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Whats your worst out of box experience with your mac?
- Thread starter bsen4961
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My first Intel mini made a sound like a jet engine. I have since found out that that model would do that if you disconnected the temperature sensor, which you had to do to upgrade memory, which I had done to it in the store, so I bet they just forgot to reconnect that cable when putting it back together.
Not really Apple's fault, but I was pretty disappointed with the video performance of my 2010 MBP after people had told me the 330m was more powerful than review sites had led me to believe. It wasn't.
Not really Apple's fault, but I was pretty disappointed with the video performance of my 2010 MBP after people had told me the 330m was more powerful than review sites had led me to believe. It wasn't.
Came without an OS installed, making me to spend several hours getting it solved DIY style (read: install ML DP4 
)
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1391159/
)https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1391159/
When i bought the tbd 27" and mbp 13, hooked it up, and the mbp sounded like a jet engine. Tried to reinstall OS X and resetting SMC, but no luck..
Ended up with buying a mac mini to use with the tbd
Ended up with buying a mac mini to use with the tbd
Yikes. Sorry to hear that. I've never had a MacBook Pro yet, but I will be getting one soon, hopefully. I'd be really sad if I found something like that on my brand new machine.
Worst and only bad experience was a DOA PowerMac in the early 2000s. Unfortunately I bought it from Maczone and learned a hard lesson -- learn a resellers DOA policy before buying. Maczone basically told me to screw off. To be exact, they told me they don't take returns for any reason but the machine is covered by Apple's warranty.
I took the machine to the Apple Store. The Genius looked at it, verified the HDD bus was bad and was getting ready to exchange for a new one when I showed him my Maczone receipt. He then told me all he could do it repair it. Bleh. Brand new and already a refurb. He ordered a new motherboard. When I got my "new" machine back it had a sad little sticker over the original Ethernet Address, etc. on the case.
Of course when I went to sell I had to disclose the original motherboard was replaced which didn't help getting the best price to say the least. Ever since then I've only bought my Macs from stores that had a DOA return or exchange policy... mostly Apple Store, Amazon, and Micro Center.
I took the machine to the Apple Store. The Genius looked at it, verified the HDD bus was bad and was getting ready to exchange for a new one when I showed him my Maczone receipt. He then told me all he could do it repair it. Bleh. Brand new and already a refurb. He ordered a new motherboard. When I got my "new" machine back it had a sad little sticker over the original Ethernet Address, etc. on the case.
Of course when I went to sell I had to disclose the original motherboard was replaced which didn't help getting the best price to say the least. Ever since then I've only bought my Macs from stores that had a DOA return or exchange policy... mostly Apple Store, Amazon, and Micro Center.
The very first MBP I ever bought was from the Apple store. I was pretty excited, of course. So when I opened the lid for the first time and the left tab key fell to the table without so much as a breeze, I was seriously bummed. I tried reattaching it, but it was broken.
So I immediately went to the Apple store (w/o reservation) and asked them to fix it. The nice genius woman went in the back and almost immediately came back with it fixed. As she approached me she said, "All fixed! That'll be $30."
I was so nonplussed that I didn't have time to yell before she said, "Just kidding! Enjoy your new Mac."
Oy vey. Although that's pretty minor compared to some of the horror stories I've heard on here. All my other purchases have been flawless.
So I immediately went to the Apple store (w/o reservation) and asked them to fix it. The nice genius woman went in the back and almost immediately came back with it fixed. As she approached me she said, "All fixed! That'll be $30."
I was so nonplussed that I didn't have time to yell before she said, "Just kidding! Enjoy your new Mac."
Oy vey. Although that's pretty minor compared to some of the horror stories I've heard on here. All my other purchases have been flawless.
The very first MBP I ever bought was from the Apple store. I was pretty excited, of course. So when I opened the lid for the first time and the left tab key fell to the table without so much as a breeze, I was seriously bummed. I tried reattaching it, but it was broken.
So I immediately went to the Apple store (w/o reservation) and asked them to fix it. The nice genius woman went in the back and almost immediately came back with it fixed. As she approached me she said, "All fixed! That'll be $30."
I was so nonplussed that I didn't have time to yell before she said, "Just kidding! Enjoy your new Mac."
Oy vey. Although that's pretty minor compared to some of the horror stories I've heard on here. All my other purchases have been flawless.
Do you reckon she planned that or saw your facial expression and thought twice? Haha.
Picked up a Mac Mini that failed in the first hour 2 weeks ago, was the 6630m version.
Other then a string of horrible luck with 3 consecutive DOA Radeon 5 series video cards a couple of years ago that was the first time i had any issue with an electronics product not working out of the box.
