Just wanted to let you know about my experience with the logic board failure on my 2009 mac book pro. Like many others in here, the problem arose without any warnings, the light on the front stayed on but the computer was unresponsive in any way. By restarting (holding down the power button until it shut down) I could hear the optical drive start up, but never had the screen nor the chime appear. We didn't have apple care, nor had we encountered any other issues with this particular computer up until this point.
We hadn't backed up the hard drive in a long time, so we had to do a tear down to remove the hard drive. Luckily that went without incident, and all data was intact. After copying the data and putting the computer back together we took it to our first scheduled Genius appointment. We decided to play dumb and act as if we hadn't researched this issue at all. The tech of course couldn't run any diagnostic tests and told us that the logic board had failed. He suggested we send it in to apple's repair facility at a cost of $310, stating that it was a flat fee for fixes such as this. We were already considering replacing this computer but were hoping to either sell it, or use it as a media device for our home theater. We ultimately decided that we'd think about it.
Later that day, still a little disappointed that this wouldn't be covered, and in the area of another apple store we scheduled another appointment with the Genius Bar. This time the tech was really receptive and understanding of the issue. I think the first words out of his mouth were "I think I've got some good news." He attempted to run some diagnostic tests, but again they wouldn't work. He then told us about the issues of the logic board, and that even though it was out of warranty, that Apple would pay for the repair at no cost to us. He told us it would take about a week to get our machine back.
Later that night (about 7 hours later) my wife received an email from the apple store that our MBP was ready for pickup. The next day we came back in and sure enough, the computer was back up and running in all of its former glory.
Moral of the story, if you have multiple apple stores in your area, don't hesitate to take it to several stores. I'm not sure of what Apple's policies are in this case, obviously they aren't in line with one another. Perhaps we caught a nice employee that was genuinely concerned about our Apple overall experience, or whether the other employee had been explicitly informed to not cover the expense. In the end I now know which store I will be buying future products from, at least locally.
