Monday, May 17, 2010

Not broken?!

Today I was told by Apple's help desk that my computer is not broken.

They do know that my computer overheats and the they even agree that there is design flaw because it gets too hot. But because it can not be fixed by replacing hardware parts therefore it is not broken.
Apple computers are not broken if there is design flaw. It's just the customer who is not pleased with the computer.

I don't anymore know what is the current situation. My computer is now at the service. I don't know whether I should get it back because Apple may ask me to bring it back to service some time soon.

I told the Apple help desk that this is really bad customer service if I as a customer have to do all the work. I've spent about 10-15 hours on phone and at least 10 hours running pointless tests which Apple asked me to do.

Almost forgot the sad part. Service did not find anything wrong with my computer. They are not allowed to use any other method than the test programs provided by Apple.

Don't waste your money on Apple.
If there is even slightest need of service... Then you're screwed.

Friday, May 7, 2010

Thermal paste flood

Little amount of thermal paste is better than none.
But too much is definitely worse than little.

The Thermal Paste Reapplication Endeavor

Everybody remember when first Intel CoreDuo MacBook Pro's came out? There were way too much thermal paste and temperatures were "quite high"

Apple should have learn their lesson.

I'm tempted to open my MacBook Pro to check if there is similar problem with excessive thermal paste. But Apple have promised to check whats wrong with my computer so I don't peel this apple... yet.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Apple! Where's your spine?

I was told to take my laptop to a service.
Apple now suspects that the motherboard might be faulty. I gave them the error code I received some time a go when i ran the hardware test. "4SNS/1/40000000: TNOP-76.375"
The "TNOP" part here means that it has something to do with the temperature sensor.

Too bad that it has nothing to do with the ineffective cooling. Seems more like a excuse rather than a solution.
  1. If it would be faulty temperature sensor why the computer would shut down due to overheating even the fans spinning full speed? (ok... this one is possible with wild imagination)
  2. Why would the computer run constantly at lower clock speed if it would not be too hot?
  3. Why would my computers broken temperature sensor affect EVERY UNIBODY LAPTOP IN THE WORLD!?
I understand if this would be an single case and only my computer acting this weird. Then it would make sense that faulty temperature sensor would make the fans spin 2000 rpm even at full load. But this is not a single case! This is a fault that every Apple laptop released since late 2008 is affected. I just tested my fiancees 13" MBP and hardware test did not show anything wrong and yet her computer acts exactly the same. When under excessive load fan (only one fan in 13" model) does not speed up not until it is too late.

Pay attention to number 3. Maybe somewhere next Wednesday magically every Apple laptop might start working when they fix my possibly faulty temperature sensor.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Sleep Notification occurred.

I was told to run "Capture Data.app" when I have reproduced the shutdown due to overheating -issue. I've been told to run this app once before and then I did not pay any attention what data the program collected.

Today I've finally found time to play along with Apple and it did not took long for the machine to overheat and suspend. Then I run the Capture Data application and this time I checked every little file the application collected and was suggesting me to send to Apple.
Here are just few things I've found:
  • All users passwords hash, account creation dates, user images. Also the deleted accounts were included.
  • All files I've opened since last week. (file names and full file path) Including every movie I've watched, work files written and school projects opened.
  • Nearly all programs I've started during last 5 days
  • Every file which I've downloaded since last week. (With Firefox, transmission, wget... you name it)
I've now spend about one hour on these files and there is still much to discover. Some of the files are so messy that I have to write little program to parse those files for me.

This is only what Apple would have needed:
2010-05-05 11:54:43 EEST - T[0x00007FFF70C30BE0] - Sleep Notification occurred.

Too bad I was again too hasty and send the whole thing to Apple before thinking. During last hour I have also changed all my passwords.