Macbook Random Shutdown

I have a Macbook, black, 2 GHZ, that was less than a year old. One day, the battery unexpectedly and suddenly stopped working. The laptop would still work if it was plugged in, but if the cord came out the computer would just shut down because the battery was not holding any charge at all, it wasn’t even being detected.

I took it to the local Apple Store, and they checked it, took out the old battery, put in a new one, and handed me a receipt for $0.00 as an “Under Warranty Repair”. I have an APP on it, but because it was under a year old, they didn’t even bother looking it up.

I have never had a bad experience with Apple customer support. When my iMac wouldn’t start up, the phone service guided me through reinstalling the OS from a disk, and all my files were preserved. Neither my Macbook nor my iMac have had any major issues since then.

in an earlier post here i mentioned that my brand new macbook core 2 duo randomly rebooted on sleep. using the 14 return policy, i had it exchanged at the applestore. but surprise surprise the new one does exactly the same thing.

so i called applecare and told them the deal, and mentioned that the problem is all over the internet and i knew that apple was aware of it. i then said i wanted a full refund on the machine. the lady didn’t argue with me at all, and right away gave me a case number to take it back. she told me to take it back to the store and give them the number and they would refund it, even though it is beyond the 14 days.

i found it suspicious how easy it was. i think they know about it and are trying to reduce the damage by not pissing us off.

so if you have a defective macbook, demand a refund!

two weeks ago i bought a brand new off the shelf black macbook core duo from the apple store in toronto. it had battery problems (battery gave incorrect charging estimates and would not be recognized from time to time) and would reboot randomly when i closed it to put it to sleep.

i took advantage of my 14 day return and exchanged the computer for another. they transfered all my data over for me, which was nice. i thought my problems were over, until just now, i closed the lid and it rebooted!!

it hasn’t rebooted yet when i’ve been using it, just when it goes to sleep.

does anyone else have this? is this the same problem as RSS?

I was in Chicago today and briefly visited the Apple store on Michigan Avenue. Just like all the Apple stores, it was so crowded, everyone trying out all the cool products Apple has in the store. I sat there and just looked around a while, and then started scoping out the Macbooks. I played with a couple of them and no crashes.

I then just did a test to see how long it would take for an associate to approach me about the Macbooks. In my mind, I was thinking about how widespread this issue of RSS really is in the ‘wild’ so to speak.

Finally, after about 10 minutes, a guy was free and came up to me and asked if I had any questions…oh such a loaded question I thought to myself. I then proceeded to tell him that I thought the new design was great for the Macbooks but I “had read online that sometimes they just ‘randomly shutdown’” - to which he quickly responded, “Yeah, it’s a known issue. There are actually a bunch of customers forming a class action lawsuit about it, which is a little extreme if you ask me”. He then proceeded to say, “the problem is with the heatsink, it was a cheap part that was put into the Macbook and all the kinks weren’t ironed out with it”…”but if you have any problems with your Macbook, just bring it right upstairs and the guys will fix it for you, no problem”

I didn’t tell him who I was or that I started this web site dedicated to the issue but I hadn’t been in an Apple store in a few weeks so I wanted to see what the level of “awareness” was with the whole debacle.

Just wanted to pass this one on for you all to discuss!

Cheers!
Matthew

It has been suggested that we continue to email some of the major news outlets about our ’story’ behind all this Macbook hoopla - I head read about this a few weeks ago, but CNN now has a way where readers can contribute content, stories, etc.

I think we should all do our part and tell CNN about Macbook Random Shutdown and what all is going on - just an idea to get the word out more!

Cheers!
Matthew

At the suggestion of one of our members, ezra-g, I have created some new categories for our site..here they are:

• I have RSS
• Sent to Apple
• Apple Blew It
• Apple Fixed It
• Still Waiting
• Customer Relations
• Exchanges
• Compensation
• Ridiculous

When posting your story, you can now use the categories to group your entries. Let me know what you think. I hope it will help organize some of the really useful information we have been collecting here over the past month and going forward!

Cheers!
Matthew