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Macbook 13 pro" buying worries, beachball worries

MrFrump said:
Same here. On a 13" as well and I get the beachball on Safari but not much anywhere else. Happened both before and after the firmware upgrade.
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Right, well that's not the same issue... everyone gets lagging in Safari.

The beachball syndrome is systemwide. Typically you'll be watching some video or playing music in iTunes and you have a couple Safari windows open or whatever. Suddenly the music or video freezes up and the cursor turns into a beachball, and you hear the hard drive parking. You then go around clicking on stuff everywhere but nothing happens. If you happen to be typing text at the time, your keystrokes will not be reflected on the screen. There is no suspicious activity in Activity Monitor, no runaway CPU or memory usage, nothing. Then after 30 seconds everything springs into action at once, the hard drive gets very busy with accumulated work, whatever text you tried to type while it was frozen will magically appear, and the music/video will pick up in some place inbetween where it last was and where it should have been had there not been a freeze. This keeps happening at varying intervals, anything from 3-4 times/hour to every 2 minutes.
 
Just thought I'd chip in here...

Since June 09' I've had 4 MBPs. First one (mid-range 15") was perfect until I updated with the 1.7 EFI 'fix'. Needless to say, returned it to Apple, got a replacement.

2nd one (same model) had a really random graphical glitch that scarred the bejesus out of me. Incidentally, it had 1.6 pre-installed and so no freezes.

3rd one, lasted a whole 18 hours. Got home played a movie, froze. Returned the next day. I was intending to get a refund and get a 17" refurb (thinking the 17" didn't have these crazy, inexcusable problems).

When I got to the Apple store they offered me a 10% discount on anything in store, so I got a brand new 17" (paid the extra £165, saved £185), which is what I'm using now. Played around 5 hours of video so far with 2 freezes and 1 general system freeze, with 1 really odd episode where the damn thing wouldn't turn on.

So now I'm considering my options. I need a laptop, I don't have space for an iMac for any other 'desktop' computer. My options with Apple are limited at best...go for the cheapy white Macbook, no thanks. Pay a tonne more for the Macbook Air. Well, after spending a some time researching them, they seem to suffer from a few problems too; bad hinges, poor SSD performance, not to mention the fact that they don't have the expandability and power of a MBP.

Why should have to compromise? Why am I bending over backwards to 'fit' my lifestyle and needs around what Apple can offer me? It's ridiculous. I'm seriously considering a Sony Viao, with Windows 7.

All I need from Apple is a quick 'we're working on this' and that would be enough to put my mind at ease and hold off a while but it's their lack of communication that bothers me. At this point, I'm not convinced that a fix is imminent. MBPs are still flying off the shelves so why would they invest the time and money into a fix? Furthermore, a quick fix may not be possible, especially if the logic boards on these MBPS needs replacing.

Apple; I'm trying to be faithful, loyal and all that but you're making it too difficult.
 
i bought that model two days ago and so far no problems with bballing.. it did have a few hiccups right after installing SL but nothing that lasted or left me upset... id say its not a massive issue and you should be fine..
 
KettyKrueger said:
Just thought I'd chip in here...

All I need from Apple is a quick 'we're working on this' and that would be enough to put my mind at ease and hold off a while but it's their lack of communication that bothers me. At this point, I'm not convinced that a fix is imminent. MBPs are still flying off the shelves so why would they invest the time and money into a fix? Furthermore, a quick fix may not be possible, especially if the logic boards on these MBPS needs replacing.

Apple; I'm trying to be faithful, loyal and all that but you're making it too difficult.
Click to expand...

Exactly, I want to buy a new computer because its going to be better then the old one. If they would just let us know that they know of this problem and that they are fixing it. We would be more reassured.

But now we are talking about firmware 1.6, firmware 1.7, rollback firmware thats only available in some stores. I mean give me a break. Apple people buy Apple computers because they dont want to have to think about this stuff. Joder
 
bman0408 said:
i bought that model two days ago and so far no problems with bballing.. it did have a few hiccups right after installing SL but nothing that lasted or left me upset... id say its not a massive issue and you should be fine..
Click to expand...

What firmware are you on please?

thanks!
 
When I bought my MBP 13" it came with the 1.7 update, and I have had no problems with it whatsoever. Keep in mind that it's more likely for ppl that have complaints about it to post something compared to those who are satisfied. Just my two cents.
 
Hate to be the barer of bad news but I think all MBPs will now ship with 1.7.

It's rather tempting to take this back to Apple, wonder across the street and pick up a Viao from the Sony store, they have stock of the model I'm pursuing.

For what I paid for this I can get an 18" Viao, 2.66, 500GB+64GB SSD, Blu-Ray reader/writer, 9600GT 512MB GPU, 4GB ram, etc....but with Vista!

I know W7 is much nicer but going from SL to Vista feels like a backwards step (hell, backwards leap!). Apple have somehow got an invisible hold over me, can't really explain it better than that! If I do go back to Windows, I'd feel like I'm cutting off my nose off to spite my face really. Apple don't care about individuals (well, what company does really?) That said, I can't cope with a £1900 computer that doesn't 'just work'. I expect this kind of crap from a cheap-ass XP Netbook, not a top-of-the-line Apple Notebook.

Anyway, don't mean to turn this into a PC Vs. Mac thread.

My advise is simple, if you can wait, then do. If you can't then maybe explore the Macbook, or Macbook Air. Don't improve Apple's sales of this sub-par, beachballin', PoS.
 
reservedegotist said:
When I bought my MBP 13" it came with the 1.7 update, and I have had no problems with it whatsoever. Keep in mind that it's more likely for ppl that have complaints about it to post something compared to those who are satisfied. Just my two cents.
Click to expand...

