My MacBook Saga
I bought my MacBook in June of 06. I have been a life long die hard Mac user. I thought my black MB was really the greatest computer ever made. In fact, it really was…until the random shut downs! It worked perfectly, flawlessly for about 3 months. Then 2 weeks ago, I experienced my first shutdown – in the middle of finalizing a Keynote presentation! I thought the battery was the problem, and simply plugged in and charged it up. However, the next series of shut downs began occurring even when the battery was fully charged. I reset the PMU and PRAM. the problem continued. I re-seated the RAM. The problem continued. I then ultimately changed/upgraded the RAM from 512 to 2GB. The problem continued. I finally Googled “sudden shut down MacBook” and found this website. My problem also seems to occur both when the machine is hot or cold and is not affected by processor load – it ran the y’s “diagnostic” without issue. I was shocked and dismayed at how widespread this problem is and how little has been done about it. Clearly this is a lemon issue. Apple must do the right thing and replace these MacBooks. I have yet to turn in my MB for repair, as I don’t have a back up laptop and can’t go without one for an indefinite period of time while Apple tries to “repair” it. From the sites that I have looked at, it seems as though most folks continue to have this problem even after 3 repairs. I doubt that the problem is fixed. I wonder if there is any possibility for a legal action citing lemon laws? Any thoughts??
October 2nd, 2006 at 12:29 pm
You story sounds exactly like mine. I’m not sure what we can do, but if all 1000+ infected users joined up we could make a very convincing law suit – or at least move towards some resolution. I’d be willing to swap for a MacBook Pro similarly equipped, but I too cannot be without my laptop for even a week. This is my work – my income! I need it to work now and everyday – or refund it so I can get something that will.
I love the Mac OS and other software, but this hardware issue is being ignored. I’m willing to take one more shot with Apple Care and then I’m talking to my lawyer and CNN.
December 17th, 2006 at 3:51 am
I had a similar problem with my New Macbook 1.83 Core Duo… after about 1 month of normal use a progressive syndrome of crashes auto reboots and shutdowns. I noticed they may have some to d with movement as often it seemed to suddenly reboot when I moved it about. This was a progressive problem it was getting worse and at times would only restart into black screen. Called support tried zapping Pram and PMMU. No help anywhere. They suggested motherboard problem and replacement said bring it in.
I was preparing to take it to our service centre, and absentmindedly went to remove my ram upgrade…as I removed the modules I remembered that I had bought it with the upgraded ram and so didn’t have replacements. I plugged the ram back in myself and found it needs to be pushed in quite hard…
After that I am unable to get the restarts or shutdowns. I wonder if the ram was not seated well by whoever did the change out and has slowly, through movement worked itself loose.