[///Milien]

So I was pretty excited to see that FedEx was delivering my MBP today. I kept checking the online tracker and when the delivery was confirmed, I went home to pick it up. Guess I should have kept my excitement in check.

After unpacking the MBP and contents, I get ready to fire it up.

DEAD. NADA. ZERO.

All you hear is a light chime and hear the HDD start up, but then nothing. The screen is dead and if you put your ear near the HDD, you can hear it power up and then die.

I followed all the instructions on troubleshooting the MBP and to no avail. DEAD.

I proceeded to call Apple Support and they will be replacing my MBP. That was an ordeal in itself and suffice to say, I ended up working with the supervisor on duty.

ETA on a replacement - who knows at this point. They will be getting back with me today (let's hope).

[thephotodork]

Sorry to hear that dude, the same thing happened to me with a 1.67GHz 15-inch Dual-Layer, I simply returned it and will probably buy the Rev B MacBook Pro. At least you have the 2.5GHz Quad to hold you over for the time being . . . that should be nice . . .

[buddy1065]

I feel for ya man. I bought a brand new Hummer H3 3 weeks ago and just finished the paperwork. I walked out the door to take possession of the vehicle; they could not find the keys. Next thing I know they are rolling up a vehicle that looks just like mine and brand new on the outside, but on the inside I see scuff marks on the seats and find the odometer reads 400 miles; obviously a demo. Guess when they saw I wasn't going for it, even though they kept me there over 5 hours, they found one set of keys. Took 'em about a week to find the other set. Oh well, at least I did get the H3 I wanted and a full free tank of gas.

[bpd115]

did get the H3 I wanted and a full free tank of gas.

Which hopefully got you home without running on empty

But that seriously sucks on the MacBook.

My dad and I ordered 1.33 12"s when they came out....Mine arrived first and worked ...his was DOA...

They replaced his asap.

[terigox]

Ouch sorry to hear that man I certainly hope everything gets fixed and replaced ASAP!!!

[iobuffa]

uuuggghhh. I'm SO sorry to hear that man. I went through the same experience when I bought my very first mac back in 2001 (DP800 G4). It kernel panicked on boot. SO sorry man, hopefully they'll get you a replacement this week.

[sp]

I got my MacBookPro (2.16GHz, 2GB RAM, 100MB 7200rpm drive) this morning and needless to say was tremendously excited. I turned it on, got the chime, and then all hell broke loose; it immediately had a kernel panic. That was all she wrote as subsequent attempted reboots did absolutely nothing; no chime, no drive spin up, no nothing.

I checked apple’s KB and found this article, http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303234 , which also didn’t help.

So I called apple’s support line. Four support technicians and 90 minutes later I was told I would have to send it back and that they would be sending me a new one. Acceptable right? Wrong. I now have an estimated ship date of March 15th-21st.

This is a text book case in how to completely bungle a customer support incident. They should have simply acknowledged the defective product and sent me a new one within a couple days rather than make me wait 4 weeks.

I’ve been a loyal, enthusiastic, and thoroughly satisfied Apple user for 20+ years and they managed to ruin that in 90 minutes.

Bad Apple.

[terigox]

Both of these cases seem to be with the 2.16ghz, I wonder if that means anything?

[thephotodork]

It means that Apple is going to piss off a bunch of Pro-Users this week . . .

[bpd115]

Calm down...

with anything there is bound to be defects.

[WOPR]

Originally Posted by bpd115

Calm down...

with anything there is bound to be defects.

True, but they should keep some stock back to use as replacements, not make people wait weeks.

[schalliol]

indeed, 2 problems shouldn't yield massive panic.

[Eug Wanker]

Did you try reinstalling the OS (after running the Hardware Test to see if everything is OK)?

[bpd115]

It's common practice to have stock for replacements. They're simply underpromising on the delivery date. My Macbook which is at my house at this moment isn't set to ship for another week.

[mikochu]

I went through three iBooks before I was satisfied... lol

[harrisjamieh]

Originally Posted by WOPR

True, but they should keep some stock back to use as replacements, not make people wait weeks.

When My iMac Core Duo went bad (a week after I got it, and 1 week after the launch date of the iMac), I called Apple, they said they would send me a replacement, and it arrived in 2 days. I don't see why you have to wait so long - the obviously held some iMacs back for replacements, as when I got my replacement, shipping was still 1-2 weeks.

[///Milien]

Well let's see how well they over-deliver on under-promising.

I am in the same boat as SP in terms of how their customer care have bungled the faith of a loyal Mac user.

[ibook_steve]

Originally Posted by sp

I got my MacBookPro (2.16GHz, 2GB RAM, 100MB 7200rpm drive) this morning and needless to say was tremendously excited. I turned it on, got the chime, and then all hell broke loose; it immediately had a kernel panic. That was all she wrote as subsequent attempted reboots did absolutely nothing; no chime, no drive spin up, no nothing.

I checked apple’s KB and found this article, http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303234 , which also didn’t help.

So I called apple’s support line. Four support technicians and 90 minutes later I was told I would have to send it back and that they would be sending me a new one. Acceptable right? Wrong. I now have an estimated ship date of March 15th-21st.

This is a text book case in how to completely bungle a customer support incident. They should have simply acknowledged the defective product and sent me a new one within a couple days rather than make me wait 4 weeks.

I’ve been a loyal, enthusiastic, and thoroughly satisfied Apple user for 20+ years and they managed to ruin that in 90 minutes.

Bad Apple.

