Salad and Soup in my Macbook Pro?

Hi everyone,

I recently had a very bad/bizarre experience when I took my computer in to get one of the fans repaired. This is a little long-winded but I couldn’t do it justice without elaborating a bit.

Just to make things clear, I’m from the US but I’ve been staying in India for quite some time - I’ve owned and used macs since I was 6, so I’ve had almost every conceivable problem with various machines over the years.

In this case I own a Macbook Pro (early 2009) and I there was an issue with the left fan. It is working but when the computer starts getting really hot, the fan tries to speed up and makes this really loud buzzing noise. I have my Macbook Pro covered under the applecare protection plan for another year – so when I discovered this problem I immediately went to get it sorted out in Bangalore (silicon city of India). There are no official apple stores in India as far as I know, so I went to “Imagine” which is part of a chain of authorized resellers/service centers in India (very reputable). I went there and dropped off my computer with the technician after explaining the problem.

This is where things got weird. The technician (I won’t mention names unless I have to) called me back a few days later after he had time to test out my machine and told me that he found Sambar (Indian soup) on my logic board. I told him that it wasn’t possible because I don’t eat Sambar. He mumbled something to me about moisture and food residue on my logic board and then he told me my battery was waterlogged. At this point I freaked out and I was trying to figure out how it could’ve possibly come about. I’m a fairly fastidious guy when it comes to my computer. I don’t eat around it, period and I don’t lend it out to anybody. Anyway, I took his word for it and came back around to Bangalore to pick up my machine since he assured me that they could not accept it for warranty repairs and that If I wanted anything done I would have to pay. Apple’s policy doesn’t cover water damaged or physically damaged hardware which is understandable. From where I live, Bangalore is a 4hr journey each way so it was a real disappointment to have gone all that way twice and solved nothing.

I arrived to pick up my macbook pro and the technician assured me that my warranty was void and showed me some blurry images on his cellphone of my logic board. I told him I couldn’t see what he was talking about but he insisted and I took his word for it, signed the form and walked away with my machine unchanged. In retrospect, I should’ve had him open the machine in front of me to show me, but I wasn’t thinking on my feet at the time. Anyway I got home and immediately set about opening up my macbook pro to see the damage. I first pulled out the battery to see what was wrong with it – the technician had told me it was waterlogged. I looked it over very carefully and it was completely unscathed and dry. There was a little residual dust but nothing else. I took a picture of it and set it aside. I then opened up the bottom casing to have a look at the logic board and found nothing out of the ordinary. Again there was some residual dust built up around the fans and that was it. I took a picture of my logic board as well just in case I needed some proof for later. Remember, this is a 2 year old machine with no problems except a noisy fan. The battery is in good working order along with everything else. I’m writing this message on my macbook pro right now.

To top things off, I called the technician back and asked him what his game was and if he thought I was an idiot who wouldn’t look. He denied whatever I said and insisted that there was food on my logic board and this time he added salad to the menu along with sambar and water. I told him he was in trouble and I was going to complain directly to mac about this problem and he said, “Go ahead.”

I thought I would post this on the support forums first and see what people thought of this. More than anything I’m worried about his report going to apple and voiding my warranty or something.

Please let me know what you think,

Thanks a lot.

-Nila

That's quite a bizarre story for sure.

Looks like it's going to come down to his words against yours. Since you didn't have any proof before you sent it in for "repairs." >_>"

If all that food and liquid was in there that MBP would not be working. I wonder how salad would get in the machine in the first place? Liquid yes, but Salad?

It would have been so simple for him (The Tech) to just replace the noisy fan since it sounds like that is all that is wrong.

It really sounds like he is making the food and salad up. Not sure why though as a FAn is nothing to replace.

Yes indeed, very easy to do. I'll be sending this on to apple directly and I doubt anything will change but people like that shouldn't be working as technicians. When the description of your computer's problem turns into the menu of gourmet restaurant you know something's wrong!

In terms of proof I have the receipt and the written report by the technician and pictures of my battery and logic board in case apple wants to see.

Anyway I'll be looking at other service centers from now on...