New Macbook 12 inch - Swollen Battery

[mokal]

Yes it was a full board swap. Just got it back, it is heating up from the bottom after the time machine restore. I'll test drive it for one more day and see how it goes.

 

[burgman]

No it wasn't getting hot and I don't leave it on for downloads at all.



Ok just going by your words
mokal said: ↑
Im planning to buy the MacBook as a desktop replacement. I plan to leave it on for downloads all day. Will the MacBook survive? Is it possible to leave it on to download with the screen off?

Pretty sure there is more to this story. So when you say Apple Care couldn't do anything for you did you have to pay for the repair?

 

[Makosuke]

Pretty sure there is more to this story. So when you say Apple Care couldn't do anything for you did you have to pay for the repair?

Leaving aside any self-reporting, there are no user-creatable situations in which a battery will ever swell up like that short of opening the machine up and damaging the charge controller or some other catastrophic damage like pouring water in it (and even that shouldn't cause battery swelling outside really weird cases).

If the MacBook seriously overheated, it could theoretically cause damage, but it would not result in that failure mode. So I'm fairly certain that Apple should and did pay for this repair, and it wasn't caused by the user.

And honestly, even if you did abusively overheat it (running it hard under a blanket or something), Apple would probably fix it assuming the failure was caused by something else. Really, the thing should thermally throttle to prevent damage anyway, so even thermal abuse shouldn't cause hardware failure, though it might increase the chance of premature chip failures.

Sometimes stuff just breaks. Usually older stuff, but once in a while newer stuff. Sucks when it happens, but it's a side effect of living in a material world rife with uncertainties. If everything made by a particular company breaks, that's something to complain about. If the company refuses to fix something that is broken under warranty, that's something to complain about. If you're unlucky enough to be the one-in-1000 infant failure and it gets fixed without cost to you, that's just life.

Aside: I had a friend in high school who was running a Mac LC as a dial-up BBS server, and he put a comforter on top of it because the fan was loud. It actually worked that way for quite a while before it cooked itself to death.

 

[jlo1158]

Thanks for your reply, I meant on 5 month old MacBooks
[doublepost=1452122651][/doublepost]Thanks for all your replies everyone. They got the replacement part at my local Apple Store. It wasn't repairable because the logic board has been damaged. They have to send it off to get fixed.

I sort of calmed down about it when everyone said it happens to batteries. But this is unacceptable, personally this laptop to me is screwed. Regardless of all statistics, I'm very disappointed with Apple on this one. Store manager was adamant on a repair not replacement. A battery is always likened to car tires but the logic board?
[doublepost=1452122789][/doublepost]

No it wasn't getting hot and I don't leave it on for downloads at all.

I'm actually curious about this. It seems like everyone replys with "take it back they will give you a new one". Do you think you're an exception or is it Apple silently changing their return policy? I live 4-5 hours from the closest Apple store. Taking something back every time I have an issue isn't feasible.

 

[abercrombie]

My Macbook 12 early 2016 model is also swelling. Just dropped it off to the Apple Store. It was an always-on machine all these years and was fine until now.

While it was out of warranty with no Applecare, they took it in for repair at no cost. If there was a cost involved, I would've just lived with it or sold it due to my OCD. If there was a cost, it would've been $575 (100 labor + 475 Flat Rate Repair Charge Macbook 12).

 

[mrnobita]

Hi,

Are you in US? is your laptop still under warranty? i got 2017, and the battery is swelling. Not sure if i can have free replace.

My Macbook 12 early 2016 model is also swelling. Just dropped it off to the Apple Store. It was an always-on machine all these years and was fine until now.

While it was out of warranty with no Applecare, they took it in for repair at no cost. If there was a cost involved, I would've just lived with it or sold it due to my OCD. If there was a cost, it would've been $575 (100 labor + 475 Flat Rate Repair Charge Macbook 12).