MacBook Pro Replacement

So here begins my story of what happened and how Apple's geniuses at the genius bar handled the situation.

I started noticing some problems with my sound input on my MacBook Pro as described in my other blog post.

After it came back from Apple, I was sitting at the genius bar and noticed that someone with a ball point pen had put a mark on my LCD screen. Knowing that was not there before it came back, I asked them what that was about and they proceeded to try and remove the mark with some cleaner of some sort. They came back with the bad news that the cleaner had damaged the LCD screen (I could have told them that without trying it out first :P). So I sign the required paperwork for the other repair, and they print me out even more paperwork to have it sent back to Apple to get the LCD screen replaced as they do not do that in store as the parts are to delicate to ship out to the Apple stores.

This time the items that were replaced were: Top case assembly (part with the keyboard), and the sound board. Not the logic board.

So now I have been at the Apple store, once to drop it off, once to pick it up, but not get it, and after waiting another week, another time to pick it up. Everything looked fine. Now the LCD has been replaced. Everything looks good, I sign the paperwork and leave.

I get home, and to my dismay the problem has STILL not been fixed with the charging LED turning off, and the sound coming out of my BOSE speakers (I tested with 3 other speakers as well) is still static. Off I go to the Apple store again.

The laptop gets checked in, and a rush order is put in on the logic board, sound board, and the top case assembly. I brought it in, and they said they would get it back to me by Friday. They did, but since they were unable to duplicate the problem, all they replaced was the power brick that charged my MacBook Pro. I ask him what kind of contingency plans are available in case I have to come back again. He asks me again what my failures were (I had my stack of Apple paper work with me), and he goes off in the back to ask some of the other guys that work on the laptops. He comes back and tells me that since they did not replace any of the parts they said they would replace, they don't want to give it back to me and instead want to check it back in. So once again I come in, and have to let Apple take it for a little while longer.

He has me sign the old paperwork, and sign new paperwork (two different work orders, two different signatures), and off I go again. Still empty handed. I was promised this time that I would have my laptop back by Tuesday night, or Wednesday morning the latest. Luckily I had stuff to do on the weekend, so I was not feeling as sad about it.

After I was done with school on Thursday, I called up the Apple store and asked for a general manager. I had him assure me he would get a genius on my laptop and they would call me as soon as it was done. I let him know my displeasure of having to drive about 30 - 40 minutes from my house in Laveen, to the Apple store in Chandler, and that I had to get it done, as I was leaving the school. Finally at around 19:30 they gave me a call and told me it was done. I off course headed down to the store to pick up my MacBook Pro. Everything seemed to be working fine at the store, and when I got home there was no static to be heard of. Finally it was fixed.

The next day was the LAN party and I had a great time. My MacBook Pro performed perfectly and without problems for the entire weekend.

Comes Monday. I am sitting in 244, one of the open labs on UAT's campus and suddenly while typing a blog post, the computer spontaneously shuts down. Hard core shutdown, not even a dialogue box, no, as if you had pulled the plug and the battery was removed. Just to be clear, it was plugged into the wall socket, and the battery was fully charged and in the laptop. I hit the power button, wait for it to start up, and begin to type to log in. Poof, shuts down again. Thinking it must have been my secondary battery acting up (which I had just received from Apple as a replacement for my first second battery that had died), I pop in my older battery that came with the MacBook Pro. I hit the power button. I hear the Apple startup sound, and I hear it again, and again, again, again, again, over and over. By now, my professor LostboY has started laughing at me as I am always saying that Macs are better than Windows based machines (Your Alienware sounds like a Vacuum cleaner on steroids while angry, take that LosT! :P). I get to class, and I figure that since now I am the laughing stock anyway, I might as well have others join in on the fun, and help me calm down (I was so angry, that I was not really thinking straight until I got down from it). I turn it on, and it would boot up, until I hit some keys on the keyboard. I got it to kernel panic and I always boot with verbose on, and it was asking for a debugger! Hehe.

I finish class, head out to Apple. The guys at Apple know me by name by now. One of the geniuses walks in, and she says "Hey, why are you here again", "She broke again" "We need to grab you one of those black chairs and engrave your name in it!" "Yeah, this place is becoming my second home!"

I talk to a general manager named Bob. He gets me an appointment at the genius bar. He takes my laptop out back, and boots it just fine, and does not touch the keyboard so he wants to send me on my way. I tell him to watch this. I push the power button. One key on the keyboard, and it sits there at the Apple logo with a spinning cursor for ever, at which point I say to him. Clear my firmware ram eh? Now you can't see it kernel panic and ask for a debugger. I boot it up in verbose mode, push another key and he sees it panic.

At this point I get called up for my appointment, and it is with one of the guys that has already helped me before. He tries to boot it up in target disk mode to check the hard drive, at which point I make a good argument as to why the hard drive must still be good and it can't be failing because of that. He agrees, tries a couple more times to try and see if he can grab my data off the drive. At that point he asks me to check the laptop in so he can do some research on previous cases, and hopefully be able to hand me a new laptop, the next day. Off course, the last time I was there on Saturday (see below, was a small issue) I had bought AppleCare and activated it, which apparently cause the Apple system to go haywire and remove all the previous repairs, which meant I had to drive back home, grab the paperwork required, and drive back out to Apple as this time I did not have the paperwork with me (thinking it was fixed when I headed to school on Monday morning). The next day I get a call, I can come pick up the new laptop, it was approved by Apple corporate (store managers can't decide to hand you a new Apple product as a replacement, that call has to be made further up-stream). Ben also told me that he was going to try his hardest to get my data off the old laptop, at which point I let him know I would appreciate the effort, but if it would not work to just let me take the new laptop home, I have backups of all my stuff.

I head out to Apple and sign some paperwork, and I get handed a completely new MacBook Pro. 2.4 Ghz, 2 GB of ram, Nvidia 8600M GT, 160 GB 5400 RPM hard drive, and a new copy of Tiger that comes with that laptop, which meant I also got a free upgrade of iLife. Now the kicker was that since this was basically a return and rebuy of the same type of laptop, I qualified for the lovely Up-to-date copy of Mac OS X Leopard from Apple for just the shipping and handling for $9.99. Yes, I got a great deal on my laptop breaking, but at the same time the amount of time I was without my laptop was painful, and not only that cost me money in that I was not able to do work for any of my clients, especially since some of them have strict requirements all their data is stored safely in encrypted disk images, or that all mail correspondence is signed and encrypted. (I had not kept a copy of my keys to then re-import into another mail client, only for the fact that I don't have any other machines that I use).

Kudos to Apple for the way they took my complaints and handled them, sure some of them could have been handled better, for instance I was a looper, I came back and yet they would not replace a part only because they were not able to replicate the problem, they would have had me happier sooner if they had done so. On that same Saturday that I bought my AppleCare as well as my Apple keyboard I came in, as to my dismay I had noticed during the LAN party that the top case assembly was bent upwards in such a way that when I rested my arm on the side it hurt. It was raised compared to the plastic strip that runs along the front of it. So when I walk in, one of the genuises comes up and asks me what I am here for, I show him and ask him if they have the part in stock, or if I should come back some other time. He blows me off completely as if I do not deserve his time of day because of the fact that I had made an appointment at 20:30 because it was the only time available. After a few minutes the genius bar turns empty and another genius who recognised me (Dave), sat me down, took a look and immediately took it to the back, removed the top case assembly, put a new one in, and had me sign the paperwork and had me on my way. Little did I know I would be back.