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AppleCare expired

emilykgoodman92

emilykgoodman92

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 26, 2017
14
0
Last night I had a major problem with my 2012 15 inch MacBook Pro. All of a sudden my hard drive starts making a loud clicking noise and then after several minutes the device completely shuts off. I try to power it back up and I get a white background with an icon of a file folder with a gray '?' flashing.

I've had lots of problems with my laptop over the years.

-Broken logic board
- Hard drive issues
- Software Issues
- Screen Fickers when I go to sign in
- A jingling/rattling sound when I move my laptop
- Screen randomly shuts off

The last three problems I listed were looked at but never fixed, this was while I was covered under AppleCare.

Now, I have what I'm assuming is a broken hard drive. My Apple Care has expired. I have an appointment with my local Apple Store on Saturday but I know I'm probably going to have to pay out of pocket to get it fixed. Is there any chance that my latest problem (the clicking sound from my hard drive) could be related to my screen flickering, the jingling/rattling sound when moving my laptop and the screen randomly shutting off that were never fixed upon me bringing them into the Apple Store? If so, I'm wondering if I have a case to call AppleCare and see if this can get replaced for free.
 
emilykgoodman92 said:
Last night I had a major problem with my 2012 15 inch MacBook Pro. All of a sudden my hard drive starts making a loud clicking noise and then after several minutes the device completely shuts off. I try to power it back up and I get a white background with an icon of a file folder with a gray '?' flashing.

I've had lots of problems with my laptop over the years.

-Broken logic board
- Hard drive issues
- Software Issues
- Screen Fickers when I go to sign in
- A jingling/rattling sound when I move my laptop
- Screen randomly shuts off

The last three problems I listed were looked at but never fixed, this was while I was covered under AppleCare.

Now, I have what I'm assuming is a broken hard drive. My Apple Care has expired. I have an appointment with my local Apple Store on Saturday but I know I'm probably going to have to pay out of pocket to get it fixed. Is there any chance that my latest problem (the clicking sound from my hard drive) could be related to my screen flickering, the jingling/rattling sound when moving my laptop and the screen randomly shutting off that were never fixed upon me bringing them into the Apple Store? If so, I'm wondering if I have a case to call AppleCare and see if this can get replaced for free.
Click to expand...
You can call but your Mac is at least 5 years old. If you did hav AppleCare it would have expired 2 years ago. Unless there is some quality repair extension program for your model you should be prepared to pay out of pocket.
 
akadafni said:
You can call but your Mac is at least 5 years old. If you did hav AppleCare it would have expired 2 years ago. Unless there is some quality repair extension program for your model you should be prepared to pay out of pocket.
Click to expand...
The 15" non-retina MBPs were actually discontinued by Apple late Oct 2013, so the OP could possibly have bought one from a reseller as late as early 2014 perhaps. Either way, this sounds like a thorough diagnostic is in order to determine if all symptoms are related to one component such as the MB or HDD, or if several items need replacement, in which case she has to decide if it's worth it. These units are not yet Legacy but a MB alone could be $700 or up. Fortunately, Apple doesn't charge for diagnostics.

emilykgoodman92 said:
Last night I had a major problem with my 2012 15 inch MacBook Pro. All of a sudden my hard drive starts making a loud clicking noise and then after several minutes the device completely shuts off. I try to power it back up and I get a white background with an icon of a file folder with a gray '?' flashing.

I've had lots of problems with my laptop over the years.

-Broken logic board
- Hard drive issues
- Software Issues
- Screen Fickers when I go to sign in
- A jingling/rattling sound when I move my laptop
- Screen randomly shuts off

The last three problems I listed were looked at but never fixed, this was while I was covered under AppleCare.

Now, I have what I'm assuming is a broken hard drive. My Apple Care has expired. I have an appointment with my local Apple Store on Saturday but I know I'm probably going to have to pay out of pocket to get it fixed. Is there any chance that my latest problem (the clicking sound from my hard drive) could be related to my screen flickering, the jingling/rattling sound when moving my laptop and the screen randomly shutting off that were never fixed upon me bringing them into the Apple Store? If so, I'm wondering if I have a case to call AppleCare and see if this can get replaced for free.
Click to expand...
It sounds like your HDD is toast. If that is all that is causing your misery, you might get off relatively easy. Let those guys in the Apple Store do complete diagnostics with quotes, and then you can decide on a course of action.

