Q: Freeze at opening screen - off center logo - checkerboard background

No. Unfortunately, the Early 2008 MBP is over 4 years old. The guy at the store explained to me that I brought it in 2 months and a week too late and that had I handed it to him 3 months earlier, he could have had it repaired free of cost. I think the longest an Apple Care goes is up to 3 years for laptops ?

I ended up leaving it at the store and they are going to ship it to a repair center and have the logicboard swapped out. Quoted cost $310. (just like ds store suggested)

I'll save my judgement until after it comes back, but as you can imagine, my wife was not pleased that that they charged us, especially since the problem didn't start until after an official Apple update and "9 weeks" after the expiration of the free warranty replacement program.

To me it is hopefully going to be worth keeping it around. This is one of the last models which can be easily upgraded with battery, memory, HDD, and optical drive. This is the first real problem I've had with it and I hope to experiment more int he future with a SSD instead of the optical drive and maybe even two depending on performance. I like my 500 gig platter HD and hope that I can have 4 more years of no problems with this machine once it comes back.

I'll keep you posted with regards to the condition in which my machine is returned to me. The guy commented on what great shape the machine was in and I really hope to get it back in the same condition.

Keep your fingers crossed for me.

I'll try it. My MBP was purchased in early April of '08. technically this is the beginning of the fifth year. I even referenced the last line at the bottom as to the fact that they can extend the service window but to no avail...

I called today. They didn't bite. I sensed that at one point, it was being considered, but they told me that my laptop was over 1000 days out of warranty which doesn't make sense since the service bulletin states "even if it's out of warranty". Bottom line, they hinted that if I had originally purchased apple care that maybe they could have done something, but since I hadn't purchased it then, then they would be getting that money from me now... ie in the form of the $310. Even if I had purchased the 3 full years of the apple care, I still would have been over a year out of warranty.

I was very disappoineted overall at the end of the phone call.

The thing that really stings is that there are people who have the exact same model with the exact same problem that simply purchased it later in the lifecycle who are still being repaired free of charge. I just happen to purchase mine earlier on in the window of sales. The instant my 4 years passed, the machine failed. And the thing that triggered it was an official apple software update. Un-be-freakin-leavable. 

Again, I am super disappointed that Apple was not willing to honor the service bulletin on a known issue with third party hardware. How can I continue to recommend their products to my family ?  Unless one buys the $200-350 insurance plan on top of the already pricey hardware, is the computer even going to make it three years ? Most of the new units now a days are not even user servicable. And if the hardware does make it that long, will an inevitable software update either trigger a hardware failure or make the unit ultra-slow or lacking in new features? When I explain my experience to my parents,  family, friends, and co-workers, how can I continue to recommend Apple products to them ?

Shouldn't a $2700 laptop being used as a desktop last at least five years ? Am I dreaming and being too optimistic about the quality of the hardware ? Are my expectations for the company honoring their service bulletin out of alignment ?

$322 and change after tax for the repair. I took it to the store with an appointment on Friday. Today (Tuesday evening) they called and said come and get it. All things considered, I think the repair center to which this was sent did a fine job. I hope that I can get many more years with this machine issue free. Snow Leopard seems to be the ideal OS for this, but mountain lion is still a possibility based upon preliminary system requirements. I'm just not too sure that I would want to even try mountain lion for fear that it would slow system performance. Summary, I'm not happy I had to pay for the repair, but it seems as if they did a really nice job fixing it up. I'll give it a week and make sure that everything is okay.