Silly questions, when your guys stuff breaks due to an accident. Say dropping it or whatever. Don't you guys have insurance?
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So, am I screwed ?
- Thread starter Dentifrice
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same with mine from 2009, and its really fast thanks to SSD.
None of that is remotely true. You seem to be trying very hard to justify your purchase of a laptop that is overpriced and underpowered. Soldering on the RAM doesn't give it magical special properties that makes it perform better. The only difference is that when you need to upgrade your laptop you have to buy a new one from Apple now; it's a financial decision designed to keep extracting money out of people like you. The default state of computer components are modular. You have to go out of your way to make them non-modular.Better reliability, stability, security, power efficiency and potentially performance due to less points of failure and the opportunity to optimise the system for a given RAM chip as opposed to maintaining tolerances imposed by the spec. In addition, modern laptops come with with RAM pretty much maxed out, so the strongest case for swapped RAM (upgradeability) is a non-issue. And finally, all this is a bit pointless since Apple is using premium mobile RAM which does not come in slotted format to beging with, as its a different standard
Where would you draw a line? Solder CPU but not anything else? What about the power circuitry? The rhetorics could be spun both ways. You suggest that soldering-on components leads to the throw-away society and has negative environmental impact. I would argue that the opposite is the case, once certain conditions are met. Soldering components helps to save material, both by forgoing the need for additional connectors/boards and enabling manufacturers to produce devices with lower footprint. As to throw-away society... if you don't have the means to repair something, it doesn't mean that the manufacturer can't. Apple already declared that their goal is maximal recycling and reusability of components. And while the situation might not be perfectly satisfactory right now, there is no reason why they shouldn't be able to replace RAM or any other component. A customer would get a replacement logic board and the defective one would go to a repair facility, get tested and fixed.
Or, if you prefer another spin on this: going full modular just for the sake of repairability is most likely sheer craziness. Components fail very rarely, and the additional material required to achieve modularity is almost surely more wasteful. What are the RAM failure rates nowadays? 0.5% over 5 years? 1%? 0.1%? Putting all RAM on a separate mini board, effectively doubling (or more) the material need for ALL RAM sounds much more like throw-away society to me
If you refuse to accept that a soldering a chip is more reliable than soldering that chip on an extra board and then securing that board by friction into a mechanical connector, well that's your problem.
Of course it is. SO-DIMMS grow on trees and Apple goes out of their way to heartlessly remove them from their natural habitat and strip them down of their natural properties in a satanic ritual.
I think the track record of non-soldered chips are good enough to refute that claim, rarely have we seen any failure of memory modules in general, so I think you're reaching to say friction from a mechanical connector can cause higher failure rates. True on paper, you have a point, but in actual practice it's not an issue.
It is the biggest worry of purchasing one of these new machine in that - after 3 years (apple-care), there is a very high fixed cost should anything go wrong. I don't know if these laptops are likely to last the 5-10 year mark that older generation of laptops did. Definitely not the keyboard anyway that's for certain .
Soldered RAM has become the norm, but soldered SSD is somewhat new, not sure if we needed an additional point of failure which would result in such a huge cost (and potential data loss to boot). I guess people have a bigger attachment to an SSD than RAM (as it holds our data), so could explain why people are less okay with it.
.Soldered RAM has become the norm, but soldered SSD is somewhat new, not sure if we needed an additional point of failure which would result in such a huge cost (and potential data loss to boot). I guess people have a bigger attachment to an SSD than RAM (as it holds our data), so could explain why people are less okay with it.
I don't think that we have any statistics to back up either of the claims. If you want anecdotal evidence, my job is directly connected to IT and so far, the only RAM failures I have observed were with slotted RAM (but again, anecdotal evidence is anecdotal).
Don't get me wrong here: I am sure that the main reason why Apple uses soldered-on RAM is a) because its cheaper for them and b) because the RAM they use does not come in slotted format to begin with. While I firmly believe that soldered-on RAM is more reliable (simply based on what I know about electrical engineering), I don't think that this difference is large enough to make any noticeable difference and of course I can't prove any of this. The discussion in this thread has took more then one wrong turn, but the main point I wanted to make is that soldered-on RAM does not have to be less sustainable than socketed RAM, quite in contrary. This would require specialised tech and specialised handling, which I am not sure we have just now, but I believe that the payoff would potentially be great. And I believe that this is what Apple is going towards, based on their declared goal of improving component reusability.