As far as a claim for previous repairs, I believe those have to be in within 90 days, but you can certainly try to make your case, considering the laptop's history (preferably to a manager), with invoices in hand, although they have that info in their system by device serial#. I wish I could be more optimistic for you, but as for problems not fixed while the unit is still under warranty, Apple is usually pretty strict. You have however nothing to lose.

Hope things work out for you!
 
Get them to give you a free estimate - i.e. tell you what is wrong - and if it's only the hard drive, then get another and fix it yourself. Ideally use the opportunity to put an SSD in there.
 
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macs4nw said:
The 15" non-retina MBPs were actually discontinued by Apple late Oct 2013, so the OP could possibly have bought one from a reseller as late as early 2014 perhaps. Either way, this sounds like a thorough diagnostic is in order to determine if all symptoms are related to one component such as the MB or HDD, or if several items need replacement, in which case she has to decide if it's worth it. These units are not yet Legacy but a MB alone could be $700 or up. Fortunately, Apple doesn't charge for diagnostics.


It sounds like your HDD is toast. If that is all that is causing your misery, you might get off relatively easy. Let those guys in the Apple Store do complete diagnostics with quotes, and then you can decide on a course of action.

As far as a claim for previous repairs, I believe those have to be in within 90 days, but you can certainly try to make your case, considering the laptop's history (preferably to a manager), with invoices in hand, although they have that info in their system by device serial#. I wish I could be more optimistic for you, but as for problems not fixed while the unit is still under warranty, Apple is usually pretty strict. You have however nothing to lose.

Hope things work out for you!
Click to expand...


Thanks for the information. I kept bringing it back into the store and the genius I got looked at my computer for 5 minutes and said there was nothing wrong with it. Obviously, there was something wrong with it. I'm going to see what they tell me on Saturday and go from there.
 
As soon as your apple care expires, consider your machine a paper weight and invest in a new one. I never go more than a year without apple care, too risky..
 
shaunp said:
Get them to give you a free estimate - i.e. tell you what is wrong - and if it's only the hard drive, then get another and fix it yourself. Ideally use the opportunity to put an SSD in there.
Click to expand...

Excellent answer above!
If your 2012 15 inch MacBook Pro is in fact the non-retina model (A1286), imho you have one of the best Apple laptops ever made - arguably only bettered by the (A1297) 17". I have both, and also a 2014 MBPRet - purchase of which I regret, as I now rarely use - and plan to sell.
Both the A1286 & A1297 are 'keepers', totally repairable, relatively simple to upgrade with an SSD, 16GB memory and OS Sierra, and will still be going strong in 10 years time. Unlike today's touch-bar models, many of which will probably be throwing up multiple problems due to unecessary complexity, and with their built-in redundancy - virtually unrepairable due to eventual non cost-effective out of warranty repairs. Oh, and did I mention their batteries.......*@!!
Ok, so you have problems - almost certainly a defective HD, which is simplicity to change-out for an SSD. Whilst the unit is open, it will surely need careful visual inspection for any other obvious problems, possibly a module not correctly secured which could cause a rattle, or a cable run needing correction.
With an excellent iFixit repairability score of 7/10 these are a delight to work on, and I would graciously offer any free assistance if you were in my area, and also remove/re-paste the MB for continued longevity.
A very short while ago I wouldn't even have attempted to open a rear mounted memory hatch to change RAM, but that and more in-depth repairs are easy when following a well-written iFixit repair guide. Go for it!
 
parts are no longer available at some point as well to Apple if a machine is too old..... I would think, as long as parts for it are still available. Otherwise, there is always iFixit and Doing-it-yourself.

sounds like hard drive issues, so all u need is a new one.. The screen having issues while Mac is moved sounds like another problem.

By the time u get the Mac fixed, the price may be close to getting a refub mac anyway if a logic board needs replaced.
 
Last edited:
macs4nw said:
It sounds like your HDD is toast. If that is all that is causing your misery, you might get off relatively easy. Let those guys in the Apple Store do complete diagnostics with quotes, and then you can decide on a course of action.
Click to expand...
The good news: If you need to replace the hard drive, you will have the choice of either getting a much bigger and better hard drive than the one you had, or getting an SSD drive, which will be _a lot_ faster. Depending on your storage requirements, and the money you want to spend.
 
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What was the outcome?

FWIW, I had an issue with the screen flickering when I moved the screen back and forth with a 2006 MB. This was many years after AppleCare expired. Parts for me to fix it myself would be $60-100, depending on what was wrong since I didn't know for sure.

They quoted me $50 parts and labor to do the fix. This was a few years ago but hopefully you had an easy good deal also.
 
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