True. But have you played any video for any length of time. These problems seems to be more visible whilst playing video.
 
KettyKrueger said:
MBPs are still flying off the shelves so why would they invest the time and money into a fix?
Click to expand...
Even worse for Apple. I'd say it's particularly important to get this fixed if MBPs are indeed flying off the shelves. The more MBPs they sell, the more people will have this episode burned into their memory in the future, and when the next gen MBP comes out they'll be going... "Oh yeah, I remember the last time I bought a new MBP, it was a piece of crap that went beachball crazy on me every five minutes. I wonder what fatal flaw the new one has?"

This MBP 17" is my first work Mac, I have an iMac and a Mini since before but my main laptop where I do most of my work has always been a PC. I thought I'd give Mac a shot this time, worst case scenario I'd simply use it as a Windows PC through Boot Camp. It's a very nice looking machine with an excellent screen. I love the form factor. But I have some serious ****** doubts about the hardware inside. The battery was at 91% health but after several calibrations I haven't been able to get it above 94%. I've had a couple of kernel panics. It hates my Kensington USB hub for some reason, and sometimes won't start when it's plugged in, or it will freeze up during boot. USB is acting really weird in general, sometimes I have to yank stuff out and put it in another port to make it come alive. There's some really peculiar stuff going on with USB related to booting up and sleep; during boot the USB power seems to go haywire and flickers on and off like mad while my USB speakers are popping and crackling (I take it this is a Mac thing with USB since my iMac is equally weird). Then there's the infernal beachball syndrome that comes and goes. I've done tons of SMC and NVRAM/PRAM resets for various reasons. As for OS X, there are too many issues to mention but quirky and unreliable networking and random runaway CPU usage are two factors that leap to mind.

This is not what I look for in a computer, there's just too much voodoo crap going on with the hardware and the system. I know replacing it won't make a difference since I always stumble upon discussion threads about the same issues I'm having. What I keep wondering is if there was ever a time when Macs were rock solid pieces of hardware and I was unfortunate enough to switch to Mac after this era was over, or if Macs are always plagued by voodoo weirdness and the "it just works" mantra was just a collective lie that the community kept repeating until they all believed it?
 
Anuba said:
Even worse for Apple. I'd say it's particularly important to get this fixed if MBPs are indeed flying off the shelves. The more MBPs they sell, the more people will have this episode burned into their memory in the future, and when the next gen MBP comes out they'll be going... "Oh yeah, I remember the last time I bought a new MBP, it was a piece of crap that went beachball crazy on me every five minutes. I wonder what fatal flaw the new one has?"

This MBP 17" is my first work Mac, I have an iMac and a Mini since before but my main laptop where I do most of my work has always been a PC. I thought I'd give Mac a shot this time, worst case scenario I'd simply use it as a Windows PC through Boot Camp. It's a very nice looking machine with an excellent screen. I love the form factor. But I have some serious ****** doubts about the hardware inside. The battery was at 91% health but after several calibrations I haven't been able to get it above 94%. I've had a couple of kernel panics. It hates my Kensington USB hub for some reason, and sometimes won't start when it's plugged in, or it will freeze up during boot. USB is acting really weird in general, sometimes I have to yank stuff out and put it in another port to make it come alive. There's some really peculiar stuff going on with USB related to booting up and sleep; during boot the USB power seems to go haywire and flickers on and off like mad while my USB speakers are popping and crackling (I take it this is a Mac thing with USB since my iMac is equally weird). Then there's the infernal beachball syndrome that comes and goes. I've done tons of SMC and NVRAM/PRAM resets for various reasons. As for OS X, there are too many issues to mention but quirky and unreliable networking and random runaway CPU usage are two factors that leap to mind.

This is not what I look for in a computer, there's just too much voodoo crap going on with the hardware and the system. I know replacing it won't make a difference since I always stumble upon discussion threads about the same issues I'm having. What I keep wondering is if there was ever a time when Macs were rock solid pieces of hardware and I was unfortunate enough to switch to Mac after this era was over, or if Macs are always plagued by voodoo weirdness and the "it just works" mantra was just a collective lie that the community kept repeating until they all believed it?
Click to expand...

I still half believe that 'it just works' mantra.

I've had 2 iMacs and 2 Mac Minis in my time (not counting the 4 MBPs) and they have 'just work(ed)'. But this latest breed MBPs are a bit fishy to me.

I totally understand Apple's work ethos, they must keep their strategies close to heart but keeping quiet on things like this is appalling and counter-productive, as people unlike myself that don't have an invisible hold over them, will simply get their money back, why should they/we/me wait for a fix? At least if a fix was on the horizon, Apple employees could inform people of this and maybe dissuade them from returning their PoS MBPs.

I don't know what else to say, it would be a shame to abandon Apple for this, especially given that the rest of the machine, for me, is flawless. But hey, Apple, I tend to watch movies on on my MBP, I don't like intermissions, if you catch my drift!
 
I'm on a MBP 13" 2.53Ghz with stock HD, 4GB RAM. No beachballing whatsoever, Leopard 10.5.8. Co-worker has the same, with no problems either. Not sure where the EFI v. is listed at, but I've updated everything on both.
 
I am running spinrite right now on my new uMBP 13in 2.26ghz stock. Ill see if it finds any bad sectors, or restores any good sectors to use. I used disk utility to zero the drive.
 
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