Long list of issues with rMBP 13 (Late 2012) - normal?

Hi all,

Wow, not posted on here for a while!

However, I would like to hear from some other members regarding their experience with the 13-inch rMBP (Late 2012).

My company bought three of these machines with the 2.9GHz processor upgrade. Two of us were coming from 13-inch MacBook Pros, one from a 13-inch Air. We also bought two more Airs at the same time.

So far, we have had so many problems with the 13-inch rMBPs, I've booked in to the genius bar this afternoon.

Some context before the problems list:

• This is the third generation of Macs we've used at this business, from the 2007 15-inch Pros with the awful NVIDIA GPU problems (60% of the machines' motherboards replaced numerous times), to the 2010-era 13-inch MBPs and Airs.
  
• I have been an exclusively Apple user for 16 years now, and an iPhone user since day 1. I love Macs particularly, but have had numerous machines fixed (as above) and replaced due to hardware defects, so I know how the process goes with Apple (usually slowly!).
  
• I'm the defacto Mac technician at work and home, having managed, fixed, revived and rebuilt many machines ranging from G3, G4 and G5 towers to iMacs and countless notebooks and the odd xeon Mac Pro.

The reason I say this is so you know I know my way around Macs and OSX (though there's always so much more to learn).

Having said all that, I'd have to say these 13-inch rMBPs are the buggiest machines we've had to date. So many problems it's not funny (really, really not funny).

I'm also extermely interested in the fact that Apple updated these machines just over three months since they were introduced which is very, very short in Apple terms, and may scream 'underlying problem'.

There's been some discussion on Apple's support forums about a flawed wifi-BT chip being one of the issues and the only fix possible was to update the circuitry, which happened in January.

So, problems include:

• Total system crash and reboot. No kernal panics, just complete random restarts.
• Freezing when waking from sleep (if sleeping longer than a few minutes). Apple has issued a 'fix' for this already but it didn't work.
• Terrible lag in mail using IMAP (doesn't happen on my old 13-inch MBP).
• Wifi network issues: forgetting, refusing to connect, losing connection.
• Kernal panics when using an LTE dongle (this one's easy to troubleshoot - the dongle! But we rely on these things when mobile...)
• Snow effect on screen (like an analogue TV with no signal) - possibly the most random GPU effect I've ever seen on a Mac, and that's saying something!
• Complete system freeze when presenting (this is very, very bad and has happened to all of us now using different versions of PowerPoint). Requires pulling out the projector cable and replugging, repeatedly, in the middle of presentations

Have any of you guys also experienced these issues? Any input gratefully received!

One last comment: in terms of pure reliability and robustness, my old 13-inch MBP actually works a lot better than this new $2k machine. Not good!

 

How about you read the threads you're responding to before firing off a load of garbage like the above...

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I think the problems could be more specific to the 13-inch given the integrated chipset. Good to know re 15s though. A lot of people have suggested to me that it's Mountain Lion that's the problem.

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Given we've had similar problems across a range of machines (some fresh installs, some transfers), all configured slightly differently, I am not inclined to do this.

 

Just back from the Apple Store...

Because the problems are intermittent and across three machines, the tech suggested:

1. keeping track of all the problems via the console (e.g. screenshots of error messages in console when something happens).
   
2. Second course of action is to wait and see what impact 10.8.3 might have and possibly do a clean install then. (Two of the machines were originally clean installs, one was a transfer.)
   
3. Third course of action will be to drop off my machine for a couple of days and see if they can replicate the issues.

The technician also rightly pointed out that a bunch of the issues seem to stem from using external displays (whether monitor or projector) so that's one area of focus.

Good to hear other experiences though so thanks for that input - it's what I was looking for as opposed to out and out solutions.

Could well be a hardware/batch issue.

Regarding the processor supply/update - the conspiracy theory is more fun (!) but for sure could have been an opportunistic bump, though it is super-rare for Apple to do that at the three month mark. More usual is 250-350 days (avg 267 according to the buyers guide).

 

That's a lot of hypothesising.

I was reminded earlier of the common issue of first-gen Apple devices, it's historic, so maybe this was all par for the course.

One thing with the presentation freezes, a forum on Apple Support suggests it could well be a Microsoft update from 10 Feb that has caused it:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4804874?start=15&tstart=0

 

Definitely not normal, especially given this machine has a beefy spec. It does only happen if it's been shut for, say, 30 minutes or longer (e.g overnight). I vaguely remember reading once that there's two levels of sleep or hibernate? So maybe the root of the issues is in the deeper state.

Saying that, I'm thinking I should try resetting the SMC...

Edit: also don't forget, apple issued a specific Firmware update for these machines to address this issue. It made it better but didn't resolve it.

Done today. They need more info as the problems are intermittent, so we'll see if we can gather suitable evidence.

 

That's good to hear.

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Definitely worth a try, thanks! I think it is something to do with the hibernate aspect. Deeper sleep kicks in after a while, and this could be what causes the machine to lag on opening. In the scheme of things it's small, but I notice it a lot in use.