Q: New Retina Macbook pro 13 Haswell system hang/unresponsive

So i wanted to buy new rMBP 13' and been following forum and internet all the time.

Yesterday i decided to call the nearest apple store, La Canada (Marbella,Spain) and the guy told me that all units were taken off the stock and i should order online to get rMBP with a fix.

The guy sounded crazy to me and i think they have units in store but affraid of returns.

Anyway, looks like we want to pay 1200 euros/dolars for machine which is not even working. I am sure people would speak louder if this was not apple.

TabsAZ

Why is everyone returning them? Do you guys seriously think Apple can get away with not replacing our computers if it really is a hardware issue? There is no way they can screw people like that. The machine is warantied against defects for at least a year and this is very clearly one if it is indeed hardware related. This thread is 127 pages long and the issue's been reported by all the major tech sites - they can't sweep this under the rug. Relax.

Folks if no one will read any of my posts on this, listen to this guy.  Returning them is pointless.  I worked in PD as a DE for years in Silly Valley, with a company that lost its way in the late '90s, and cratered due to greed & stupidity of the Sr. Execs, Scott McNealy in particular.  At Apple, there was a Mavericks product readiness meeting(s) probably back in July sometime, and the marketing PM and finance PM on the product team overroad platform engineering and manufacturing, and ordered them to ship sh*t, all the while hardware and OS engineering knowing full well that this was a correctable firmware and/or driver issue with the USB chipset(s), that would affect any platforms using those particular USB chipsets(s), and wanted more time to fix it, and were overridden.  It happens all the time, EVEN AT APPLE!  Probably more so, since SJ died he was a real stickler for the details.  It is not a hardware issue, that would have been caught in 4 corner testing, & shake and bake; which is where they would also find f/w and/or kernel level driver issues.  It is going to turn out to be a f/w and/or kernel driver patch, and an OTA push.  IF you spend a little time reading some of this thread, you will notice that this is beng reported by people with other Macs, besides the 13" rMBPs, the common denominator is most likely all the platforms which share the same USB chipset(s) and buss designs, and the problem is a kernel and firmware incompatibility.  I'd bet your paycheck on it! 

I have the same (?) issue with MBPretina 15", late 2012

Bug report submitted to Apple

BTW as I've said in other posts.  I have a 1 week old 13" rMBP 8GB, 256GB SSD.  I use an Apple Blutooth mouse and have NO HANGS at all.  As soon as I shut off the mosue and use the trackpad with any app, particualrly Safari, it freezes within a couple of minutes.  I close the lid, wait 30-60 seconds, open the lid, and it is UNFROZEN.  It remains unfrozen for varying amounts of time, not long though.  Rinse, repeat to unfreeze.  I would suggest using an Apple or perhaps other Bt mouse because that is using a completely different chipset, buss, f/w driver and kernel driver.  The evil is in the trackpad and when it goes it takes the keyboard with it, and very likely the rest of the USB related ports; that would depend on how many bridges and paths they have.  The power button is not on the same buss as the keybaord, it just happens to live on the keybaord, it's a wired path to the power management section.  Just a suggestion on the Bt mosue folks...

hi guys and girls,

I talked to apple support today and persistentely wanted to know if this is SW or HW issue. the girl on the other end told me it is SW and a firmware update is in progress. I asked again that I want to know if its not HW, because they may can fix also a HW issue with a SW workarround and so on, so the girl took me on hold and asked her boss. And again, they say it's a firmware problem and they working on it. She also told me the firmware update will be released in weekS (yes, not week, weekS). This can be next week or in 5 weeks, I asked. She said yes ... nobody knows how the progress is related to this issue ...

returning is not point less..

if its a hardware issue, people's mbp don't have to get repaired, they can get a brand new one may be with the new chipset.

even its a hardware issue, it can still be 'fixed'(or say hide) by software with compromise in other aspect, we can't trust any company they only want to fix a problem in a way that cost less for them.

they will not stop shipping macbook pro because they may be able to fix it using software or the new one might shipped with the newer chipeset..who knows.

if its software issue, how come only MBP 13 inch users are reported ? so far there is NO 15 inch user confirm the problem or the error log, few of them reported but i think they might not know what they talking about or they are false reporting, so far there is no massive error report from 15 inch user like the 13 inch user. i mean, if its a software issue, 15 and 13 should be reported at similar level of numbers, but apparently not, also the macbook air user doesn't have the problem, so .. only 13 inch.. its a hardware issue. and they are tyring to use software to cover it.

return yours , buy another one in 2 months which will have the good chipset.

danzzz7

hi guys and girls,

I talked to apple support today and persistentely wanted to know if this is SW or HW issue. the girl on the other end told me it is SW and a firmware update is in progress. I asked again that I want to know if its not HW, because they may can fix also a HW issue with a SW workarround and so on, so the girl took me on hold and asked her boss. And again, they say it's a firmware problem and they working on it. She also told me the firmware update will be released in weekS (yes, not week, weekS). This can be next week or in 5 weeks, I asked. She said yes ... nobody knows how the progress is related to this issue ...

