A tale of two random MacBook shutdown cases

I bought my macbook in July this year and it started showing RSS and discoloration last week. Took it to the genius bar and they had it back to me in 3 days. This was with procare, god knows how long it would have taken otherwise...

I just bought a macbook in mid september. After having it for 3 days it began shutting down randomly and the superdrive stopped mounting disks. I mailed it back to applecare and it took almost a month to get it back :(

The tech put in the wrong serial number and apple lost my laptop at the repair facility. It took them 4 business days to locate it after I called. I sure hope the macbook is okay now cause I don't want to go through that again.

Hi.

I bought one of the first Macbooks. No problem occured, maybe one shutdown in 2 weeks. Then, 2 days before I was leaving to Tokyo Japan for a month (in deseperat need for a laptop) my Macbook starting shutting down every 5 minute. It was a long que they said at the store where I bought my Macbook. Was forced to buy a Macbook Pro, becuase I could not wait for my Macbook to get repaired. The store exchanged the harddrive and RAM to my new Macbook Pro, so at least everything worked out.

Just that I had to spend lots of money, because of this RSS... :-(

My Macbook had display problems from the day I got it. Occasionally horizontal green lines would appear on the screen. Tapping on the back of the screen made them go away. A few weeks later, tapping wouldn't fix the problem, so I took it in to an Apple Care place to get it fixed.

A week and a half later they called to say they had replaced the system board and it was ready to be picked up. I opened it and it looked fine and put it to sleep and took it home. After the first restart, I got green lines and then the screen went black. I took it back- a week later, same thing. Then I took it back again and they shipped it to Apple to be repaired. Apple replaced a ton of parts. Same result.

Now the repair place tells me my Macbook is unrepairable. Apple says they would be happy to exchange it for a new machine- except they don't have any. The fella at Apple who was going to resolve the problem hasn't called me back, and the SOS-APPLE line can't seem to find him.

Not happy
Steve

I bought mine in late may and it developed RSS in late August. By then I'd read that new logic boards were on their way and I called up AppleCare to get things fixed. It was sent in after a couple of calls and troubleshooting (after first being told it would be picked up, then that I had to drive 50km to the nearest store and then that I'd be sent a freight letter so I could send it for free).

I called up InfoCare who handles repairs for Apple here and talked to them about it. They confirmed that new logic boards were on their way and that if I sent it in they'd order it as soon as they could (they didn't have the part number yet). I sent it in along with a letter reminding them what we'd agreed to on the phone and got it back a bit over two weeks later - with a deep scratch on the bottom of the machine. It was in perfect condition before sending it in. A couple of hours later it had an RSS again (not that it's particularly random - it was under slighty load).

I rang them up and said it wasn't fixed and they said that it was strange. I asked about what they'd done, since the machine's serial number was still showing which pointed towards no logic board exchange. They said that certain ranges of MacBooks were supposed to get new logic boards but no the range mine was in. So they'd switched the heatsink and besides that I should update to the latest version of the firmware and operating system. Since 10.4.8 came out while it was in for repairs I upgraded to that (it already had the latest firmare). After that I fired up activity monitor and coreduo temp. Then I fired up two terminal windows and started two "yes > /dev/null" and kept an eye on the load and the temperature.

Yeah, I could see how the software update was supposed to "fix" things. As soon as load went to 100% on both processors the speed went DOWN instead of up. It clocked down to 1 GHz instead of 2. I figured this was going to be tricky to check for certain, but since I do use my MacBook with full load for extended periods of time I figured I'd give it a harder test. I started up a Quicktime export to ipod, a couple of movies playing, surfing flash-heavy sites and running various applications. I noticed that the processor stayed at 1 GHz, even though performance wasn't good enough, rather than increase the frequency like it should. The temperature kept going up, though, and just before it reached 80 degrees C it shut down.

I rang InfoCare again and they said they'd exchange the logic board and prioritize my machine because it was the second time it was sent in. So far they've had the machine for six days. When I add the time I've been waiting for news about parts from Apple the time where my machine has been either away or useless is a month and a half. It's a good thing I had only just gotten around to fixing up my old Powerbook for sale. In fact it was freshly reinstalled when the MacBook started shutting down.

It's my third first-gen Apple laptop and my third first-gen Apple laptop with serious problems. I wonder if I'll ever learn to control my lust for brand new Apple gear.

I really really hope that when I get the MacBook back, the serial will be in a different range and OS X will allow it to run at full speed when it's under heavy load. Otherwise I'm going to be more than a little annoyed. I didn't get a 2 GHz core duo machine to have it scale down when I need the extra speed. That would be kinda like having a Ferrari that would only do 50 km/h on the Autobahn.

Two weeks to fix RSS on my macbook. Al tough when i got it back it was very dirty and had a startup problem. When i started up i would get all these colored lines up and down on my screen and it wouldnt even boot . i had to do a PRAM restart to get it too work again. This kept happening untill i recived an software update. Its been fine since, altough it does seem a little more sluggish. Maybe thats just me though.peace.

