I thought the MacBook Pro was a professional product, and the MacBook is a consumer product?
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Failed logic board - no extended warranty
- Thread starter MalcyChan
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I thought the MacBook Pro was a professional product, and the MacBook is a consumer product?
They're BOTH consumer-grade. Even the Mac Pro is consumer-grade. You didn't understand his post.
about military grade,
military grade usually just means something can survive radiation or work in a submarine. not that it is actually a bulletproof product.
I agree to fight for your rights as consumer. Specially when a well known defect with the same symptons are there.
Try not to fight but make them cooperate, personally talk with the store manager at an apple store, they have the power to provide you with customer satisfaction. The nicer you are the better they will treat you.
If that doesn't work for your case:
Ask for depot repair, that is what they call it here in the US, not sure what the term is in the UK. For a flat rate they send your MBP to an authorized repair shop, and they will repair/replace everything that is defective. In the US is for around $310. So, it is like having paid for Applecare, but paying only when you really need it.
Try not to fight but make them cooperate, personally talk with the store manager at an apple store, they have the power to provide you with customer satisfaction. The nicer you are the better they will treat you.
If that doesn't work for your case:
Ask for depot repair, that is what they call it here in the US, not sure what the term is in the UK. For a flat rate they send your MBP to an authorized repair shop, and they will repair/replace everything that is defective. In the US is for around $310. So, it is like having paid for Applecare, but paying only when you really need it.
Even though I've been a loyal Apple customer for awhile now it troubles me to read these types of threads. I've had dozens upon dozens of PC laptops over the years and I don't think a single one has ever failed. I've owned 3 Apple laptops, my prior two were Powerbooks and now I have a 3 week old 17" i7 MBP. The prior 2 Apple laptops were replaced because they DIED. This isn't a very good track record compared to the PC's I've owned.... and I practically rub my equipment down with a baby diaper. I'm really that careful. I do log a lot of hours as I'm in the Internet field and practically work 7 days a week.
Mike
Mike
power button would spin the DVD drive once, but no HDD or chime
my situation was EXACTLY like yours. see my posts in this thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/515067/
power button would spin the DVD drive once, but no HDD or chime. Blank LCD.
it took two calls to apple tech support/customer relations before they gave in and agreed to make an exception.
my advice to you is to not give up, and tell them you experienced graphic distortions in-line with the symptoms GPU failure.....because this is most certainly related to the Nvidia (what should be a) "recall". They just won't admit it.
I admit it's a wild speculation but I suspect the SMC 1.3 update bricks MBPs so they won't turn on. How else can they afford to deal with this without a recall???
my situation was EXACTLY like yours. see my posts in this thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/515067/
power button would spin the DVD drive once, but no HDD or chime. Blank LCD.
it took two calls to apple tech support/customer relations before they gave in and agreed to make an exception.
my advice to you is to not give up, and tell them you experienced graphic distortions in-line with the symptoms GPU failure.....because this is most certainly related to the Nvidia (what should be a) "recall". They just won't admit it.
I admit it's a wild speculation but I suspect the SMC 1.3 update bricks MBPs so they won't turn on. How else can they afford to deal with this without a recall???
I certainly agree that 
quality has gone down the drain in the recent years. I believe that they get away with it mainly due to all the new customers that simply don't care when they have a failure. Also many customers see the failures as normal, and simply buy a new computer when it happens. Or always update it before it fails.
Or even worse apple care fans, that justify paying extra to have 2 more years of warranty coverage, so if the product fails, the first response is: you should had bought apple care, why?
The failures are mainly hardware related.
And with high volumes all the companies suffer from the same disease: suppliers that are simply not capable to deliver decent quality over the lifecycle of the products.
Even with customer service, that is one of the best out there, it is not perfect, like the OP is currently experiencing. They indeed are capable to make it better for the OP.
Also the lifecycle has been reduced drastically, every 6 months the products get refreshed, but due to current designs and business policies, the quality recalls or customer satisfaction services are no longer practical because it is "difficult" or "impossible" to put the improved components inside previous models. The business model don't consider retrofitting improvements to well known defects or design flaws. Or they simply don't have enough people working on that kind of things, seem to prefer investing the resources only in new products, not so much in product quality.
For is a simple math thing. If it fails during warranty our suppliers will pay for it. For them is cheaper to do that, and less complicated.
Is not that I agree with it, I am mad as hell with all the bad product experiences I am recently having.
Logic Board creating kernel panics MBP late 2008. Out of warranty depot repair $310.
MacBook late 2006: Battery not charging. Optical drive dead. Plastic cracks all over the case. And also the logic board, but in this case not charging the battery. The genius made me buy a new battery and their diagnostics didn't point out what was wrong. New battery $130 + new MagSafe DC in $60 (replaced by me) + $150 new optical drive (replaced by me)
All the plastic case cracked. Even it was replaced, the "new one" is also cracked. Apple repair quoted $600 to replace the logic board. I will discuss with the manager to get the depot repair instead. If I knew it was in the first place I will fall into the same action as many, buy a new 13" MacBook Pro instead of paying for the battery + DC in + optical drive.