There ya go.  What he/she said.  Hardware cursor is surprisingly difficult to deal with....it will be weeksssss.  Not likely that the chipsets will be replaced any time soon, or at all actually.  Mavericks, new minor number, is a fairly new kernel, especially in dealing with certain h/w interfaces, such as the memory compression, and yes that is completely unrelated to ths topic, I'm using as an example of architecure change, and Oh BTW has been around for a long time elsewhere in *NIX land.

read the thread again, there ARE other platforms affected.  It's pretty hard to cover up low level stuff like this, especially related to the hardware cursor.  It is pointless to return them.  The pretty aluminum boxes come with a 1YEAR hardware and software warranty, no sweat if it persists, and 'they' won't let it.  How much computer hardware and software deveolpment have you done?

Dear,

It's clear you didn't notice my previous post.

With my own eyes I watched a brand new and just-delivered Mac Book Pro Retina 15'' to freeze. Crash. Shutdown. Block. It was my colleague's one, just arrived this week, while my own 13'' arrived in the late weekend. We both experienced the same freezes, at least twice (twice for me and twice for his one, as far as I know).

Moreover, my brother in London reported me a similar "crash" on a new 15'' provided by his firm, too.

Yesterday I told him, Well, according to this long post there are few 15'' users reporting this issue. And considered, maybe it's just because such machines are more expensive and therefore not so diffused as the 13''. But on this point, of course, I am only supposing.

Yesterday night I worked with my 13'' using a mouse, and nothing bad happened. Don't know if it's just this the solution or what.

Experiended second freeze with a macbook air 13' mid-2012, no haswell then, was using safari in full screen

definitely software heh ?

clemente718 wrote:

 

It has to be a hardware issue. Im running Windows 7 via Bootcamp, and its still happening.

You are the first one to report this.

Please provide more information. "it's still happening" - does that mean you boot into Windows 7, use keyboard and tochpad and at some point in time, the keyboard and the touchpad do not respond anymore, but the System is otherwise continuing to work? In other words: are you sure it is exactly the same issue?

Sorry IPad3_screwdagain I can't disagree with you more on the point of returning being pointless.  Remember you are the consumer.  Half the problem today is we lower our expectations and accept issues with our products because we want them yesterday

Regardless of whether the issue is hardware or software at this point the simple fact is there is an issue with it that causes a pretty undesirable effect.  Granted it's not a life threatening but whatever product you have if it doesn't function as expected you should return it for either a refund or a replacement.

Largely replacements haven't been successful for many on this forum, so that would point to a return for a refund and either buy a different laptop or wait until the issue is fixed and purchase a new one.

If everyone with a problem with their MacBook today returned it and asked Apple for a refund you would be surprised how quickly fixes would start coming in one way or another.  I know this because I'm a product manager and generally my priorities go something like this... "how much is customer moaning about it"... Once a month - bottom of my backlog, A customer has switched us off - Top and how many developers can I get to fix it.

In summary, if you are not happy with a product return it, whether its a £10 pen or a £2000 laptop.  It's the only real feedback product managers care about, the bottom line

Wow...random reply?

I think that your experience in computer science is low...and also you arent good informated about this issue.

What Varasc said above.   Do you see it now sTronic?   The 15"ers aren't selling as well as the 13"s because the 13"ers occupy a marketing price point sweet spot, in particular the 13" rMBP 8GB, 256GB SSD; which just so happens to be the one I bought.      

Also I believe the 15" model is upgradable for memory in the future, which means it's a different logic board aka mother board.  To be honest I don't have the time to read all the tear down articles, but I do know the 13" rMBP have everything tab mounted to the board and/or soldered.  No upgrades by the users or anyone in the future.  Which really takes all the fun out of it.  I stuffed a 256GB Samsung Pro SSD in my 2007 MBP a couple of years ago, and that bad boy screams about 20-30% better now, runs cooler, and the battery lasts much longer.

@  ipad3screwedagain: is there a way to determine the usb chipset while in store?

or are you convinced that ALL lat 2013 rmbps are affected?