The mac is no big deal really but having 3 graphics card DOA in a row is akin to the odds of winning the lottery.
Other then a string of horrible luck with 3 consecutive DOA Radeon 5 series video cards a couple of years ago that was the first time i had any issue with an electronics product not working out of the box.
The mac is no big deal really but having 3 graphics card DOA in a row is akin to the odds of winning the lottery.
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Dual 2.0 PowerMac G5 that I used happily for a few months, until making the realisation that one of the CPUs didn't even work. Talk about a production fault...
EDIT: to clarify, the CPU showed up in everything that looked for it, just wouldn't accept load.
EDIT: to clarify, the CPU showed up in everything that looked for it, just wouldn't accept load.
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Ordered a refurb MBP. After putting a lot of thought into what I wanted, I ordered the one with the 7200RPM HDD instead of the 5400. It got here and I happily booted it up, checked over the system specs...and they had sent me the one with the 5400RPM drive. So I had to call Applecare, and they told me they couldn't ship a new one to me until they received the old one back. After a discussion about how it wasn't my fault that they sent the wrong computer, they agreed to overnight the new one as soon as they confirmed that the old one was in UPS's possession. Everything worked out fine in the end, but it was a little annoying.
Ordered my first mac refurbished, the 17" I'm using now. Super excited, far more so then this current wait for my Retina. Box finally comes, gee it's light. I open it up...
11" MacBook Air. Um, Apple, not quite. More waiting had to be done. :c
11" MacBook Air. Um, Apple, not quite. More waiting had to be done. :c
I have been an independant computer consultant for 20+ years specializing in Windows and PCs. Other than a Power Mac 9500 I owned in 95 I haven't dealt much on the Mac side. As part of switching my largest client to Macs I was given a 2011 21.5 iMac with Lion. I was seriously impressed with Lion, so much so that after a couple of months I decided to replace my girlfriends aging Dell desktop with her own 21.5 iMac. This was in October, 2011.
I drove 30 miles to the nearest Apple store on a Friday afternoon, so that I could have her new iMac set up and ready for her to use on Monday (she mostly works from home) I left with a brand new iMac, got home and started to set it up. I noticed right away that it didn't seem to be going through the same setup screens I had remembered from my machine. Fairly quickly I realized why... it was running Snow Leopard. I didn't know then how to tell the difference on the boxes. I knew that there was a free downloadable upgrade to Lion, so even though my Internet was slow I figured no big deal, I'll just do that. The upgrade site wouldn't accept my serial number, it said there was something wrong with it. I called Apple support, and they told me there was nothing they could do until Monday.
Now I was starting to get upset. I called the Apple store I purchased the iMac from, and explained in a somewhat calm manner what was going on. The woman I spoke with told me to bring it back and immediately made an appointment for me with a Genius. Back I drove to the Apple store, this time with girlfriend in tow.
The Genius was able to quickly sort out the serial number problem. Took him about 3 minutes to fix it. OK, I started to feel better. Next, He told me there were no Lion iMacs in stock, they only had Snow Leopards, so he couldn't exchange it. He said he would do the upgrade right there. First he had to upgrade Snow Leopard to a later version. That took a while. Then he gave me $30 in gift cards, which he then used to purchase the Lion upgrade on my account. Downloaded and installed that, that took awhile longer.
After about 2 hours (during which we went and had a nice dinner) We left with an upgraded iMac, and Apple gained two new converts. Both Apple support and the Apple store followed up with phone calls making sure I was happy with the experience, and I have since switched a number of my clients to Macs from Pcs.
I drove 30 miles to the nearest Apple store on a Friday afternoon, so that I could have her new iMac set up and ready for her to use on Monday (she mostly works from home) I left with a brand new iMac, got home and started to set it up. I noticed right away that it didn't seem to be going through the same setup screens I had remembered from my machine. Fairly quickly I realized why... it was running Snow Leopard. I didn't know then how to tell the difference on the boxes. I knew that there was a free downloadable upgrade to Lion, so even though my Internet was slow I figured no big deal, I'll just do that. The upgrade site wouldn't accept my serial number, it said there was something wrong with it. I called Apple support, and they told me there was nothing they could do until Monday.
Now I was starting to get upset. I called the Apple store I purchased the iMac from, and explained in a somewhat calm manner what was going on. The woman I spoke with told me to bring it back and immediately made an appointment for me with a Genius. Back I drove to the Apple store, this time with girlfriend in tow.
The Genius was able to quickly sort out the serial number problem. Took him about 3 minutes to fix it. OK, I started to feel better. Next, He told me there were no Lion iMacs in stock, they only had Snow Leopards, so he couldn't exchange it. He said he would do the upgrade right there. First he had to upgrade Snow Leopard to a later version. That took a while. Then he gave me $30 in gift cards, which he then used to purchase the Lion upgrade on my account. Downloaded and installed that, that took awhile longer.
