hi,
i would be really grateful for any help/advice.
disclaimer: i don't really understand anything beyond the basics about the way my MBP works, so apologies for my unsophisticated explanations and use of terminology.
i bought an apple-refurbished 2010 13-inch MBP from apple in early 2011. it died suddenly two months later, taking a lot of my photos and docs with it (the apple store told me it had 'bad RAM'.) got it back and it worked fine for 6 months, until the battery refused to charge. took it to the apple store, they ran diagnostics, admitted the battery shouldn't be dead yet, and replaced it. at that point it was still under warranty.
after that it was mostly fine but would occasionally do a weird thing that would freak me out. before this i had a white macbook, and before that an ibook, and they were as stable as anything, and NEVER did anything unexpected or unsettling.
anyway, to cut a long story short, now it's screwed. about 3 months ago it started to shut down randomly - not a kernel panic, no spinning wheel, it just felt like the power was being cut. it was sporadic at first but got more frequent. i started to log the instances, and it seemed like it only happened on battery power. the battery also started intermittently displaying 'replace now' in the status bar at the top - even though, when i ran the diagnostics, the condition came up as 'normal', and it only has around 300 cycles.
took it to the mac store, they weren't much help. they kept it overnight, but said they couldn't replicate the problem, and didn't have any suggestions for what it could be. told me the battery was fine. i looked online for suggestions and came across instructions to reset the PRAM and SMC. i did both, and this seemed to fix the problem for a few weeks.
then it came back and got so bad that the machine was unusable. as soon as i disconnected the power cord it would shut down. i took it back to the apple store, they took it in again, told me it was definitely not the battery, but was either the OS or the logic board, and reinstalled the OS for me as a first-line (and cheaper) plan of attack.
this fixed it - yipee! for a month, everything was fine. until today. now it's back, it's bad, i can't use it. each time i unplug from the wall it shuts down. there's nothing in console that looks suspicious to me (although there ARE lots of error messages - just nothing from the time of the shutdowns).
when i turn it on after the shutdowns the time has usually reverted to 00:00 on 1/1/2001.
so, is it the logic board? does the fact that reinstalling the OS fixed it for a while mean that it definitely isn't the logic board? or could the reinstall have temporarily helped a logic board issue? i really don't want to pay for a new logic board
should i march into the apple store and demand they fix it for free seeing as it's the 3rd major issue i've had? i really feel like i got a lemon. it sucks. i lost a LOT of files through all of this - partly because i'm a flake and don't back up properly, ok - but partly through weirdness with the files i did back up that i also connect to this machine's general unreliability. anyway, that's another story, and i've already written the better part of a novel here.
in case it's important, the only unusual things i do with regard to general usage are:
1) i use a VPN application. tunnelbear.
2) i modified the hosts file to stop some software from 'phoning home'. just copied and pasted what i was told to. don't judge, i did buy this software once, but lost it in the 'bad ram apocalypse' of 2011.
thanks!
i would be really grateful for any help/advice.
disclaimer: i don't really understand anything beyond the basics about the way my MBP works, so apologies for my unsophisticated explanations and use of terminology.
i bought an apple-refurbished 2010 13-inch MBP from apple in early 2011. it died suddenly two months later, taking a lot of my photos and docs with it (the apple store told me it had 'bad RAM'.) got it back and it worked fine for 6 months, until the battery refused to charge. took it to the apple store, they ran diagnostics, admitted the battery shouldn't be dead yet, and replaced it. at that point it was still under warranty.
after that it was mostly fine but would occasionally do a weird thing that would freak me out. before this i had a white macbook, and before that an ibook, and they were as stable as anything, and NEVER did anything unexpected or unsettling.
anyway, to cut a long story short, now it's screwed. about 3 months ago it started to shut down randomly - not a kernel panic, no spinning wheel, it just felt like the power was being cut. it was sporadic at first but got more frequent. i started to log the instances, and it seemed like it only happened on battery power. the battery also started intermittently displaying 'replace now' in the status bar at the top - even though, when i ran the diagnostics, the condition came up as 'normal', and it only has around 300 cycles.
took it to the mac store, they weren't much help. they kept it overnight, but said they couldn't replicate the problem, and didn't have any suggestions for what it could be. told me the battery was fine. i looked online for suggestions and came across instructions to reset the PRAM and SMC. i did both, and this seemed to fix the problem for a few weeks.
then it came back and got so bad that the machine was unusable. as soon as i disconnected the power cord it would shut down. i took it back to the apple store, they took it in again, told me it was definitely not the battery, but was either the OS or the logic board, and reinstalled the OS for me as a first-line (and cheaper) plan of attack.
this fixed it - yipee! for a month, everything was fine. until today. now it's back, it's bad, i can't use it. each time i unplug from the wall it shuts down. there's nothing in console that looks suspicious to me (although there ARE lots of error messages - just nothing from the time of the shutdowns).
when i turn it on after the shutdowns the time has usually reverted to 00:00 on 1/1/2001.
so, is it the logic board? does the fact that reinstalling the OS fixed it for a while mean that it definitely isn't the logic board? or could the reinstall have temporarily helped a logic board issue? i really don't want to pay for a new logic board
should i march into the apple store and demand they fix it for free seeing as it's the 3rd major issue i've had? i really feel like i got a lemon. it sucks. i lost a LOT of files through all of this - partly because i'm a flake and don't back up properly, ok - but partly through weirdness with the files i did back up that i also connect to this machine's general unreliability. anyway, that's another story, and i've already written the better part of a novel here.
in case it's important, the only unusual things i do with regard to general usage are:
1) i use a VPN application. tunnelbear.
2) i modified the hosts file to stop some software from 'phoning home'. just copied and pasted what i was told to. don't judge, i did buy this software once, but lost it in the 'bad ram apocalypse' of 2011.
thanks!