So, am I screwed ?

[Dentifrice]

Check "About This Mac" and see if it matches what you had before.

yep still the same spec but nonetheless, it's different components because now my iCloud has two MacBook entries in the devices list and time machine detected it as a new computer

 

[Kcetech1]

Maybe bad wording from my side. I wrote "premium" because these chips a) are more expensive than standard DDR3/DDR4 and b) is rated to run at 2133, which is fairly high for LPDDR3 and on par with last-year DDR4 speeds. I was not aware that LPDDR3 is available as SODIMM and I was not able to find any such modules in online shops I have looked at. Could you point me to one?

Never seen any SODIMMS myself since LPDDR3 is technicaly not even laptop ram, its for phones and mobile devices etc technically and basically even unrelated to DDR3. I see everything with DDR3L running around which I think is almost the same power draw.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_DDR#LPDDR3

$3,499 CDN -> $2,599 USD
$2,549 CDN -> $1,893 USD
$5,299 CDN -> $3,936 USD

I must have been almost asleep, I inverted my CDN and USD ill go fix that later... sorry everyone

 

[ctrlzone]

Alas unlikely, as Intel still doesn't support LPDDR4 (as far as I know)



Very true, but there is also already shipping tech that approaches DDR latencies (Intel's Optane). And also, if we get memory-on-chip, won't it kind of invalidate your original demand for more modularity?



I prefer to be an optimist But really, I don't see any other way if efficiency and sustainability is a goal. And its not exclusive for computing. For example, the house I live in uses solar panels and aquifer heat exchangers for floor heating. There is no way I could perform maintenance on a system like this, unlike the more traditional heaters. But it ultimately makes the building autonomous from the external power grid and does not use any fossil fuels for heating. Does it save me money? Not really, since any savings from increased efficiency are offset by higher cost of equipment. But its certainly more sustainable (and the comfort level is something else).

if proper installed it should not need any maintenance, and its the best solution to heat a building and uses a lot less energy, enabling self sustain if proper insulation is present, what i assume.
Savings should be there as well, since heating costs are ridiculously lower.
i call this a real progress.

today we throw away an entire logic board with working cpu, gpu, sound card, bluetooth w-lan, and what not.
just to change memory.
if not under warranty, instead of just swapping dimms, this costs at least 10 times more for the customer.

but lets see what the future brings and i am optimistic.

there's no real alternative to optimism

 

[Merkava_4]

My only option would be to go to an Apple store and pay the full logic board replacement ?

Ebay seller called "code2424." They repair Macs at a fraction of the cost of the Apple Store. I've sent in an MBP for a screen assembly replacement and they did a great job. The only kicker is they may use used parts. But for something like a logic board, you won't be seeing it. They're located in Antelope California.

 

[treekram]

yep still the same spec but nonetheless, it's different components because now my iCloud has two MacBook entries in the devices list and time machine detected it as a new computer

Supposedly Time Machine depends on the MAC address (hard-coded network hardware address) of a computer and because your logic board changed, your MAC address changed. I don't know if that's the cause of the iCloud issue. But if you have a login startup item that relates to networking, that may explain the crashes. There was a thread (can't remember the forum) where the poster took a backup to a newer machine and had kernel crashes - in that case it may have been Little Snitch (that was suggested as a possible issue but the OP did not return after the suggestion to say if/how they resolved the issue).

 

[Dentifrice]

* Please, do not hijack my post this time. Thanks guys *

Hi,

I need your advices.

What happened :

1- I drop my macbook on the floor and the screen failed
2- Went to Apple, pay $1000 for a new screen and repair
3- After that repair, I began to have memory bad block
4- Went to Apple again and they changed my logic board (free of charge)

5- Went home again, began using my computer and new problems again. Randomly, between 2 minutes and 15 minutes, the screen goes black, the fans went crazy for about 20 seconds then the macbook closes. No crash reporting at reboot. It's like a shutdown.


