Valhalla Island

Stupid Macbook. Starting about two weeks ago it’s been shutting down at random. It really was at complete random for a little while and was very frustrating. Then, if it shut down at random once and I pressed the power button straight away, it would switch off again within a few seconds.

Calling Applecare didn’t do anything at all, they told me do reset the power managment unit, a pretty standard trouble shooting thing to do. That didn’t work. They told me to contact a Apple serviceman. I did, he was rude, I hung up on him.

At first I assumed it would be an overheating CPU, as shutting down without warning is what Intel processors do when they get too hot, but when it happens it’s actually much less hot to the touch than when I’ve touched it at other times. Then I assume it’s maybe a power problem, the battery cutting out for some reason so I run it directly off the power, no battery attached and it still happens.

So recently, after a random shutdown, I decide to hold the power button in, it doesn’t shut down while my finger is still on the power button, so I keep holding it. Then the LED on the front starts flashing and there’s a huge, loud beeeeeeeeeeeep. I immeadiatly think “fuck, I’ve just formatted the computer”. But nope, it boots up, I login and it stays on all day.

Now the problem has become a lot less random, if I leave the computer shut down or asleep for a long period of time, when I turn it on or wake it up, within five minutes it will shut down. That’s when I press the power button, hold it in, it beeps really loudly and it stays on, problem free for the rest of the day. Wierd, huh?

That’s why I’ve resisted taking it in and being computerless for a week, because, really it stays on all day. It’s still not good enough though, it’s only one month old and I treat it with the upmost care. Something else strange is that it only started after about two weeks use.

Many, many other people have been having this problem. Some have gotten complete new computers, some have gotten new logic boards. Others haven’t been able to make it randomly shut off in front of an Apple service person, which is really unlucky. Tomorrow I’m taking it in to get fixed and will be Macless for a about a week (but I bet it’ll be much longer). I’ll be back on the clumsy and slow Windows for a week.

It’s this problem that made me realise what I really value in a computer, reliability. I used to love this Macbook, it was the best, just everything about it was perfect but shutting down randomly and me losing work or not being able to keep it on at all completely overides everything I like. When looking for a computer I guess it’s a given that it’s able to stay on. No one ever asks ‘is this computer going to stay on when I’m using it?’

In conclusion, I’m not real impressed with Apple.