Monday, February 21, 2011

Applecare History 4

Well, I guess this is the continuation of the saga "what could break next" as part of my absense in the past month or two was due to schoolwork, and the other part due to my computer being fixed yet again. It was on January 5, 2011 my logic board had to be replaced yet again. Prior to that for some reason my computer would just turn off by itself, which was indeed perplexing (reminds me of my old IBM thinkstation, which I might add is still running after many years of service). The first time it happened I let it go, thinking it was some sort of fluke. The second time that it happened, I was just mad and just a couple hours later I was at the apple store discussing this new found problem.

I made sure to go there as soon as possible after the problem, since I was hoping that there would be a clue in the logs. So the genius went over the logs and said there was a problem with the power rail, which was part of the logic board, and that the logic board had to be replaced yet again. He also said that the problems with the battery and power adapter should also be due to the problem with the power rail. For me one part that I disagreed with, regarding the diagnosis, was the part about the power rail being responsible for the battery and power adapter failures. I'm not sure whether he noticed this, but I got the logic board replaced just last year (so in less than a year it had been replaced twice). I also mentioned that just recently (a couple weeks ago) I reinstalled the whole operating system from scratch, and only moved back files from a time machine backup, which rules out a lot of other possible causes for the problem.

During that time I also asked him whether a replacement was likely and he said no (he didn't mention that logic board replacement at all, perhaps I should have reminded him). I do wish that before the applecare is over (May 23), that the logic board or a main component of the computer will break. However, I am not sure how likely that is going to be. I guess I have 2 months remaining for some sort of problem to happen.

In the end, the most aggravating part for me was when I had to wait for the computer to be fixed. He initially cited 5-7 days as the time it would take for them to fix the computer, though turns out that they took 9 days to fix it. It was during the school year as well, so I didn't have my computer for a lot of the classes in the first week. So yeah, a (somewhat) short summary of what happened for this repair. In my opinion, I would indeed say that I am using my applecare quite effectively. By the way, I hope to have more frequent entries now, though exams will be coming up soon.

Dec 29 2008 Both fans replaced for clicking noises
Jun 09 2009 Battery replaced (couldn't charge up properly)
Oct 07 2009 Right fan looked at (made clicking noises again)
Feb 28 2010 Power adapter 85W replaced
Apr 11 2010 Logic Board Replaced
Jun 21 2010 Battery replaced (81.6% charge left)
Jan 05 2011 Logic board Replaced