Macbook Problems

[asdad123]

Well Ive been going nuts with the macbook that my girlfriend owns.

Lets start a little backround.

On September 16,2010, my girlfriends little netbook of over a year broke down and she needed a laptop for school. I went out and bought her a macbook considering Ive never had a problem with apple (Owned a macbook, 2 iphones, and several ipods) as an early christmas present. I thought that she would have no trouble at all anymore since these are supposed to be well made computers with hardly any problems.

Everything was fine for this first couple months, then it all went downhill. About 3 weeks ago, her computer kept starting to get random kernal panics upon opening it up from sleep. We brought it to the apple store, they ran it through their tests, and said nothing was wrong with the computer but they would reinstall Mac OSX just incase.

We thought all was fine but then a couple days later, the kernal panics started happening again. I brought it back to the apple store (Got there at 5, waited til 7 even though I had an appointment...). They said it was a problem with the sleep state virtual memory and they deleted and reset that. Once I got the laptop back to her at home, it would not boot at all. Needless to say, I was furious. I brought it back to the apple store and they girl at the counter just says "oh yeah that was my fault" and tells me they need to reinstall Mac OSX AGAIN! I said whatever and told them to do it. I was there from 5 pm to nearly 10.

Now, all should be fixed right? We brought it there three times, it shouldve been fixed. Nope! Today, another kernal panic. I brought it back and they tell me they need to send it out. Thats just great. School just started and my girlfriend has an online class and this is the only computer they have in the house. Why didnt they send it out when I brought it the first time? Thats ridiculous. Worst of all, the guy at the apple store told me if they cant get it to kernal panic, theyll just send it back without doing anything. They asked me how I get it to panic, but it just happens at random when opening the laptop from sleep.

So after spending 1069.99 for a laptop, Ive had nothing but trouble with it. She's had it for less than 5 months and apperently the Apple Store cant fix this problem after going there three times.

Is there anything else I could do? I just want her to have a working laptop. Hell, I couldve just bought her another $400 netbook that probably wouldve lasted longer than spending nearly $1100.

 

[Detrius]

TLR.

Try testing the RAM: http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

 

[vistadude]

It's considered a lemon after 3 fails of the same problem. Did you buy it with a credit card? A lot of credit cards will refund you if you're not satisfied, especially with electronics if you call them, mine has a $1000 limit, yours may be different.

 

[asdad123]

I cant test the ram. The apple store sent it out to the repair center yesterday. They tested it when I brought it in to check if any hardware was at fault and everything passed though.


Also, I bought it with my debit card as my credit card limit is only $500 (College Student Discover Card). It was my Chase debit card.


What should I do if it comes back from the repair center if it comes back without them being able to find a fault? Should I ask for a new computer at the store? Obviously theres a problem if the kernal panics keep happening after two OSX reinstalls. Last time, I even brought it into the store with the kernal panic screen on it.

 

[Detrius]

The repair centers do very little diagnostic--at least this is the case with the repair centers we third-party service providers send repairs to. We're expected to diagnose a machine before sending it off, and I've had times where a hard drive had bad blocks, but all the repair center did was a format and reinstall. Additionally, it can take a fair amount of time to test RAM properly. Clearly, someone has dropped the ball on this.

From my experience, by the time a machine comes into the shop for kernel panics, crashes, etc, a reinstall of the OS is highly unlikely to fix the problem. The vast majority of the time, there's an actual hardware problem somewhere causing the problem.

Without knowing anything else (not knowing machine), the first wild guess for random kernel panics or crashes would be RAM. Next would be graphics card, and next would be logic board. Telling someone to reinstall the OS because of random KPs is about like telling someone to repair permissions (for virtually any reason): It's what people who don't know anything say.


NB: yes, repairing permissions theoretically can fix things, but 99% of people telling someone to repair permissions say it blindly, and therefore, it's more like superstition. So, along with this, you don't likely need to reinstall the OS, and you don't likely need to run Disk Warrior. OS X really is great, and at this point in its evolution, if you need Disk Warrior to fix something, or if you need to reinstall the OS, the bigger question is this: Why did it break to begin with?