I'd love to know if anyone else has had these issues with their Mid-2012 Non-Retina MacBook Pro or if anyone has any suggestions as to what the issues might be.
A little background: I'm a freelance writer and I use an iMac as my "main" computer. In early July, after a medical emergency involving immediate family members living overseas and the very real possibility I would have to travel at a moments' notice, I decided to purchase a notebook computer. I've been a Mac user since 2003, so this wasn't my first Mac purchase. I purchased a 15" Mid-2012 Non-Retina MacBook Pro from Amazon. Since its purchase, the MBP has been used only a handful of times - maybe five or six at most. The iMac is still my "go to" machine.
I was using the MBP on Sunday night to browse the internet when it had a kernel panic and forced a reboot. I waited for the machine to restart, and then repaired permissions. Within a few minutes it did the same thing again. And again. This is the error log from that evening:
I contacted Apple support on Monday morning. The first call to them the CSR had me try to replicate what had happened when the computer had the kernel panic the first time (browsed the same sites, did the same things I was doing), but it didn't. He then had me do a bunch of other things, (restart, unplug and plug in from power point, checked users & groups/login items, hold down option command R P and then power, etc) but I could not replicate the issue.
He said he'd have another CSR do a callback 30 minutes later to see if they could fix the issue. While I was waiting for the second CSR to call me back, the MBP's display went darker but not totally to sleep. I tried to wake it from sleep by touching the mouse pad. The screen instantly came back to full brightness, the display shook and lines appeared to move across the screen in a horizontal motion. While this was happening, the screen image also flickered back and forth between the login screen and the screensaver like the display was stuck in a loop. I previously had an original white MacBook with a bad logic board that had similar screen issues, so by this point I was officially freaked out.
When the second CSR called back, I asked about the screen and he said a fresh install of Lion would "probably fix it". He had me do a clean install and said if I had any other issues to call back. The install took over 2 hours. At one point towards the end of the install I went into another room to get a drink, and when I came back the screen was totally black, even though the computer was still turned on. I put both palms on the computer and I could feel the insides whirring. I could vaguely see the "Installl Lion OSX" image if the computer screen was tilted it in a certain way. Otherwise the screen remained completely dark. Trying to wake it or adjust brightness didn't work. Nothing I tried would wake the display, so I attempted to reboot it. It wouldn't reboot until I held down the power button for 30+ seconds.
When I did that, the sleep light flickered rapidly for a few seconds, and the machine booted up again. Got back to the Apple load screen and it started up again to show the "Install Mac OSX" screen. The status bar now read "Installing Mac OSX on the disk "Macintosh HD" " "Time Remaining: About 32 minutes". It finally finished installing and appeared to install fine.
However whenever I restart the computer now, the screen flashes yellow for a few seconds between the Apple load screen and the login screen and the computer now seems to be taking longer than usual to boot. I'm not at all confident in the machine's stability nor am I willing to install all my programs over again only to have it keep doing kernel panics and having weird screen issues. I am kicking myself that I purchased it through Amazon and not Apple - Amazon has a 30 day return policy - the computer is barely six weeks old.
I think my only option now is to take it into an Apple store and have them look at it to see what the underlying issues are. While I'm not a computer technician, I am well versed enough to know that this is more than a software issue.
A little background: I'm a freelance writer and I use an iMac as my "main" computer. In early July, after a medical emergency involving immediate family members living overseas and the very real possibility I would have to travel at a moments' notice, I decided to purchase a notebook computer. I've been a Mac user since 2003, so this wasn't my first Mac purchase. I purchased a 15" Mid-2012 Non-Retina MacBook Pro from Amazon. Since its purchase, the MBP has been used only a handful of times - maybe five or six at most. The iMac is still my "go to" machine.
I was using the MBP on Sunday night to browse the internet when it had a kernel panic and forced a reboot. I waited for the machine to restart, and then repaired permissions. Within a few minutes it did the same thing again. And again. This is the error log from that evening:
I contacted Apple support on Monday morning. The first call to them the CSR had me try to replicate what had happened when the computer had the kernel panic the first time (browsed the same sites, did the same things I was doing), but it didn't. He then had me do a bunch of other things, (restart, unplug and plug in from power point, checked users & groups/login items, hold down option command R P and then power, etc) but I could not replicate the issue.
He said he'd have another CSR do a callback 30 minutes later to see if they could fix the issue. While I was waiting for the second CSR to call me back, the MBP's display went darker but not totally to sleep. I tried to wake it from sleep by touching the mouse pad. The screen instantly came back to full brightness, the display shook and lines appeared to move across the screen in a horizontal motion. While this was happening, the screen image also flickered back and forth between the login screen and the screensaver like the display was stuck in a loop. I previously had an original white MacBook with a bad logic board that had similar screen issues, so by this point I was officially freaked out.
When the second CSR called back, I asked about the screen and he said a fresh install of Lion would "probably fix it". He had me do a clean install and said if I had any other issues to call back. The install took over 2 hours. At one point towards the end of the install I went into another room to get a drink, and when I came back the screen was totally black, even though the computer was still turned on. I put both palms on the computer and I could feel the insides whirring. I could vaguely see the "Installl Lion OSX" image if the computer screen was tilted it in a certain way. Otherwise the screen remained completely dark. Trying to wake it or adjust brightness didn't work. Nothing I tried would wake the display, so I attempted to reboot it. It wouldn't reboot until I held down the power button for 30+ seconds.
When I did that, the sleep light flickered rapidly for a few seconds, and the machine booted up again. Got back to the Apple load screen and it started up again to show the "Install Mac OSX" screen. The status bar now read "Installing Mac OSX on the disk "Macintosh HD" " "Time Remaining: About 32 minutes". It finally finished installing and appeared to install fine.
However whenever I restart the computer now, the screen flashes yellow for a few seconds between the Apple load screen and the login screen and the computer now seems to be taking longer than usual to boot. I'm not at all confident in the machine's stability nor am I willing to install all my programs over again only to have it keep doing kernel panics and having weird screen issues. I am kicking myself that I purchased it through Amazon and not Apple - Amazon has a 30 day return policy - the computer is barely six weeks old.
I think my only option now is to take it into an Apple store and have them look at it to see what the underlying issues are. While I'm not a computer technician, I am well versed enough to know that this is more than a software issue.
