In the last two days, my laptop’s fan has taken to running continuously, and for good reason — it’s hot enough to give my actual lap second-degree burns. (Of course, as it’s now 3.5 years old, it’s entirely possible that the machine is menopausal, and these are hot flashes.) As my editing job requires me to stay online for four hours a night, this gets on my last damn nerve, as you can imagine. So it’s off to the Apple store we go this morning. I’m hopeful for a repair, but as these things usually happen, there’s at least a 50-50 chance I’ll be coming home with a new computer, dammitall.
(And, of course, now I’ve had the thing running for 10 minutes and the fan hasn’t come on yet. Which is probably what will happen in the store. …Ah, there it goes. Still broken.)
So you carry on here, and I’ll be back eventually, probably poorer. Now to go online and make a reservation at the Genius Bar. (Sheesh. You know, I love Apple, and I love my Mac, but sometimes they make it a little hard.) Wish me luck.
Connie said on November 28, 2006 at 10:15 am
I wish you better luck with Apple than we had this summer. We ordered the new Mac Book – now living in a Butler U dorm room, and it was several weeks to ship. They sent us an email shipping date which was during our vacation week. I called and asked them to hold the shipment and was told it wasn’t possible, but that Fed Ex would keep trying till someone was home. Thankfully the neighbor who gets the mail saw the delivery slips, 3 of them, on the door and checked. The most recent one was a notification that Fed Ex would return the package to sender if not called by 5 p.m. that day. Thank you Marilyn for making that call.
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Beryl Ament said on November 28, 2006 at 10:22 am
Want to bet it is your logic board? We had that $800 component replaced twice. Thank heavens that we bought Apple’s extended warranty, but the trip all the way out to Somerset was annoying.
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brian stouder said on November 28, 2006 at 10:35 am
Good luck!
Say – this isn’t the type of laptop that suddenly bursts into flames, is it? (related to a battery problem, I think)
Last week our tv in the living room gave up the ghost – screen went dark and it made a crackling noise…’course, we immediately unplugged it, but then we were on the horns of a dilemma; the high-voltage tube is a genuine worry even after months of being unplugged – so I didn’t want to leave the thing in the house. But I couldn’t put the thing outside, either, as we don’t have a dumpster – and the thing would be a kid-magnet…
so we set it in the center of the garage until garbage day-eve, at which time I set the thing by the street, between the garbage can and the recycling bins.
The next morning when I went to work, the garbage truck hadn’t been by yet, but the menacing tv was gone
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Rory on Lawn Guyland said on November 28, 2006 at 11:57 am
Nance:
Had a similar problem with our Mac G5 (It’s a January 2005 purchase). Fan went on like a turbine, wouldn’t shut down.
Turns out Mac knew it was a problem, and extended the warranty a year after fixing it.
A week ago Saturday, machine was dark; wouldn’t boot. Went to Mac store. Long story short, after THREE trips, turns out it was a bad memory chip that was a FREE upgrade when we bought the thing via the MacMall catalog 2 years ago.
Apple says they’re inferior chips; who knew? Machine is now fixed (no charge) with new logic board, power supply, and other stuff. A new one meg chip is on the way from Apple itself, but that’s gonna set us back $200.
Did you install an extra memory chip you got on the cheap? If so, might be the root of the problem.
FYI.
–Rjt
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Dick Walker said on November 28, 2006 at 6:21 pm
Betting you’ve already got a new laptop by now. My Powerbook is only a year old – but whenever I stop by the Apple store, I start to salivate over the new ones…
Sigh.
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basset said on November 29, 2006 at 10:24 am
if you don’t absolutely have to have the latest model… might look at the refurbished ones at apple.com. I use a 12″ iBook on the road, bought a refurb at about a one-third discount and couldn’t tell it from new. some are a lot more recent than that, just depends on what they’ve had returned…
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Jessica said on November 29, 2006 at 11:51 am
Check your local apple retail place for returns, too. I snagged a 12 inch ibook that turned out to have 1gb apple (ie unimpeachable) RAM at my local store for $600.
The apple store person would have bought it if I hadn’t reserved it by phone.
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