Third Party RAM a no no?

As pointed out several times in these comments, HER APPLECARE PLAN IS NOT VOIDED. RTFA; the note from Apple doesn't say it's voided either. They won't cover FUTURE repairs regarding the RAM. Scott McNulty, please update the article; it's misleading to say her warranty is voided. On another note, AppleCare repairs are HORRIBLY inconsistent. I've already gotten TWO replacement PowerBooks for a problem called Uneven Illumination (http://macslash.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/03/137244&mode=thread), and hardly ever get the same answer (or a straight one, for that matter) out of the Technicians or Product Specialists, or Customer Relations agents. Most recently, I sent in my PowerBook because of hard drive issues; it came back with the hard drive replaced, but the case wasn't closed properly; there was a large gap running around the entire unit! I immediately sent it back so they could close the case up correctly, and it came back in much better shape. However, I just sent it back in because the case is starting to form a gap again... and because I found some screws missing from the battery bay! Apple's hardware defects and atrocious repairs are really starting to tick me off. Wish we could actually DO something about it.

Laurie is wise. Listen to Laurie.

Dori's warranty isn't void and Apple never said it was!

This is bull from apple. I sent my lovely baby, a Tibook, into apple many times with my third party ram that was the cheapest stuff I could buy. ONCE it was because the ram was bad, so, they removed the ram and sent it back saying it was bad. Warranty was never voided. Not even after sending it back after I got it and the ram clips BROKE when installing that ram (I barely touched it!) Apple replaced the logic card and it was all covered. Who ever this was call the apple tech center back, and demand to talk to a level 3 supervisor and get your warranty back.

From some of these comments, it looks like some people think Apple charged Dori for the repair. That didn't happen. Apple replaced a defective part that had nothing to do with her RAM, however, it seems that the RAM didn't pass their tests or was found to be out of spec, and they advised her that she'd be wise not to risk damage by keeping it installed. If the RAM was purchased from a reputable vendor, then Dori should contact the vendor and request that her RAM modules be replaced. Reputable Mac memory vendors offer lifetime warranties and guarantee that their memory meets Apple spec for whatever machine you are buying it for. OWC and Crucial come to mind immediately as vendors who will stand behind what they sold you in cases like this.

The relevant line is "Continued use of this part (or parts) may cause another failure or damage to your Apple product, which Apple will not cover in a subsequent repair." Apple has ALWAYS been clear that they do not cover problems caused by third-party components, be it RAM, HD, CPU upgrades, etc - and what they stated in the letter is clear. Any damage CAUSED by an after-market component will absolutely not be covered by warranty. Nor should it be... why should Apple have to pay for a new logic board, for example, if some other vendor's cheap RAM fried it? Nowhere does it say that Apple won't honor your warranty now or in the future. What it says is that any problem that isn't related to or caused by an Apple component won't be covered. This is not a new policy and it isn't an unfair policy in the least.

Google Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act. This is the federal law controlling these things. Basically, they have to prove that the third party add-on (memory in this case) caused the damage, and they cannot condition coverage on usage of only Apple-branded add-ons (e.g. memory). This comes up all the time in the car industry: http://www.sema.org/main/semaorghome.aspx?ID=8124

Honest, folks, no shenanigans! If you follow the link, you'll see the relevant parts of the letter that Apple sent me, and that's all I know. I'd love to understand more about what happened, but the letter was very careful to not tell me anything useful. All I know is that if I ever need to use AppleCare again (after all, I paid for it), I have to remove the RAM first.

There's more to this than is being reported. I work part time for an Apple reseller and we sell third party RAM to our customers. First, we've received no communication from Apple that 3rd party RAM voids an Apple warranty. Second, this week I sold RAM to a customer who sent her iBook to Apple for repair which was returned with the RAM upgrade removed and a note saying the RAM was causing her freeze problems. She was complaining that the store she bought the RAM from refused to swap because she had no receipt. I know if she'd been told her warranty was voided she'd have been complaining about that too.

I've had the same experience as Jeff, no problem (twice).