[skew]

Hi MacNN forum.

The question: is this MacBook Pro (17" 2.33, 10.5.2) a problem child, shall I sell it and get a new model whilst it's still under care.

Problem 1. The disk has crashed to the point where it cannot be repaired by DU or any other utility and I've had to erase and restore from TM machine twice. The cashes happened within a two month period. Both times involved media of one sort or another. First crash was during a iTunes download, second was when waking from sleep whilst watching a DVD.

I've never experienced a crash of this type of magnitude ever ( lucky me) . All I can say is thank Apple for TM.

Problem 2. The keyboard occasionally stops working a row at a time. Hasn't happened for a couple of weeks now but when it does only logging out and in again or a restart gets it going again.

Problem 3. The keyboard is now showing early signs of warping. Areas to the hard left and right are starting to bulge upwards slightly and the center is looking compressed. You cannot see it if you look level with the surface of the keyboard but you can tell by the spacing of the keys from a birds eye view.

What's your opinion.

1. Keep and repair.
2. Keep, count yourself lucky and stop whining.
3. Sell that dog and move on ( the store is down BTW) .

SKEW

[butthawking]

sounds like you have a hardware issue and restoring your data is not going to resolve the problem.

run the Apple Hardware Test found on the install disk to see if that highlights any problems or bring it to an apple store for thier diagnostics

[MacosNerd]

Did you run the disk utility to see if there's any errors with the disk?

They keyboard problem sounds like a malfunction. Either way it sounds like your MBP has serious issues, so much so that you'll be better off contacting apple.

[skew]

Yes I ran disk utility on both occasions. Also Disk Warrior. Both found irreparable damage that necessitated an erase and restore from TM.

I also ran the Apple Hardware hardware diogs on the first occasion and it turned up nothing.

I'm just worried that all of these problems fall under a grew area category that would mean I have to spend an awful amount of time fighting Apple Tech Support in order to get absolutely nowhere. I guess that leaves the moral question of wether I can dump a potential dog onto a third party and sleep at night. Damn. Probably not.

[MacosNerd]

Having irreparable damage means that it couldn't be repaired. That being the case, I'd say your hard drive is toast and no matter how many times you try to reformat/restore you're going to have problems.

Do you not have applecare?

I'd not recommend trying to defraud someone, by purposely omitting the hardware problems. The golden rule applies here. You'd not like to buy a computer off of ebay or craigslist and find out it didn't work (and it was advertised that it did)

If its under warranty, take it to your local apple store provided you have a local apple store, or call apple. In some ways you seem to be jumping to conclusions about needing to fight with them. On the rare occasions I've had to deal with them, I'd say it was pretty good.

[mduell]

Hard drives are cheap. If you don't have AppleCare, just buy a new one.

[OreoCookie]

See how relaxed Time Machine makes everyone?
No scrambling, no `Oh, my precious data, I should have backed up!', but rather, nah, I'll get a new harddrive

[MacosNerd]

Originally Posted by mduell 

Hard drives are cheap. If you don't have AppleCare, just buy a new one.

True, but the OP is still having keyboard issues.

[skew]

That's so very true about TM. Since the last post I've gone and done complete reinstall of the system. The restored system seemed a little flakey so I thought a fresh install would be a good idea.

It's been up and running for a couple of days with no problems. I've started a new TM volume to back up to so I can save my old one just in case.

Only one fly in the ointment. The system completely froze a moment ago. I was in Mail. Just typing away and then the UI locks up. Not recognized from anything. No trackpad, USB mouse, power button, nothing. Had to do a hard restart. Not sure if this is related to the keys freezing or not.

Skew

[Cold Warrior]

Just keep sending it in if it has issues. Eventually you can make the case to Apple that it's a lemon. Dumping it off on another person will mess up your karma.