So what I did :

1- create a new user to see if it's my old profile that is having problem. No problem on this user ! At least, that is what I though at first. Then I realized that when I close the lid (so it's going to sleep), 2-3 minutes later, the fan kicks in and the macbook is hot. Trying to wake it up doesn't work. Need to hard reset

2- So I reinstall mac os yesterday evening. I was happy, everything seems to work. This morning, I press the power button. I see the apple logo and at the moment you're supposed to see the login screen, the screen go black. Fans spins again and the macbook shutdown (like my first problem on my original profile execept it happens at login screen).

3- After several tests, I found out that it happens ONLY on battery power

4- Tried to reset the nvram : no effect

5- Tried to reset the SMC : oh, it seems to work. I tried to reproduce the problem and I'm not able so far.


What do you think ? Could all my problems be related from the start to SMC ?

BTW, what is it exactly ?

I took an appointement at Apple this evening...don't know if I'll cancel it or not. I'll see what happens during the day.

Thanks

 

[New_Mac_Smell]

Get the Apple 'experts' to look it over is always your best bet. There's probably been more damage than they anticipated when you originally had it repaired hence they offered a free logic board replacement. It is a curious one though as things should have been sorted when that was changed. Could be a damaged battery or anything really, but Apple are always the best to ask. So keep your appointment.

 

[Fishrrman]

Frankly, I think it's time to start shopping for a replacement...

 

[leman]

Well, let Apple fix it. Its not like we can diagnose your computer from here

 

[Dentifrice]

I'll keep my appointent guys. Even if my SMC reset fixed the issue, you are right, I need to talk with them about that

 

[icymountain]

My understanding from the other thread is that you could benefit from some warranty on the screen repair; that is a good reason, I think, to not let it wait, and try to have them run all the diagnostics again, and fix it if needed.

 

[hallux]

no, i don't believe that, you do.
do you really believe they solder a new chip on the board?
they just throw it away and replace the entire board, every time.

Do you REALLY think Apple is so wasteful as to discard a board when a chip fails? The part gets sent to a central repair facility where the bad parts are replaced and the board gets sent out the next time one fails. EVERY company does this. I often get parts labeled as "refurbished" from Dell, HP, Lenovo and Apple to repair their laptops that we support.

 

[treekram]

While resetting NVRAM/SMC seems to be over-recommended (I think), in your case, it likely helped resolve (some of) your issues. Read through the "Indicators that the SMC might need to be reset".
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295

However, there is the issue that your MAC address is different and there's no way this can be avoided unless Apple were to remove the networking chips which contain the MAC address from your old motherboard and put them in your replaced motherboard. That would explain the Time Machine and possibly the iCloud duplicate issue. I think the issue where a problem happens with one user account but not another is a software issue. But definitely a visit to the Genius Bar is a good idea.

 

[Dentifrice]

While resetting NVRAM/SMC seems to be over-recommended (I think), in your case, it likely helped resolve (some of) your issues. Read through the "Indicators that the SMC might need to be reset".
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295

However, there is the issue that your MAC address is different and there's no way this can be avoided unless Apple were to remove the networking chips which contain the MAC address from your old motherboard and put them in your replaced motherboard. That would explain the Time Machine and possibly the iCloud duplicate issue. I think the issue where a problem happens with one user account but not another is a software issue. But definitely a visit to the Genius Bar is a good idea.

In fact, the icloud duplicate entries and time machine are not really problem and I don't care. I understand it and it's OK. My biggest problems were the random shutdown and sleep issue. Since I did this SMC thing, I was not able to reproduce the problem a single time.

But as you said, I'll talk with a "genious" about this. I want this information to be in my records if it happens again in the future.

 

[Dentifrice]

bad news, problem not solved. I was able to create the problem

I have to let it go sleep by it self (not closing the lid). 2 minutes later fans kicks in and I have to make a hard reset

DAMN, cannot do it again.

Anyway, Apple store again in an hour...

 

[icymountain]

bad news, problem not solved.

It may be bad news now, but if Apple reproduces it and fixes it, it is actually good.
Nothing worse than an intermittent issue that would haunt your laptop for the years to come... Wishing you a quick and radical fix!

