purchased my 1.6 HD Air from an apple store last monday and hadn't had any issues till earlier this afternoon, when video playback crapped out (all web video--especially hd--and dvds played through superdrive began freezing/skipping frames, etc) and the fans cranked up to 6200rpm and the hard drive started to make the faintly audible, intermittent clicking noise others have mentioned. two hours on the phone with apple care later, and they determined it to be a faulty video card. as such, the whole machine must now be exchanged at said apple store since the card's soldered and cannot simply be replaced. all this, after a mere six days of use. anyway, I'm fairly disappointed. really do like this machine, just hope this is the first and last major issue I have or it's back to the regular old reliable macbook...
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On to Air #2...
- Thread starter Jeweller
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I hear you. I've had my Air a week now. I sold my 2.4 MBP to get it. It is thin and light, but I have been dealing with the same issue and some others as well. I had a problem with power cycling on my last one. I exchanged it for another one at the Apple Store, but still have the video playback problem. I'm also seriously considering going to a MacBook. I really like traveling with this laptop, but may have to sacrifice a little weight and space to have full functionality.
i've read a few threads on this but it doesn't add up really,i mean the GPU is the same as a macbook and they don't have this issue, and the processor speed is pretty close to 2.0 c2d and 1.83 cd, which didn't have this issue. Maybe it has to do with the hard drive, are ssd people having the same issue?
yeah, I don't get it either. apple care guy said that, given my description of the problems I'm having, a faulty HD was a possibility, though an unlikely one (reckon I should have asked for elaboration on how he came to that determination). said he was almost certain it was the video card or an issue with the ram, and that either way the whole thing would obviously have to be replaced. so I suppose I'll do so, which is annoying since I had it all nice and set up with a fresh leopard install and all my personal files and 10 gigs of music. oh well. minor inconveniences, eh...
unfortunately I've no external hard drive. not too familiar with time machine and if there's a way to do this, I'm all ears.
sucks it seems to be the norm that "Rev A" products generally end up this way, but I guess I question why? (yes, I acknowledge the real world use it takes to perfect a computer, but do the apple care people really need to act so fake-surprised about what must, at this point, be a fairly rampant problem?) I mean, being that I've been in the market for an apple laptop that's made out of some sort of metal and is easy to lug around and not prone to fingerprints and has a decent sized screen and does everything I need it to do word processing-wise (which is not much) for quite a while, I'd gladly give a company as much time as needed to get all the kinks and glitches worked out before releasing a semi-ready product. and I talk out-of-ass cause I have no point of reference as to exactly how many people have experienced these sort of problems with their MBA, aside from those whose complaints have been documented on this Apple forum. maybe I'm one of the select unlucky anomalies, I don't know. but the number 1800+tax keeps flashing in my eyes and the fact that I love this computer (in theory) and this company but cannot and will not justify it's mediocrity when it comes to charging me a premium to be one of an unlucky few test-dummies for their quote-unquote revolutionary new product...
end rant.
hope the replacement I receive tomorrow at least does the minimal amount of stuff a computer should be expected to do in this day and age, and not be a dick about it...
and I'm sorry this is a drunken rant, I'm not going to lie. but since I'm a recent convert to mac (1 year ago), and since I've gotten accustom to the relative perfection that is OSX, it's hard not to expect something more than what you get with your average Dell, HP, etc, release.. yeah, I know. ouch. here comes the onslaught. but, to be honest, I've never experienced these sort of hardware issues with any of the aforementioned and, yes, I realize it's not cause they're necessarily better built machines, but that they were maybe more proven machines when I came to them blah blah.. anyway, kind of babbling but essentially wondering if this is just the norm with apple computers (laptops, desktops..) in Rev A. if the logic is that it's to be expected that you may in fact get a less than perfect/stellar product out of the first batch, why (besides that blinding need to have the latest-greatest) does anyone bother?
I'd definitely call apple care and see what they say. if they have any idea what it is, they'll fix it. if not, replace.