Lemon? Also, battery issues!

Hello all!

This is my first post here, and it's gonna be kinda whiny - run away now!

In all seriousness though, I wanted to post my current delemma to a forum of Mac users, and see if anyone could come up with a reason as to why I've been so unlucky with my computer...

I bought my MBP in November 2007. Within the first two weeks, I had to take it in for service. There's no other way to describe how the computer was acting other than really 'buggy'. The Mac Geniuses looked at it for a couple minutes, determined that something crazy was going on with that machine, and since I had just bought it a couple weeks before, ended up giving me a whole new MBP on the spot. I thought that was pretty awesome!

Things were fine for about four or five months, then I noticed my battery life starting to really take a hit. I brought the machine back in, and they determined that the battery did need to be replaced, so they gave me a new one.

About a month after that, my power supply for the laptop started to go. It would overheat and then shut itself off at random. Back to the store, where they tested it and determined that there was an issue - gave me a new one.

About six-seven months later, my graphics card fails completely without warning. Luckily, this was a known issue (at this point my computer was just out of warranty - I've learned my lesson on getting extended warranties now... :-/), and so my logicboard was replaced.

Two weeks later... the fan in the right side of the machine goes. Back to the store, where at this point I think they just feel sorry for me, and they replace it for free, because they're awesome. ;-)

That was about three weeks ago. Today, my battery randomly decided to act up. It's actually behaving much like my original battery did when I needed to get it replaced. When I go into system profiler, it tells me it's been cycled 74 times, has a full charge capacity of 2950 mAh, and for battery health it's saying "Check Battery". Keep in mind that this battery isn't original to the machine, and is just going on a year old. I've shut the computer down and taken the battery out to see if there was dirt or something going on, but everything looks normal. :-/ Is this battery issue expected after this age/number of cycles? Is there something else I should be checking?

So, at the end of that little rant (sorry!), has anyone had similiar experiences with a MBP? Or heard of someone with what seems like a never-ending list of issues? With all the things that have gone wrong, I almost feel like I've been sold a lemon. I take pretty good care of my computer (never been dropped, damaged, etc), so I wanna go out on a limb and say it's not me who's causing all the issues...

In the end, I still love Apple products and I would probably get another one, but I'm not gonna lie - I'm leery after this. Apple has done a wonderful job as far as fixing things up for me, but still - it's irritating to have to keep going back and forth, and sometimes losing my computer for a few days for repairs.

So, 'hi', and share with me your words of wisdom!

I believe its just a string of bad luck. I have had my MBP for 1 1/2 year trouble free nothing wrong at all. A lot of my friends in college abused their MB or MBP's and they have been virtually free.

On another note, have you ever tried to check your houses wiring. This may sound dumb to a lot of people but the older your house the more surges you have and the less inconsistent power you get even with a surge protector. Get it tested and pick up a line conditioner. It'll do wonders for your electronics for a single outlet its around 40-100 and if you do your whole house (through your electrician) look to pay around 300-600 depending on your area, and which type you buy.

I have had my MBP for just under 3 years. I have had my battery replaced twice. Last week my power cord right next to the Magsafe connection melted and was replaced. I have not had any system problems. I figure I'll start to have those problems after October when my extended warranty is up. But I have to say moving to mac has been one of the best decisions I have ever made.

my macbook pro is 15 months old, I had the battery replaced last week due to a defective unit. My cycle # though was 375 cycles.. in that 15mo time.

Doppler808 said:

I believe its just a string of bad luck. I have had my MBP for 1 1/2 year trouble free nothing wrong at all. A lot of my friends in college abused their MB or MBP's and they have been virtually free.

On another note, have you ever tried to check your houses wiring. This may sound dumb to a lot of people but the older your house the more surges you have and the less inconsistent power you get even with a surge protector. Get it tested and pick up a line conditioner. It'll do wonders for your electronics for a single outlet its around 40-100 and if you do your whole house (through your electrician) look to pay around 300-600 depending on your area, and which type you buy.

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Hmm - that's an interesting idea about the wiring - I would have never thought to check that!

Either way though, I don't think that's the issue - I move around a lot, and thus have lived in quite a few apartments since I've gotten my MBP. And since I'm in apartments all the time, if I were to check the wiring and find an issue, there's probably very little I can do on my end.

Eh - I'm going to stick with the 'string of bad luck' theory. I think as soon as I have a little extra money, I'll just buy a new machine, and let this one be an emergency back-up/storage. It's just unfortunate - I think I really would have adored this computer had it not had so many issues.

Eh - maybe a second time around will renew my faith!