Q: issue an exception

To whom it may concern,

I have been a great apple fan for many, many years. It all started off with buying an iPhone 3GS back in the days. Not only the hardware, but the feel to it, and the user friendly interface got me, but also the overall company policy and service. Convinced of the company, I chose to do one step further into the Apple direction and purchased a MacBook Pro 6,2 in 2010.

I have been using this MacBook Pro ever since and have been more than happy with it. Boosting it with an SSD and more RAM, it has been a great colleague over the years during my studies and private life as well. It all got shattered earlier this year when I started to write my Master Thesis.

Sudden shut-downs of the system without saving anything started to occur on a random basis. I was shocked and surprised as I had never experienced any performance issues with OSX before. The logs showed a kernel panic concerning the GPU. As this was a single issue at first, I didn't mind and proceeded. Over the weeks, though, it started to occur more frequently and changed my behavior in terms of saving my work every minute to minimize the loss. Finishing my thesis, I walked into the Apple store in Stuttgart, Germany, and asked for help. All they did was sending me off stating that my warranty had expired.

That was when I started to do some research on the internet. I found out that this issue was not solely my problem but was more than just a common phenomenon for different MacBooks. I could narrow down the issue to a failure in switching between integrated and discrete graphics card, which seemed to be a production failure for that generation. So I went down to a retail seller on campus (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Tech Zone) and told them my story. First they ran the VST test to prove eligibility for an exchange program of the logic board (TS4088) and told me that I was part of the program fixing the MacBook free of charge. When initiating the process, however, I was confronted with yet another issue. Even though my MacBook does have the hardware that is known for GPU troubles, I am over the 3-year grace period and thus not eligible for the program anymore.

This was shocking to me, since I have known the Apple company for its great products, superior performance, and highest services I have encountered with technology products. Telling me that even though thousands of people have the same issue with the same hardware and Apple admitting that it is an issue they would like to take care of but on the other hand refusing to offer that service to me is something I have never expected from Apple.

I am disappointed in Apple. I appreciated Apple but am shocked and surprised of how my issue was and is taken care of.

Right now I do not know what to do. The MacBook tends to shut down about 10-15 times a day. This is not acceptable for work and influences my productivity enormously.

Is there any way that I could have this problem solved?

Thank you for your time and consideration.

With kind regards,

Fabian