 

[Dentifrice]

they called me back and told me what I don't wanna hear. They were not able to reproduce the problem. They did all the checks/tests they can but no problem were reported.

I ask him what happens next and there is not much to do. It was like they didn't believe me.

I think I can now anwser my title question, Am I screwed ? Yes. Why did I ****** paid $1000 to repair the screen in the beginning. I should I bought a new one.

I asked him, the next time it happend (freezes), can I just bring it to the store to show them and he answered : no you can't without a appointent. What a good service.

I should have not reset the SMC. Before that, I was able to reproduce the problem everytime. Now it's random. But at the same time, I supposed they would have done the same thing (smc reset) and give it back to me saying it's now OK.

I'm thinking about a formal notice. IDK

Damn

all my problems started after repairing my screen. I not asking for a new computer. Just want them to refund me the repair and I'm ok with this. This computer wasn't not under warranty so...

I need to talk with them

 

[Dentifrice]

OMG the problem occured while I was with them and was able to reproduce

Nice! Now they believe me
[doublepost=1496439822][/doublepost]Three "genious" tech were around my mac and they were all "woahhhh it's real"

They're gonna change the SSD first to see. If not working, a new board, if not fixing, they'll look for a replacement...

 

[ctrlzone]

Do you REALLY think Apple is so wasteful as to discard a board when a chip fails? The part gets sent to a central repair facility where the bad parts are replaced and the board gets sent out the next time one fails. EVERY company does this. I often get parts labeled as "refurbished" from Dell, HP, Lenovo and Apple to repair their laptops that we support.

Yes i do, the board ends in the bin.

 

[Jaekae]

When they fixed it sell it directly and buy a new one

 

[KUKitch]

When they fixed it sell it directly and buy a new one

 

[hallux]

Yes i do, the board ends in the bin.

That's not very eco-friendly, is it? Unless there's a problem with the PCB, it's MUCH more likely that the failed chips/components get replaced and the board re-used than the board going in the trash.

 

[Ries]

The issue appeared after the repair. Can't tell if it happened RIGHT AFTER the repair (it's been more than a month). My computer froze yesterday and I rebootet but it didn't go well. I always had kernel panic right I after the chime. While trying to resolve this, I did a hardware diagnostic and that's where I saw the memory problem. I did a time machine restore and things seems ok for the moment. BTW, I found out that when you want to do a clean mac os install, it does a hardware diagnostic and won't install if it found something ! So right now, I can't clean install mac os (I don't even know if I'll be able to upgrade to the next version of mac os).

Before that (and after repair), I had one problem. Tabs in Safari were crashing often (I though it was some outdated plugins). Don't know if it's related to my memory problem.

Is it from the repair ? I don't know honestly.... But they did some advanced tests before repairing my screen and none of them shown memory errors.

If the error is in the upper region of memory, you can limit mac OS X from using it but setting the maxmem boot option.

https://www.cnet.com/news/boot-argument-options-in-os-x/

 

[William Payne]

Not related to the original posters problem but just regarding some of the comments. I always thought it was pretty common knowledge that after about 4 years your average electronics goods is about at the point where it is old and outdated. I have a 2012 hewlett packard laptop and it works fine but reality is that it is old now its outdated, its not even worth selling. Same with my iPhone 5 which I have had the battery replaced on. In the grand scheme of things its old and out of date.

I have a Mac Pro 4,1 flashed to 5,1. I brought it due to the fact that i new even though it was old I could upgrade it enough to do the job until the new one comes out.

I really hate to sound rude but there are people on this site running some pretty ancient machines. I should know if it wasn't for its upgradability my 4,1 would be equally as ancient.

Car manufacturers do it to, I dare anyone to ring up Mercedes Benz asking about fixing a 15 year old Mercedes. I know a mechanic who did just that and was told to get rid of it and buy a new one.

 

[QueenTyrone]

Dang yall laptops are failing so fast and my 09 is still a champ ;(