Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Warning to those with removed optical drives

CrystalPepsi

CrystalPepsi

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 3, 2011
121
97
Yesterday I took in my early '11 17" mbp in to get the headphone jack fixed. One of those little sensors are stuck in and when I put my headphones in, it goes to optical out mode. I think he was going to fix it there, but I mentioned I hadn't made a full backup in 2 weeks. He said go home, back up, bring it in tomorrow. I did.

Today, she hooked up the computer to her network diagnostic. Bamm.. no optical drive. I told her I had it swapped out and had an ssd+the original drive. She said she they couldn't fix it in that state and she was doing me a favor by not voiding the warranty. Also, she mentioned that the optical drive is not a serviceable part and swapping it out with anything voids the warranty. I have a three year extended on it (making it a $3K machine). What irks me is the guy yesterday knew about the swap out and said, "oh cool". Just depends on who you get I guess.

So, I'm going to swap the optical drive back in and see how it goes tomorrow. I am wondering if they can even do motherboard swap outs at the retail locations or if they will have to send it in.


TL;DR: If you take your optical drive out, put it back in before you go to the "genius bar" of they will threaten to void your warranty.
 
I think that anyone who has taken their optical drive out knows about all the consequences.

And it is pretty obvious that swapping parts in your computer voids the warranty.
 
It does not void your warranty. They're talking out of their asses. If you read your warranty literature, all it says is that the warranty on the modification and any damages caused by the modification are void. Now they can say your headphone jack's damage was caused by the modification, but then they'd be ******s.

So she's not doing you "a favor" by not voiding your warranty, she's doing you a disservice by giving you bad information.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

satchow said:
It does not void your warranty. They're talking out of their asses. If you read your warranty literature, all it says is that the warranty on the modification and any damages caused by the modification are void. Now they can say your headphone jack's damage was caused by the modification, but then they'd be ******s.

So she's not doing you "a favor" by not voiding your warranty, she's doing you a disservice by giving you bad information.
Click to expand...

Agreed.
 
I think they send it in to some service center to fix/replace the logic board.

And yes, it should be pretty clear that you voided your warranty by replacing the optical drive.
 
satchow said:
It does not void your warranty.
Click to expand...
Yes, it does.

http://images.apple.com/legal/warranty/docs/cpuwarranty.pdf
This warranty does not apply:
(g) to an Apple Product that has been modified to alter functionality or capability without the written permission of Apple;
Click to expand...
Apple Warranty: Installing Memory, Expansion Cards, User Installable Parts Does Not Void Warranty
You may install memory (RAM, VRAM), and other customer-installable parts without voiding your Apple warranty.

Apple's warranty states:
"This warranty does not apply...if the product has been modified without the written permission of Apple..."

Adding memory (DRAM, VRAM) or other user-installable upgrade or expansion products to an Apple computer is not considered a modification to that Apple product.
Click to expand...
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/macbook_pro_17inch_early2011.pdf
Your MacBook Pro does not have any user-serviceable parts, except the hard drive and the memory.
Click to expand...
 
thundersteele said:
I think they send it in to some service center to fix/replace the logic board.
Click to expand...

Suck. I wonder how long it takes the service center to fix it. Hopefully they can ship it back directly to me instead of sending it back to the apple store.

thundersteele said:
And yes, it should be pretty clear that you voided your warranty by replacing the optical drive.
Click to expand...

Yea, she didn't void it. She basically said to put it back in and they'd fix it.

Thanks for your input folks. It's interesting to see the split opinions on what constitutes a voided warranty. ;)
 
I thought it was obvious sending a MBP for repair with an optibay in it was a bad idea...
 
GGJstudios said:
Yes, it does.

http://images.apple.com/legal/warranty/docs/cpuwarranty.pdf

Apple Warranty: Installing Memory, Expansion Cards, User Installable Parts Does Not Void Warranty

http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/macbook_pro_17inch_early2011.pdf
Click to expand...

Interesting. A few years ago, their warranty language was very different. If you messed up your LCD replacing your motherboard, they wouldn't warrant your LCD, but your CD drive was still under warranty (as would be your motherboard, ironically enough).
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

If your machine requires service, put the optical drive back in = given.

Unless you break something, removing 4 screws, a bracket and unplugging the drive vs removing 2 screws and unplugging should not be an issue. (optical drive vs HDD)
 
thejadedmonkey said:
Interesting. A few years ago, their warranty language was very different. If you messed up your LCD replacing your motherboard, they wouldn't warrant your LCD, but your CD drive was still under warranty (as would be your motherboard, ironically enough).
Click to expand...
Yes, I believe the warranty language was different a few years ago. Perhaps that's where the mistaken impression came from that you only void the warranty if you damage something. The fact is that if you modify something that isn't considered a user-serviceable part, you void the warranty, even if you don't damage anything in the process.
 
Hmm, now I'm not so sure about the warranty issue. The links GGJstudios posted are pretty clear, so for the 1 year limited warranty, if you do any non-authorized modifications they may void the warranty.

However, for applecare, the wording is somewhat different:
http://images.apple.com/legal/applecare/docs/NA_APP_English_v5.3.pdf

(ii) Damage to the Covered Equipment caused by accident, abuse, neglect, misuse (including faulty
installation, repair, or maintenance by anyone other than Apple or an Apple Authorized Service
Provider), unauthorized modification, extreme environment (including extreme temperature or
humidity), extreme physical or electrical stress or interference, fluctuation or surges of electrical
power, lightning, static electricity, fire, acts of God or other external causes;
Click to expand...

This is maybe up for interpretation, but the way I understand it is that the warranty is voided only if the problem was caused by the unauthorized modification.



edit: Btw, it's still a bad idea to send it in with the optibay installed. If they have to remove it for some reason, they might replace it or deny service since they would have to service non apple equipment.
 
iisforiphone said:
so lets say hypathetically your issue cant be fixed and they replace the machine do they give you a chance to take it back to swap your RAM and Harddrive back to the factory ones?
Click to expand...
I've heard stories that some have taken a machine in for service and didn't get back the additional RAM they added. I haven't heard about any such thing with hard drives. Since faulty RAM could be a potential source of problems, it's probably a good idea to revert to the original RAM before servicing. As for the hard drive, absolutely do a backup before taking it in, even if you don't swap out for the original.
 
iisforiphone said:
so lets say hypathetically your issue cant be fixed and they replace the machine do they give you a chance to take it back to swap your RAM and Harddrive back to the factory ones?
Click to expand...

Ugh. Hopefully I can just leave my non-factory ssd and ram in there when the ship it off. I would hate to have to put the original drive in there just for a servicing.
 
iisforiphone said:
i would hate that too, i would also hate losing my SSD if the whole machine is replaced
Click to expand...

Many people put the stock drive back in their MBPs if they needed to send it into apple for service. If they added an optibay in place of the optical drive, then that gets swapped back in as well
 
If I ever need to send anything in for service I always try and put all stock components back into the item. I don't trust people enough that something won't get swapped out or damaged.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

I recently returned an early MBP wherein I had swapped optical drive for HDD. This was a refurbished model that was supposed to come with only 4gb of ram but had 8gb of Samsung branded ram in it upon arrival. I replaced the optical drive when I returned and they did not notice. The 8gbs of ram went back with it as well.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back