My MacBook RIP!
I recieved my MacBook around the 20th July, but only became aware of the heatsink problem last week when my MacBook suddenly shut down. I contacted Apple Care who didn’t have a clue what was causing it. I then contacted my local Apple authorised dealer/repair centre and they knew what the problem was straight away (don’t ask why Apple Care didn’t).
Anyway once my Mac had cooled down it restarted fine, however as I use my Mac for work it does tend to be on for extended durations 8-10 hours at a time. After giving it some thought and like you thinking that it will take an age to get my Mac back from being repaired as everyone will be doing the same I decided to hang on, and just make sure it doesn’t get to hot.
Unfortunately for me the following day I was downloading update software from Apple (OS X 10.4.8 update) and upon completing the installation the machine restarts, this is where things went really wrong upon restarting my laptop the screen came on display half with vertical coloured lines and the other half is blank white. I have taken it to the local apple repair centre and it looks as though my logic board is damaged due to this heatsink problem (although I am waiting for confirmation).
The point I am making is that prior to this my machine had only shut down once due to the heatsink issue and when downloading the updates it had only been on for approximatley 20 minutes, and obviously wasn’t particularly warm. Mine might just be a freak case and may not be related to the heatsink (though doubtful) bit I would suggest that anyone leaving it to long to get the heatsink issue resolved may end up running the risk of causing more damage to their MacBook…… ;-(
