Brand new macbook pro, already think it's got issues

[tigress666]

Ok, so I just got this thing yesterday. It worked out of the box fine far as I can tell. I've only played with it for a few hours at most!

I wanted to calibrate the battery, before this it was working fine far as I could tell.

So I let it run without power (after powering it up) and wear out the battery. let it rest for more than five hours (not sure, it was running while I was at work so don't know when it ran out and let it rest five hours after I came home to make sure it had five hours rest).

I plug it in again after that and it won't turn on. Ok, fine that happens with electronics sometimes when the battery is left to drain completely. So wait a few minutes. still not doing anything. Seems to be responding when I hit a key but the display won't go on. Hit power and hold to shut it off... the screen flickers on to what appears to be what it would look like if I woke it up from sleep (I mean it faintly shows a shadow) and then turns off. Anytime I hit a key it makes sounds like it's waking up than nothing.

I go to restart it from CD after finally getting it to turn off (hit power long enough). I figure it's just oddity from waking up from being drained. It starts up, shows a screen and I apparenlty missed hitting CD in time cause after some startup it shows the desktop as from hard drive (except something about a startup CD) then fades out again. restart again, get it to start up from CD. Get a language selection, except it's not responding to my mouse. WTF?!

Start it up again, all over, this time the mouse freezes but unfreezes after I second, I tell it to install MacOSX (then realize maybe I hsould have seen if there was an option to wipe the hard drive). Leave it be, come back to check on it, it went to sleep and once again won't wake up. Finally get it to wake up when I hit the power button (it seems to respond to that). It says it's been installed. once again the mouse won't move.

Shut it down again. Restart from hard drive. Starts up, then screne goes black again and now it won't wake up from sleep, yet again!!!!

WTF!!!

At this point I'm sure there's something wrong with it. Damnit. It wasn't techincally DOA. Why can't it just work? I wanted to play with my new macbook and now it seems I will have to wait til I can talk with a technician or take it to the apple store and hopefully they're replace it cause I really don't want to already ahve a brand new computer that has been opened up and people messing with the insides. It's not really brand new at that point and it will have been messed with already.

I'm really not having luck with macbook quality. My previous (and first laptop/macbook) macbook has been my crappiest quality mac I've had yet (but at least it works, it's what I'm typing on now).

Apple is really slipping.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

Ok, so I just got this thing yesterday.

Take it to an Apple store. Tell them you got it yesterday and it's giving you trouble, not resuming from sleep, etc, and that you want a replacement.

 

[tigress666]

ok, maybe found the problem. Due to desk space I had it sitting on top of my macbook (I wanted a computer to use while it was installing) and it wasn't sitting flat.

I took it off the macbook and so far after doing that it seems to work normally (though right now I got hte macbook balanced on my lap to use it). Well anyways, so far.

Hope I didn't do anything bad for it (I am guessing some how it was twisting around and htat is why it was not responding). Or at least anything that will cause permenant damage.

It's working perfectly now. Which si more than I can say for the macbook (which has a trackpad button issue that it's so overly sensitive sometimes you cannot use it completely closed cause it will hold down teh trackpad button. It's being intermittant right now so really annoying to post this right now).

Though it really seems odd to me that it being on an uneven surface woudl cause it to not run right? I mean it usually acted like it wasn't responding to keyboard/trackpad, but it liked the power button fine. But, it seemed to let the screen stay on if the cd was running, but if i tried to start it up from hard drive, soon as it got to the desktop the screen would go black and it wouldn't turn it on...

Maybe too many vibrations/too warm (neither macbook seemed that warm to the touch honestly and this one hasn't been on that long and hte ohter? one is actually coolish compared to this one)?

Am I wrong to think that it's still wierd it was affected like that by being on an uneven surface/another laptop?

 

[elpmas]

Take it in if you feel uneasy about this...better now than later. :]

 

[Macloven]

cannot imagine why sitting on an uneven surface would matter. Mine has been in more precarious positions than I care to admit and it's never been a problem.

My guess is that there's an intermittent problem that went away when you moved. For a brand new machine, I'd bring it back while you can and get some thing that works out of the box...

Mark

 

[wake6830]

The orientation of the notebook shouldn't matter - level, not level, upside down, etc.

As others have suggested, it's literally brand new and you're already having problems with it. I would take it in and get a replacement. One of the reasons people pay a premium for Apple products is that they are supposed to just work without any problems.

 

[tigress666]

I'm not too worried anymore cause well, I think I found what is causing the weirdness, I don't know why, but I do think it has to do with the two computers interfering (or at least the old computer interfering with the new).

The new computer has to be literally right on top of the old computer. The two power cords have to be right right on top of each other to reproduce the problem (I don't know if it is that though cause the macboosk have to be aligned the same way. You can put the power cords on top of each other and have the macbooks side by side and it won't do it). Maybe some antenna on the old one interfering with the new?

When you do it, the new computer goes to sleep, when you move it, it comes right back up. Running like normal even (Well mostly, facebook logged me off).

As I said, it still would respond to keypresses, the screen wouldn't go on.

I really suspect that some how something is interfering with the mini display port and fooling it into thinking it is connected to a monitor. Cause it acts like it would if it were in clamshell mode honestly (except I have no monitor to tell). Or maybe thinking it has an external keyboard attached?

 

[fluffyx]

If you rest your Mac laptop on another Mac laptop, it may think that the lid is shut, thereby causing the symptoms you described.

Macs know their lids are closed when a magnet (in the display) comes in close proximity to a magnetic sensor (in the body of the computer). It sounds like your magnetic sensor was sensing the magnet of the MacBook below it.

Sounds like your MacBook Pro is fine .

 

[tigress666]

If you rest your Mac laptop on another Mac laptop, it may think that the lid is shut, thereby causing the symptoms you described.

Macs know their lids are closed when a magnet (in the display) comes in close proximity to a magnetic sensor (in the body of the computer). It sounds like your magnetic sensor was sensing the magnet of the MacBook below it.

Sounds like your MacBook Pro is fine .

Well, I figured after figuring out how to reliabley get it to repeat the problem that it must be something like that, I just didn't know what. Was actually pretty happy when I figured out it was a repeatable problem and most likely linked to something on the other macbook interfering with this one (would explain why the other one worked fine, it already was working in clamshell mode and attached to my monitor). Thanks for explaining why that was happening.

Still doesn't explain exactly why when started on CD it didn't shut down but instead froze the mouse and keyboard but I could see that maybe the CD wouldn't know how to do clamshell mode and it might still mess the computer up to have that sensor going off.

Wierd things you learn about your computer, heh?

I'm glad nothing is wrong with it cause so far no wierd defects (well maybe a tiny scratch but honestly I think that's stupid to return a laptop for, I'd feel like a total idiot complaining about that. Particularly when my screen seems perfect, no dead pixels or yellow tint or random areas of fade like some people talk about. That's way more important and I'll take the one tiny "scratch" I see over a risk of getting a screen that sux. Besides, knowing me, I'll eventually add to that scratch - and that will annoy me more knowing I did it and could have avoided it anyways.).