Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Dead Mac
My Mac’s display died without warning one day last month. I was using it when blocks of randomly coloured pixels appeared on screen, obscuring the display. Rebooting didn’t fix it, nor did turning the power off to let it cool several hours. One of the internal fans had flaked out earlier and was in the habit of refusing to spin up every once in a while, so I suspect a burnt chip from overheating. I can no longer see enough of the display to boot up and login, but the machine continues to be fully functional when accessed over the network.
Being occupied with other things, I put the machine aside a few weeks and finally opened it last weekend to take a look inside. The right side fan was dead. It appears have to lost its magnetic charge as a result of my previous attempts to clean it and no longer spins comfortably when flicked with the finger. I couldn’t tell what was wrong with the graphics, however, so decided to call Apple Support. The machine is a little over three years old and well over any sort of warranty period.
Apple’s phone support directed me to the Ample Imagine store at Forum Mall in Koramangala. They said they’d have a look and tell me if it was fixable, but would charge Rs 750 for the inspection. I agreed and left my Mac with them. They called back yesterday and said they’d have to replace the logic board at the cost of Rs 35,000. Given that this is nearly half the price of a new Mac, I decided to save my money and use the machine as a display-less network server. This should have been the end of the affair, until I went in today to pick it up and noticed the job sheet:
The engineer’s comments said he had tried resetting the PRAM and connected an external display, but since that didn’t fix it, he had decided it was a logic board problem and suggested I get a new one.
What? That’s it? A diagnosis costing Rs 827 (750 + taxes) without even opening the machine? For all I knew, some chip could have had its soldering melted and come loose because of the overheating. It could even be just a loose connector on the board. Who trains these guys?
Now, there’s something to be said about this particular model. My Mac is a first generation Intel and unlike all Apple laptops that came before and after it, this one is not user upgradeable. It can’t be opened without literally cracking open the case, a process which leaves visible scars in the front, below the trackpad. I went through this process two years ago when upgrading the hard disk and spent over an hour gently tugging and wriggling a screwdriver to pry it open. An Apple engineer not aware of this history should have called me to confirm he could do this because of the risk involved, but no one called. There’s no way anyone could have opened it and failed to record that in the job sheet. They quite certainly didn’t.
This incompetence is appalling. I feel like I’ve been scammed of my money. These engineers seem to be trained to make diagnoses for machines within warranty, but not for anything requiring a real examination. Dear Apple: if you want to be a serious contender in India, you had better get your act together.
And for what it’s worth, I’m now on my own trying to get this fixed. I suppose I could start ordering parts off eBay and try my luck with guessing exactly what is broken, but it would help to have (a) real expert diagnosis and (b) a way to avoid wrangling with Indian customs when importing parts.
Do you know anyone I should be talking to? Or, know anyone with a dead MacBook Pro of the same period (Intel; pre-Unibody) who’d be willing to palm it off to me for spare parts?
I’m not as badly off as I could have been because I made a serious habit a couple of years ago of backing up everything, including having backup machines (currently an ASUS Eee PC 1005HA running Ubuntu Jaunty), but the machine’s absence is clearly felt, and I don’t have the budget for a new Mac until next year.
Update: As of January 2010, the Mac is working again. I got a new (used) logic board off eBay and opened the Mac to replace it, then figured I should test assembly on the old board first, just in case I damage anything. Surprise, surprise, the old board worked again! The new board however didn’t, so I sent it back and got a refund.