So the lifecycle seems to be 3 years tops for the MacBooks (Pro).
iPhone 3G: plastic cracks everywhere, had have 5 different units.
The funny thing is that if you stay for some minutes or frequently visit a Genius bar you start noticing all the people coming with defective stuff. And it is growing every year.
quality has gone down the drain in the recent years. I believe that they get away with it mainly due to all the new customers that simply don't care when they have a failure. Also many customers see the failures as normal, and simply buy a new computer when it happens. Or always update it before it fails. Or even worse apple care fans, that justify paying extra to have 2 more years of warranty coverage, so if the product fails, the first response is: you should had bought apple care, why?
The failures are mainly hardware related.
And with high volumes all the companies suffer from the same disease: suppliers that are simply not capable to deliver decent quality over the lifecycle of the products.
Even with
customer service, that is one of the best out there, it is not perfect, like the OP is currently experiencing. They indeed are capable to make it better for the OP.Also the lifecycle has been reduced drastically, every 6 months the products get refreshed, but due to current designs and business policies, the quality recalls or customer satisfaction services are no longer practical because it is "difficult" or "impossible" to put the improved components inside previous models. The business model don't consider retrofitting improvements to well known defects or design flaws. Or they simply don't have enough people working on that kind of things,
seem to prefer investing the resources only in new products, not so much in product quality.For
is a simple math thing. If it fails during warranty our suppliers will pay for it. For them is cheaper to do that, and less complicated.Is not that I agree with it, I am mad as hell with all the bad product experiences I am recently having.
Logic Board creating kernel panics MBP late 2008. Out of warranty depot repair $310.
MacBook late 2006: Battery not charging. Optical drive dead. Plastic cracks all over the case. And also the logic board, but in this case not charging the battery. The genius made me buy a new battery and their diagnostics didn't point out what was wrong. New battery $130 + new MagSafe DC in $60 (replaced by me) + $150 new optical drive (replaced by me)
All the plastic case cracked. Even it was replaced, the "new one" is also cracked. Apple repair quoted $600 to replace the logic board. I will discuss with the manager to get the depot repair instead. If I knew it was in the first place I will fall into the same action as many, buy a new 13" MacBook Pro instead of paying for the battery + DC in + optical drive.
So the lifecycle seems to be 3 years tops for the MacBooks (Pro).
iPhone 3G: plastic cracks everywhere, had have 5 different units.
The funny thing is that if you stay for some minutes or frequently visit a Genius bar you start noticing all the people coming with defective
stuff. And it is growing every year.My logic board failed, I paid 300 dollars to get it shipped to Texas to get fixed and just got it back yesterday. I had the same problem as you did. Besides paying the money, Apples Customer service was wonderful. I got my computer back in 2 days. Also, you could email Steve Jobs himself if you are that unhappy.
I think the point that was being made is Apple hardware fails disproportionately compared to other providers. For example I find (and have experienced) Windows users buying a new machine because their old one is running like crap due to age. I find many people are replacing their Apple machines because they failed. I've owned 4 Apple machines. 2 Powerbooks, a late 2009 Mini, and my current 3 week old i7 17" MBP. My prior 2 Powerbooks were "retired" because they died. I've already had a hardware problem with my 6 month old Mini. My MBP is perfect but it's only been a few weeks. With PC's, other than the occasional power supply or hard drive never seem to have these problems.... or at least they much less frequently have these problems.
lucky I got applecare 1 week before my first year expired.
@mingoglia: for me i had 2 pcs fail just outside of the 3 year warranty
first computer had a harddrive($120) failure at 3years 1month, 2 months later a power supply($100) failure then finally a motherboard failure 1 month later which would cost $350 to repair.
then my next pc had a motherboard failure at 3 years and 3 months.
not exactly an encouraging experince
@mingoglia: for me i had 2 pcs fail just outside of the 3 year warranty
first computer had a harddrive($120) failure at 3years 1month, 2 months later a power supply($100) failure then finally a motherboard failure 1 month later which would cost $350 to repair.
then my next pc had a motherboard failure at 3 years and 3 months.
not exactly an encouraging experince
That really depends on personal experience, I've had awful experiences with PCs, specially HP/Compaq, and since I turned to Mac everything has just been great. My late 2007 whitebook served me 26 months without a problem, and my new 15" i5 is just as it. Very robust, fast and reliable.
I agree entirely, I have several old Dell laptops, one of which I'm using now and another one running NT4, which are still working perfectly well. It seems that I'm not alone with my failed
hardware as I'm reading more and more stories along the same lines as mine. It does annoy me though that "exceptions" are dealt with on a case by case basis. It's basically down to luck whether or not they decide to pay up.If you really want to push it you can argue under the Sale of Goods Act that the items should function as described for a reasonable amount of time - tv's computer etc 5 years, irrespective of any warranty. If you purchased the item on a credit card - you may also find the credit card company can pursue this on your behalf.
