Something

Hello,

In August 2006, I purchased a 1.86ghz Macbook.

Since this was a first generation machine, I expected it to have a few minor bugs, what product wouldn't?

But, in the one and a half years I've had this laptop, I've run into more than a few "little" bugs.

First off, about 6 days after I bought the machine, I started to experience the "random shut down (RSD)" bug that affected many Macbooks. I took in the laptop, and got it back about a week later. The logic board had been replaced. I figured all should now be in working order, so I took the laptop home, and used it happily for a few months…

About 2-3 months after the first incident, the random shut downs began again. I waited a couple of days to make sure it wasn't another issue, that might only occur once, but surely, about every 2 hours, the laptop would just shut off, no warning at all. I took it in (To Compusmart, which no longer exists), and they fixed the issue, by putting in a new heat sink.

Surely this would be the end of the problems? Nope.

About 3 months later, my Macbook's airport failed. At first, it just intermittently shut off, but then my system would not even recognize that it had an Airport. I spent about 3 days puttering around with various settings, trying to fix it, but I couldn't, so I took it in. About 2 days later, I got a call, stating that they (Compusmart) could not find anything wrong with the laptop, and I was "allowed to come pick it up".

Once I got it home, it worked for about a day, and then it once again broke. I took various screenshots of the issue, and also took some snippets from the system log. Upon showing Compusmart this evidence, they agreed to replace the airport card. I got the laptop back a week later, and it has been working fine since…

At this point, I was extremely frustrated, and I was really hoping that I wouldn't experience any more issues. I ended up buying AppleCare, because I was so worried this would happen again. So much for the saying "it just works".  But of course, this was not the end of my problems.

Today, on February 3rd, 2008, I woke up to a failed hard drive. I booted into the install disc, and opened up Disk Utility, but my Macbook doesn't even know that a hard drive exists on my computer. As well, upon boot, you can hear the hard drive head moving from side to side, as if it cannot read the platter. I imagine my hard drive failed for the reason outlined in this article on InformationWeek. I have the same hard drive, and firmware (7.01) outlined in that article.

I am wondering if it is possible to get a replacement laptop. Five hardware failures in just over 18 months is absolutely unacceptable in my opinion.  If you were to add up the time that I have not had laptop, because of repairs, it comes out to just about one month. Not including the time for the hard drive replacement. It seems I have a "lemon" laptop, if you will.

Logic dictates that I will probably have more issues in the coming year or two with this laptop, and with this comes even more downtime.

Thanks,

Kyle Van Essen