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And this is why I think that Apple should introduce transparent, subsidised flat-rate repair costs for standard components such as SSDs. Kind of like insurance. The Mac price is high enough to use say 0.5% of every Mac ever sold as an insurance premium for the less lucky people who suffer hardware failures. And then your repair would be covered by that common fund + a reasonable deductible fee that you'd have to pay yourself.
I think you can stop right there, I believe (just my opinion), this is purely a cost move. We see from apple a philosophy of nudging the consumer to buying instead of upgrading. I reference the use of non-traditional screws as one sign of such a philosophy. They've effectively made the MBP a product that has to be replaced instead of upgrading and from a business perspective it makes sense because apple won't see income from those who upgrade but if they have to buy new, then they will. Additionally consumers are more likely to configure to a higher spec for future proofing - again this works to Apple's benefit. I hold no such illusion that apple did this to improve performance or quality.
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Btw, I work in IT supporting systems, PCs and servers and I can say that ram failures are a rarity, so much so that you cannot make any possible connection to whether its soldered or not.
Exactly.
Certainly makes me wonder if I will be replacing my current Macs with a Mac (any Mac) — at what price does this OS' useability come?
I'd be on board for that.
Hear, hear!
Apple have become expert at gouging their users.
Being willing to pay an Apple premium is one thing… but this "forced to buy vs repairs/upgrades" is of a different magnitude.
Just sold a 2007 MBP 17" screen for $150. For the purpose they purchased it for it will work. It runs 10.11 just fine and has 6GB of memory and a 500GB SSD.
Sometimes even parting out a unit is more effective than trashing it. Just make sure all parts were working before disassembly.
My 2 cents is soldering in the SSD made a lot of sense to Apple on multiple fronts. First there is assembly. Letting a machine insert the modules and then soldering the board is simpler and does not require a dedicated stage for fitting the M.2 and screw. Pick, insert, solder just like the rest of the components.
Second, it continues in the Apple direction of sealing everything. Now SSD is on the board and there is no though in customers minds of upgrading in place.
Second, it continues in the Apple direction of sealing everything. Now SSD is on the board and there is no though in customers minds of upgrading in place.
OH
MY
GOD
I can't believe. They called me back this morning telling my my mac doesn't have any problem. YES ! After three guys a the genious bar saw the problem 4 times in a row (was able to reproduce it), the guys is calling me back to tell me there is no problem.
I told him if he was aware of how to reproduce the problem...and he was not ! Nobody has written the procedure in the /$%/$? ticket.
I told him on the phone how to do it. He's gonna try and called me back.
Never seen support as bad as this.
and the story continues
I went to Apple store without an appointement and asked to talk directly to the person working on my mac behind. To my suprise they said yes. I was able to tell him how to make it crash (because genious at the front just can't explain things right in their system it seems).
He was able to make it crash ! He told me that, in Apple "diagnostic book", when this problem occurs, it's a faulty SSD. He changed the SSD and now, it seems he was not able to make it crash for several hours.... I still have to pick it up and test it by myself.
Let's say it's now OK. Why on earth did they do when changing my screen in the first place so that the ssd AND the RAM were broken ? It's kind of scary that they add to change le logic board and the ssd (note that my macbook still have a seperate ssd not on board).
[doublepost=1496775120][/doublepost]If it's now OK, I think I' gonna sell it right now and buy a new one
I went to Apple store without an appointement and asked to talk directly to the person working on my mac behind. To my suprise they said yes. I was able to tell him how to make it crash (because genious at the front just can't explain things right in their system it seems).
He was able to make it crash ! He told me that, in Apple "diagnostic book", when this problem occurs, it's a faulty SSD. He changed the SSD and now, it seems he was not able to make it crash for several hours.... I still have to pick it up and test it by myself.
Let's say it's now OK. Why on earth did they do when changing my screen in the first place so that the ssd AND the RAM were broken ? It's kind of scary that they add to change le logic board and the ssd (note that my macbook still have a seperate ssd not on board).
[doublepost=1496775120][/doublepost]If it's now OK, I think I' gonna sell it right now and buy a new one
does AppleCare senior advisor is available if I'm not under AppleCare warranty ? (but under my screen repair warranty)
BTW, since they changed du SSD, I did not had a single freeze....BUT it too soon to say victory
Yes, they don't charge anymore for phone support. Call them and talk to the senior advisor they have move power then a genius bar person.
ok thanks ! If the problem occurs again, I'll do that !
you just call and ask for a senior advisor ?
you just call and ask for a senior advisor ?
No, call now. Document everything that has happened and ask for escalation. You should have a replacement system based on all that has happened.
