Q: MacBook Pro Logic Board Failure

Hi Keith,

Thanks for the advice!

I am gonna try the Apple Coporate Customer Relations route. 

I too have had a lot on inconsistant responses to this known issue and feel like its due to a lack of awareness on the part of Apple Store folks and Apple Care Reps...

Or its just a crap shoot, like dealing with AT&T billing!

Anyway, I will let you know how it turns out this unit is out of warranty so I have my fingers crossed! 

Cheers,

Nate

http://support.apple.com/kb/ts2377

On this page near the bottom, it clearly states that they will issue a refund for repairs that have already been done, once they review the repair information....

This means that a software test is NOT necessarily critical...and it is not a warranty...it is a special case that Apple opened up specifically for this problem....

AND, the 4 year window is rapidly coming to a close!!!!

Well, they didn't/couldn't run the test on mine. So MY Apple people didn't consider it critical...again, when there are people involved, you will get different interpretations...

Keith, I can't see the new discussion either. Don't know what that's all about.

Sorry Keith I think I might have branched this as I replied to y2kiddo not sure how this works but I hope to get the repaired based on MY Apple techs LOL

Cheers,

Nate

nate, i don't think it's your fault for replying.

and I hope YOUR techs will be great as mine were.

Unfortunately Apple's Macbook Pro Logic board failures were not limited to the problematic Nvidia cards. My brother and I both have the mid 2009 2.66ghz 15" and have had problems with it.  Just this week as I woke up to study for my boards like any day I saw my mac wasnt sleeping as usual but "shutdown". power wouldn't boot, noticed charger light was very faded. clicked battery indicator light wouldn't work either. tried 3 different chargers same thing. now I will admit i have a 1cm dent on the front corner by the hard drive that when you open it up you see its actually empty space and doesn't affect anything and sadly it happened my 3rd day owning it. after 6 months my trackpad and battery started acting up with erratic behavior, i went to a "genius" and he said any and al problems are because it was dropped. i explained it wasn't dropped but stupidly it was swung while in a light backpack and after convincing him to just open and look he offered to service it at possibly my cost. ultimately he repaired the trackpad but said the battery was fine. fast forward to a year later and i've started having memory not being freed up, HDD running non stop, battery working even worse with "service battery", I called apple and explained I don't have the time nor can lose the laptop for even a day and I was assured nothing was imminent. 3 weeks later this happened. So long story short I went to the store today and I guess I got a "compassionate" guy because he said Apple will blame even the tiniest dent for the most unrelated problems, he said since he couldn't run any tests and he agreed it sounded like a logic board issue he put in the repair as a Tier 4 Accidental Damage repair FoC to replace the battery, logic board, HDD, outer case & "any other neccessary components". Since I have apple care and he conceded that the damage is just cosmetic, is this bad that its being done as an alleged $1300 waived repair? (BTW my exact model is in the refurb store for $50 more, are they serious with these repair charges costing more than a "new" system???)  As far as my brother in laws, his issue was the computer would charge up fully then when he'd turn it on it wouldn't get past the chime and then discharge somehow. they actually didn't want to repair his because his display was little misaligned, when he'd open it it was a little tight midway opening at 45 degrees and the genius said it's evidence of "major damage". he went to the apple store downtown and they took it and sent it for diags and replaced the logic board, trackpad, both fans and the entire case, he just thought it was a battery issue. to stop this long rant, I am pretty ticked off because this was such a failure that I could NOT afford especially at this time when I have such a burden around the corner and I paid $2000 hoping things like this wouldn't happen. My 2006 1,1 MBP runs so solid even after my dad knocked it off the counter, open hinges out onto the granite floor and it literally bounced. not a single dent, a few scratches, no "failures". I bet mine would break in two if same thing happened. after googling it, it turns out mid 09 has a lot of "won't boot" issues and a lot of excuses from apple. hopefully mine gets fixed and returned ASAP, I just worry this might have a negative effect on the remainder of my warranty of more than a year, any insight? i'm especially curious why it's a tier 4 repair being done as a "favor" instead of repairing the defective parts, they're practically building a new computer, just give me the next model refurb I don't care, seems like a waste of money IMO, but that's why they make 30% profit.  Is this a clever way of avoiding admitting the part failed and instead seeming like the good guys that are not charging for my "negligence", he was in the back pretty long to just open it up and reset the SMC as he said that's all he could do, so maybe it was a briefing, speculation, oh well. I wish I had taken a picture of this dent before I gave it in, it doesn't deserve the name "dent".

