Another Crashbook
It started the weekend of October 14th 2006. My MacBook (1.8Ghz, white) was four months old. I turned it off for the first time since… mid September, I think. I used to proclaim how I loved that my computer could last a month or longer, charged up every few days, without being switched off, and wouldn’t crash! I wouldn’t dream of it now.
It was when I tried to change the IP address to suit my partner’s connection. As soon as I clicked in the box to change it, the machine shut off, much to my shock. I switched it on again, and within five seconds, it has turned itself off again.
It repeated, over and over, and after ten minutes I gave up and left it. Half an hour later, impatient for internet access, I tried again. It switched on! Yay!
My luck and happiness was short lived. As soon as I loaded up the internet connection settings again, it switched off again. Sigh.
I gave up and used my partner’s machine, and when I returned home from the weekend, I connected it to AC power, and switched it on again. The same thing happened! I was mighty confused now, but with another computer connected to the internet, not too bothered.
Strangely, the problem seemed to fix itself over coming weeks, and a few days after I returned home, the computer switched itself on of it’s own accord.
Then, two weeks ago, it started all over again. Maddeningly enough, on the day I had to hand in a university assignment, that was located on my MacBook. Infact, it died just as I was about to transfer it to my iDisk.
I called AppleCare and spoke to an infuriating middle Eastern chap who was just as infuriated by me demanding he repeat himself over and over, as I was that Apple had put somebody on customer support who can’t speak English clearly.
I then spoke to IT support at my university, a much friendlier person, who understood everything I was saying and vice versa. As luck would have it, he was going into the local Apple retailer (which I had no method of getting to, being a lowly student with no more than a buspass and a pair of legs - I note here that the ‘local’ retailer is 15 miles away) with an Apple Cinema Screen that he needed repairing, and as the computer is under warranty still, he very generously offered to take it in for repair.
A few days later, the store (Gordon Harwood Computers of Alfreton, UK) called me to request my password so that they could install the latest version of the OS, and informed me that they had also replaced the casing of my poor computer - the casing beign a heat resistant plastic which yellows after long exposures to sunlight. Had I known this before taking it to Spain for three weeks in July…….
Just waiting on the return of the computer now. Let’s hope it’s in good working order again…