Thanks for the info and also to the previous posts relating to this. I was unaware of this.
I find it weird that the excuse was a logic board fault that was unrelated to the GPU. Can they not be anymore specific? How can they give such vague information and call themselves technicians or engineers? Surely they should be able to identify the fault and find the cause of it. If the info can be ascertained it should strengthen the case for the OP. Somehow I think this info may be withheld deliberately to avoid this situation. I might well be wrong here.
gpu repair
i sent my mac to this firm which claim to have a 95% success rate
the gpu and graphics chip were reflowed just over a year ago and my mac is still working to date the symptoms were graphics distortion for about a week followed by dead no start up gong but red light on...bgafix.co.ue ???? should be uk hope this helps
i sent my mac to this firm which claim to have a 95% success rate
the gpu and graphics chip were reflowed just over a year ago and my mac is still working to date the symptoms were graphics distortion for about a week followed by dead no start up gong but red light on...bgafix.co.ue ???? should be uk hope this helps
im in the extact same situation.
Laptop is Oct 2006 .. bought apple care but unfortunately it has expired. Pisses me off that i assumed i was buying a quality product. Im still using my 17" powerbook, i've got plenty of old laptops lying around that are way older the the mbp.
Failed logic board, apple service center in singapore says it will cost SGD$1.4k to fix. approx 1k usd.
Now i need to find a way to extract the data out of it and sell the parts i guess.
Laptop is Oct 2006 .. bought apple care but unfortunately it has expired. Pisses me off that i assumed i was buying a quality product. Im still using my 17" powerbook, i've got plenty of old laptops lying around that are way older the the mbp.
Failed logic board, apple service center in singapore says it will cost SGD$1.4k to fix. approx 1k usd.
Now i need to find a way to extract the data out of it and sell the parts i guess.
Dont give up - this situation really bothers me. I purchased a 15inch macbook pro in Dec 2007. In November last year i went to start my computer only to find that while the keyboard lit up and the computer chimed it would not turn on any further. I made an appointment and went to an apple store only to find out that it was the logic board and it would cost me 1600$ to fix (basically the price of a new computer). so i went ahead and purchased a new computer, and thinking my old computer was nothing but a pretty paper weight I sold it for parts... Few months later I found many many posts on this EXACT issue happening. There is even a forum dedicated to the issue on the Apple website. It seems dealers either decide to cover the issue because the graphics card is sodered into the logic board, or they screw people over.... Ive been a very big supporter of apple for a long time, but this situation has really thrown me off... I understand that products cannot be guaranteed but with this happening to hundreds (if not thousands) of these computers manufactured around this time you would think there would be a general consensus that this is a DEFECT and should be fixed free of charge.
Don't give up - http://support.apple.com/kb/ts2377 print that article out from Apple's website and with that, find your local retail store and book a Genius Bar appointment at your local Apple Retail Store (find one here: http://www.apple.com/uk/retail). Take the printed article and your MacBook Pro to the Apple Retail Store when your Genius Bar appointment is due, and show them the printed article as you explain the problem. If you do it this way they will most probably fix it after you prove that your laptop is affected. Remind the Genius Bar engineer it is under your consumer rights to get it fixed free of charge.
No it doesn't mean that.
I've bought mil-spec parts that are not RH. Mil-spec components normally undergo extended temperature testing and individual screenings, as well as burn-in etc. Depends very much on *which* mil-spec one needs to attain.
to the OP:
As an EE
Failures can arise from:
1. Parts defects
2. Manufacturing defects
3. Design defects
4. User negligence
5. End of design life
8600GT issue can be classified as 1/2 (nVidia + solder process), Macbook Air overheating falls under point 3.
People spilling Coke on their machine would be an example of 4.
Of course nothing lasts forever - CCFLs grow dim, transistors loose gain, capacitors become leaky - these are all under point 5.
For an expensive piece of equipment such as a MBP, assuming it hasnt been abused, then it should absolutely last 3+ years. Apart from some mechanical parts (HDD, fans) or non-solid state (CCFL backlight), I would say that the MTBF of a well designed computer should be *at least* as long as the HDD.
The "wearout" mechanisms for semiconductors are measured in 10000 years at normal operating temperatures - provided that they are not subjected to excessive voltages or temperatures - both of which are under control of the designer (at least as far as the internal components are concerned).
The other major cause of failure is solder joints, especially since the elimination of Pb in the soldering process - the most common production error I see is poor solder joints (even on automated lines with AOI).
So unless the product has been abused then the logic board (which Apple likes to gouge its customers for), is something that I absolutely would expect to last for > 3 years, and I would insist kindly, but firmly, that Apple should stand behind its products and replace the logic board FOC.