Wow, that's a really long rant for someone who just found out that Apple is going to fix his computer for free ;-)

I don't think that your AppleCare warranty will be affected at all. You should be covered till the end.

One other point...the older laptops may have been a little more "bulletproof" from damage, but they were also a lot heavier. The tradeoff is that they may be more fragile.

I just wanted to give a final update on my Macbook/NVIDIA saga:

Got my macbook back from AppleCare and it's working perfectly!!  They even replaced 2 broken keys on my keyboard!  I didn't lose a single file or program!!!  THANK YOU APPLE! (really couldn't have been happier with the way that Apple handled this part of the experience--FedEx Next day air on everything, I was able to track my macbook and repair progress LIVE--it took minutes to fix, then the notification let me know it was being prepared for shipment, and another tracking update when it was being shipped back with FedEx.  YES!!)

Thanks so much to Keith for posting his experience with Apple Corporate.  I'm unemployed and couldn't afford the $300-$500 to replace my logic board, but even if I could, I was SO angry and frustrated about the fact that I DESERVED to have this issue covered by Apple since they verified that I had the faulty NVIDIA chip.

Apple Store & Genius Bar = Unbelievable frustration.  NO HELP!

Apple Support 1-800 # = NO HELP

Email to Apple = Reported as SPAM. Time Warner Cable called me to tell me (still shocked about this one)

Snail Mail to Apple Corporate = No Repsonse (to this day!)

Please note that I did the above over a period of 2 months (forced to used crappy PC in the meantime).

THE SOLUTION:  1 quick phone call (well, quick compared to a phone callt o Apple Support) to Apple Corporate in Cupertino and everything was taken care of (read up thread to Keith's post--it's the 408 area code #).

Thank you Keith!  And thank you to the nice people at Apple Corporate and Apple Care (who fixed my computer and even replaced broken keys!).  But Apple really needs to address this issue with their local stores and AppleSupport.  Clearly I'm not the only one who has experienced unbelievable frustration when I tried to get this issue solved through the normal channels.  I really think it's bizarre that the local Apple stores' Geniuses fought me tooth and nail every step of the way as if it would come out of their own paychecks.  I was respectful, I made sense and used logic.  They were frustrating and unhelpful, often even arrogant.  Yuck.

Good luck everyone!

Hi SSS010,

When talking to corporate, what did you say to them? 

I told them about the issues with trying to deal withApple Store "Geniuses" and that often they don't even know about the NVIDIA lawsuit / manu defect issue and extension program...even though its on the Apple website!

Still have yet to take mine to the local authorzied repair center will post how it goes (or does go!)

Cheers,

Nate

Thanks for your insight on my warranty not being affected but I beg to differ that Apple is fixing it for "free". Not only did I buy a machine for more than $2000 because it stood for reliability but I also paid another $350 for an additional warranty. The fact that so many things failed and the timing made it worse. Anytime something was wrong I would call AppleCare and I was always assured it was nothing, also twice the "geniuses" said nothing was wrong with my computer, 1st being when the trackpad was addressed but battery dismissed and a 2nd time I came in June about the HDD, they said it spinning non stop was normal, it isn't, they blamed my WD drive, I put stock back in, it actually was louder when it spun nonstop. As a med student I'm not only swamped but until this year I also was out of the country, in the caribbean, so I couldn't always bring it in and when I did when I would come home every 4-6 months nothing was addressed. Now I'm stuck without my computer and lost data 8 days before I take my licensing exam. Sure it's my fault I didn't backup since September, but I think the persistent dismissals of my concerns by Apple created a false sense of security, especially when I insisted that if continued use was a risk, I'd rather not had my computer for a week last month then the last week I needed it most. So I don't think that my computer is being fixed for free at all, by a longshot; on the contrary I paid a very severe price. A new computer would be a favor, in warranty repairs for practically the entire machine is bad manufacturing.

Also to note, the new MBP with an Incase or Speck case actually weighs the same as the old MBP so I don't think they cut the weight enough to justify a more flimsy build IMO. Easier signs of slight damage was definitely a result of the "unibody" design. In any event hopefully it comes back problem free, all's well that ends well I'd like to believe.