My macbook not charging and when i connect in the power the system switches on and the battery displays 0% and not charging.Do you have any solution??

To follow up on comment 41: My previous work order replaced the original logicboard with a revision1 logicboard. My upcoming work order will replace the revision1 logicboard with a revision2 logicboard as well as a new heatsink. I hope this works.

i am typing this in gmail for the autosaving as my macbook might just shut down any second. i have never been able to rely on its stability ever since the beginning of june when i got it delivered to my doorstep. at that point in time i still lived in germany and was going to take a 2 month vacation to the united states in the summer. as i take a lot of photos i naturally took the computer, that had so far been running flawlessly, along and used it until the random shutdown started surfacing within my second week in the states. took it to apple but they refused to repair it because i could not recreate the problem at their store (in rochester ny in case anyone cares). as the problem persisted, i took it to apple 3 more times until it finally shut down at the store and the geniusses (though i have a hard time calling them that) decided to ship it off for repair. this as 2 week before my departure back to germany and so i told them that i needed my computer back withing two weeks. also, i could not make any backups because the shutdow had become so frequent, that any attempts of backing up my files on dvd failed miserably. sure, they said, we won't touch your harddrive and your computer will be back in 2 weeks. 2 weeks later, it wasn't back, apparently the repairing facility was missing a part but apple hadn't informed me of that. so i flew a couple thousand miles across the atlantic without my computer and low and behold, apple finally agreed on the phone to ship it to me in the netherlands where i was going to move. so a couple days after having move to the hague, the delivery man rings the doorbell and i got my computer back. so i thought. turns out that a) my hard drive had been completely erased and b) i now had an american keyboard in my computer instead of a german one. i don't know haw familiar you are with german keyboards but they have 4 extra letters that are pretty important to have for writing. so i went to the dutch apple store, explained everything and my computer was shipped off again. took them three weeks to replace my keyboard.
i thought the whole thing to be ove when i finally got it back and it did run without fail for a week until software update prompted me to install the fan update to keep the computer cooler. ever since then, my computer has been shutting down again- sometimes 10 times in a row, sometimes just once- randomly.
i had a slight taste of blood in my mouth- this was a computer i had been saving for for a long time and also did i really need it for college. i am going back to germany in a week for break and the first number i will dial on my phone is going to be apple care. and i want my money back. or a replacement machine. this one definitely doesn't seem to work, despite the repair. needless to say that i am pretty pissed. what would you do in my case? thanks for listening if you have read this far, feels good to vent.

I bought my MacBook 2ghz in May. It worked fine for me until sometime in late June/early July when it started shutting down randomly. I would be typing along or surfing and blink", instant shut down. It would happen here and there with no particular pattern. So I called Apple after a few days of this and they wanted me to send in the unit, which I did. About a week later I got it back. They reseated the memory which they blamed for the issue. Immediately I started it up and it ran for about 5 hours. The next day I could not boot the unit at all.

So after more call time to AppleCare, resetitng the PRAM, etc, I ended up sending it back in. THis time I wait about a week and a half to get it back. They replaced the logic board this time. I get it and I am not pleased. I open the box and then open the lid on the laptop. There is a piece of masking tape covering the MacBook logo on the bezel. The bezel itself is also "popped out" from the edge on the entire left side. IT will not snap back in. They touch pad is "off". The button does not click properly on the left sie of the button. Also the laptop is "loose" on the left ear the plugs, I can push it in much farther then it should. Then I turn it on, use it for a few hours and "blink" another shut down.

So I call Aple again. This time I speak to someone who actually cares. I tell them all of the problems and email them photo's. He give me an assurance that when I send it in again, this will be it. If I get it back with any defects at all, cosmetic or anything else they will replace it for me. So I send it back with hope that it will be fixed but also hoping that they will mess something up so I can get a new unit. Well another week and a half goes by. They replace the logic board again, the bezel and the plastics where the touch pad and keyboard are, the gray plastics.

Well I get it back this time and immediately I open the box, take out the unit and there are deep scraches all over the top of the lid. So I call right away, I don't even turn it on. It looked as if it was being slid around on a desk that had screws and nails all over it. I get someone else who does not read the history on the case and wants me to send it back in. Fortunately I had my get out of jail card already so this guy reads the history and tells me they will replace it. I need to ship it to them and when they get it they will then ship me a new one from the factory. This process takes another week and a half.

So since mid-August I have had my replaced MacBook and its been rock solid. I can compliment Apple that I now have a really great laptop but the process that it too to get there was time consuming and irritating. It seems that the repair company, FlexTronics in Tenessee is not gifted when it comes to repair on these units. I have informed those that I can at Apple that this was poor and I would hope they get rid of this repair center. The fact that I recieved my laptop back in worse shape each and every time is not a testament to their abilities.

I do however still give the MacBook a ringing endorsement as the best computer I've ever used. I have recommended it to 5 friends all of whom have purchased it. One of those people had 1 problem which they were able to get resolved after the first repair attempt, although it was not perfect. The cosmetic issues I experienced happened to him as well. He decided to live with the scratches though.