nothing). I tell him i cant do that cause i have school (duh) and my finals are next week.

by now i'm thinking, "whats so hard to diagnose..its a freaking space bar." but continue to keep my mouth shut. I leave and look up the apple.com discussions and surely enough there is a whole bunch of posts regarding MBPs and PBs with squeaky spacebars. So far i've found none where an apple tech has responded to. if anyone can give me a link i'd be much obliged.

what a waste of 1/2 hour and now i have a slightly bent spacebar (higher on the left). I will take it to an apple store near my university when i have the time. very disappointed with the "genius" service.

edit: as i read more discussions on apple.com i should have asked for a replacement keyboard. The genius did not mention that option.

It might have been me that said this.

The people at the Apple Store didn't give me any problems with the squeaky spacebar. As they explained it to me, there is some sort of clip/connector or something that came loose, and all they had to do was replace the spacebar and possibly another part of the mechanism, and the squeak was gone.

It definitely shouldn't be a big deal, and shouldn't require a complete keyboard replacement..... just a spacebar replacement, which took them 20 minutes to do at my local Apple Store (in Tysons Corner, VA).

-Zadillo

 

[e12a]

It might have been me that said this.

The people at the Apple Store didn't give me any problems with the squeaky spacebar. As they explained it to me, there is some sort of clip/connector or something that came loose, and all they had to do was replace the spacebar and possibly another part of the mechanism, and the squeak was gone.

It definitely shouldn't be a big deal, and shouldn't require a complete keyboard replacement..... just a spacebar replacement, which took them 20 minutes to do at my local Apple Store (in Tysons Corner, VA).

-Zadillo

As i think about it, its not a metal/metal squeak, but more of a rubber (silicone spring)/plastic(mechanism), or plastic/plastic squeak. It might be those mechanisms.

but actually for now the squeak is gone, or alleviated for now. I guess it needed to be reseated? i'll update later.

 

[macman2790]

i hope i don't have to visit this thread when i receive my c2d mbp today. I'm gonna cross my fingers for no squeaky spacebar, uneven backlighting, etc....