After about 2 hours (during which we went and had a nice dinner
) We left with an upgraded iMac, and Apple gained two new converts. Both Apple support and the Apple store followed up with phone calls making sure I was happy with the experience, and I have since switched a number of my clients to Macs from Pcs. 
My first computer was an Apple 7500 with an Applevision monitor. It seemed that I had a crash two or three times a months and I kept reinstalling software and reading every book I could on Mac's trying to figure out what was going on. Remember when Photoshop was eleven floppies? I do because I had to reload and register it multiple times.
I finally called Apple and they couldn't figure out the problem. After two service centers claimed to run diagnostic tests showing no problems, I finally got elevated to a Senoir VP who agreed to have me ship it back to Apple for testing. They figured out that the hard drive was defective and the sent me a new 8500.
Luckily, every Mac since then has been much more dependable. I did have an issue with the hinges on a PowerBook G3 but I had it for a number of years. I also had a hard drive die on a MBP but Apple took care of it quickly. The lesson learned from these experiences is to ship the computer to an Apple Service Center because it rarely takes more than a day while my local Apple Store took two weeks for to replace my hard drive. The Lenox store did not return calls and I eventually reached an incredibly rude employee.
I finally called Apple and they couldn't figure out the problem. After two service centers claimed to run diagnostic tests showing no problems, I finally got elevated to a Senoir VP who agreed to have me ship it back to Apple for testing. They figured out that the hard drive was defective and the sent me a new 8500.
Luckily, every Mac since then has been much more dependable. I did have an issue with the hinges on a PowerBook G3 but I had it for a number of years. I also had a hard drive die on a MBP but Apple took care of it quickly. The lesson learned from these experiences is to ship the computer to an Apple Service Center because it rarely takes more than a day while my local Apple Store took two weeks for to replace my hard drive. The Lenox store did not return calls and I eventually reached an incredibly rude employee.
My 2010 iMac had dust inside the screen and that odd yellow tint.
But kept it anyway. It's one of my favorite computer to date!
But kept it anyway. It's one of my favorite computer to date!
I bought a Power Mac G4 direct from Apple and it had a broken OS 10.3 install that, from memory, wouldn't launch any apps. Resolved by reinstalling from the DVD.
I
iFanboy
Guest
Don't they have ANY consumer protection laws in the US?
In the UK if a company sells something DOA, you get your money back, or you involve trading standards/the courts and automatically get judgement (within the first 6 months THEY also have to prove it was fine when they sold it).
So far, so good... but I've not gotten to play with it much. I was pretty juiced to see that my bookmarks from my old machine traveled to the new one via iCloud. Simple things make me happy.
I still need to get all my music on their and such, too.
a trio of bad macs
in 1999:
the original iMac which died during the 5th week, I went through hell and high water for almost 3 months including some serious lies by a 3rd party repair place to get a new one, but Apple came through.
in 2010:
the Sandy 21.5 iMac sounded like a blacksmith hammering away inside, returned it.
Then I tried a refurb 2009 iMac from the Apple online store:
Hard drive died about 4 weeks later, it was a real hassle and unfortunately I was out of the window of return. Getting iMacs repaired by 3rd party is not something I can or want to do again.
For slightly insane reasons, I still went with a new iMac in August 2010, but I shot myself in foot because I didn't max out the ram and I cannot upgrade it (for reasons mentioned elsewhere.)
>>
I miss the G4 "Lamp" style iMacs: those were great, looked cool and worked like a charm, but this 2010 iMac is the last one for me. Hoping it'll perform well enough through school that I can hold off until next year to replace it.
in 1999:
the original iMac which died during the 5th week, I went through hell and high water for almost 3 months including some serious lies by a 3rd party repair place to get a new one, but Apple came through.
in 2010:
the Sandy 21.5 iMac sounded like a blacksmith hammering away inside, returned it.
Then I tried a refurb 2009 iMac from the Apple online store:
Hard drive died about 4 weeks later, it was a real hassle and unfortunately I was out of the window of return. Getting iMacs repaired by 3rd party is not something I can or want to do again.
For slightly insane reasons, I still went with a new iMac in August 2010, but I shot myself in foot because I didn't max out the ram and I cannot upgrade it (for reasons mentioned elsewhere.)
>>
I miss the G4 "Lamp" style iMacs: those were great, looked cool and worked like a charm, but this 2010 iMac is the last one for me. Hoping it'll perform well enough through school that I can hold off until next year to replace it.