Take Older MacBook Pro in for Repair or New One

Question

Level 1

4 points

Take Older MacBook Pro in for Repair or New One

Hello all, I think my 2014 MacBook Pro 15 inch with an intel processor has tanked. I replaced the battery in it about 3 years ago, but it after just a few months with the new battery, I got a service battery alert, by the battery icon, and it did not hold a charge very well.

While using it, and plugging it in to AC power with its charger to charge, the screen suddenly went dark, like it turned off, and became unresponsive; touching any keys, or the trackpad did not bring it back like it usually does from waking from sleep.

I tried holding the power button down for a few seconds to do a hard shut down, but nothing, no chime noise or anything, to indicate it was being powered down. I tried to hold the power button a few times to see if it would turn back on, but nothing.

Should I take it in for a repair? is there any way to salvage the ssd drive in it?

or is it time for a new one?

What apple laptops today have comparable specs and power to the one I had? The one I have had was a mid 2014 15 inch retina MacBook Pro, 16 GB RAM, 500 GB SSD drive, and an intel i7 quad core, with a dedicated Intel Iris pro graphics card. It was model; A1398-2881.

Things I have done or how I use my laptop; heavy user of safari and chrome browsers, online shopping, watching videos, some Microsoft Office, some photo editing, and light video editing, and maybe running virtual guest OSes. I am on a budget of about $1,500, but the less the better.

I have looked at the M chip macs, and I liked the macbook airs, but I notice they have no internal fans in them, so I am not sure how good at cooling they would be. The macbook Pros have fans in them, and many of them only have 8 GB of ram. Is that enough memory? I have read that a dedicated graphics card was superior than an integrated one, but I notice the m-series macs all seem to have integrated graphics and memory.

MacBook Pro 15″

Posted on Aug 31, 2023 2:37 AM

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Answer 1

ku4hx

Level 7

21,359 points

Aug 31, 2023 5:05 AM in response to sccfromsocal

Your 2014 is considered obsolete by Apple. That means there is no support of any kind and repairs are generally not going to be done by Apple.

Time for a new, or newer, computer.

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Answer 2

HWTech

Level 9

53,233 points

Sep 1, 2023 8:48 PM in response to sccfromsocal

Chances are the battery has failed. Was this a third party battery or did Apple or an AASP replace the battery? If Apple or an AASP replaced the battery, then you had a 90 day warranty on the battery and may have been able to have it replaced for free.

If it is a third party battery, then it was defective which is not uncommon. Unfortunately the quality of third party Lithium batteries is extremely poor even when purchased from a reputable vendor such as OWC or iFixIt.

As for which laptop to purchase and what specifications to have on it really depends on how you will use the laptop and how you may end up using it in the future. Personally I would not purchase any computer with less than 16GB of memory. Whether that would be enough for light video editing is debatable...some of it depends on whether you are editing 1080p videos or 4k videos. If you have lots of browser windows & tabs open all the time, then 16GB will be necessary. If you have them open while editing videos, then more memory may be needed. How much memory does your current Mac use under those situations as that can give you a guide. While you are using the system normally, check Activity Monitor's memory tab. If the memory pressure graph is showing yellow or red, then you probably should get more memory. If the memory pressure graph is green, check the amount of Compressed memory and the amount of Swap Used...if either one is showing GBs of usage, then you probably should consider more memory.

Also realize the internal SSDs are not upgradeable after purchase, so make sure your laptop has a large enough SSD for your needs....part of that will depend on how much storage each video you are editing will take up.

Are you going to use any external displays? If so how many? Some Macs may only be able to use a single external display. The number of USB-C ports available may also be something to consider as well. Yes you can get docks, hubs, or adapters, sometimes it is better/nicer to connect directly.

I'll have to leave it to others to assist you further since I don't perform video editing so I'm not entirely sure what to recommend there.

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