You've got to be kidding. You take the $2000+ plunge on a brand new machine with brand new technology and now you're complaining because there is a problem with it. You should be happy that Apple is going to replace it. No company is going to simply acknowledge that they've made a defective product. They're going to do everything they can to see if they can help you fix the problem before replacement. Ninety minutes is nothing. I think Apple did a fine job of support here. I think you're being a little too critical.

Steve

[schalliol]

It's simple. They're waiting to ship the working 2.16s until they can ship mine.

[bpd115]

People with faulty Xbox 360s had new units in a week and those are still hard to come by.

Don't sweat it.

[John123]

Originally Posted by ibook_steve

You've got to be kidding. You take the $2000+ plunge on a brand new machine with brand new technology and now you're complaining because there is a problem with it. You should be happy that Apple is going to replace it. No company is going to simply acknowledge that they've made a defective product. They're going to do everything they can to see if they can help you fix the problem before replacement. Ninety minutes is nothing. I think Apple did a fine job of support here. I think you're being a little too critical.

Steve

I tend to agree, although I understand the guy's frustration.

My advice is to try calling back tomorrow. You should be calm when you do it: customer service people don't take kindly to people being dicks with them, and you'll find that there is an uncanny relationship between your disposition to a CS rep and their efforts to make you happy. I'm not accusing you of being a dick to the person -- more saying that if you are really calm and pleading, and gently reminding him/her that you already waiting once and you'd appreciate whatever they can do to move you to the front of the queue, you'd really appreciate it.

It is worth a shot, at least.

[///Milien]

During my conversation with Apple CC, it was stated that all replacement orders are automatically moved to the front of the production queue. However what the supervisor stated was there are no guarantees on time of delivery (which is understandable).

Nonetheless if you spent almost $3K on notebook and it arrived dead, I would speculate that you wouldn't be too thrilled not knowing when your replacement notebook would arrive.

[John123]

Originally Posted by ///Milien

During my conversation with Apple CC, it was stated that all replacement orders are automatically moved to the front of the production queue. However what the supervisor stated was there are no guarantees on time of delivery (which is understandable).

Nonetheless if you spent almost $3K on notebook and it arrived dead, I would speculate that you wouldn't be too thrilled not knowing when your replacement notebook would arrive.

Fair enough. However, given that Apple has done a 180 on its shipping policy (typically, Apple promises something by a distant date in the future, and you can add 2-3 weeks to that) and is accelerating a lot of orders, I would keep your fingers crossed that you get a replacement in short order.

[SiliconAddict]

Dang! *moves the monitor away from his MBP* Sorry to hear that dude.

[macboy]

Ahh. I really do hope you get your replacement soon. From what I hear you should indeed be pleased when you finally recieve it. Good luck. Keep us posted

[GreenwoodMO]

That sucks bad. I am going to make sure I let my machine reach room temperature before I fire it up because it has been really cold here where I live. I don't want to risk a short in my system because of condensation.

[onlykaria]

Originally Posted by sp

I got my MacBookPro (2.16GHz, 2GB RAM, 100MB 7200rpm drive) this morning and needless to say was tremendously excited. I turned it on, got the chime, and then all hell broke loose; it immediately had a kernel panic. That was all she wrote as subsequent attempted reboots did absolutely nothing; no chime, no drive spin up, no nothing.

I checked apple’s KB and found this article, http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303234 , which also didn’t help.

So I called apple’s support line. Four support technicians and 90 minutes later I was told I would have to send it back and that they would be sending me a new one. Acceptable right? Wrong. I now have an estimated ship date of March 15th-21st.

This is a text book case in how to completely bungle a customer support incident. They should have simply acknowledged the defective product and sent me a new one within a couple days rather than make me wait 4 weeks.

I’ve been a loyal, enthusiastic, and thoroughly satisfied Apple user for 20+ years and they managed to ruin that in 90 minutes.

Bad Apple.

sorry about your exprience. but i have to say i ordered my some days ago and your ship date is a week before mine. i also have a dead apple laptop (not a MBP though) and think that considering the situation, this seems like the best they can do.

this is a high demand product and you are getting pushed ahead of a lot of people.

[darcybaston]

My fullest sympathies. Nobody wants a dead tool out of the box, especially after a great deal of enthusiasm.

[rickey939]

Wow, this thread is *officially* depressing...

I sure hope my 1.83GHz MacBook Pro arrives in better shape.

[JKT]

Have both of you (sp and ///Millen) with the problems tried re-seating the RAM yet? It could have been badly installed and worked loose in transit. That would be the first thing I would try in both cases.

[///Milien]

I tried resetting everything, incl. the power. Everything listed on the troubleshooting page to talking to a Mac Genius.

IT'S DEAD.

[Catfish_Man]

That's nothing. I got two dead "refurbished" powerbooks in a row. One of them had coke stains on the inside of the case, and came without a power adaptor, CDs, manuals, etc... I had to spend probably >8 hours on the phone with them.

They also did totally BS repairs. They couldn't reproduce the problem I had (which was amazing in and of itself. It took me about 60 seconds to reproduce) so they replaced a random part and marked it fixed.

[Perfesser]

Got mine today and I had some strange things happening at first. First, it's running really slowly, and I realize that EVERY application on the machine (imported with migration manager) is running, most of them are buncing in the dock! Even with a gig, this isn't going to work well. Don't know how this happened, I didn't start them up!
Then, the darned screen saver keeps coming on, even when I'm using the Mac. Even when I turned the screen saver off.
Next, it went to sleep and wouldn't wake up.
After this I restarted and I'm happy to say that everything is working well now. I haven't found any apps that don't work on the Intel so far.
Still considering wiping the HD and starting from scratch (versus using migration).
All in all, quite an upgrade from the iBook G3!!!!!!!!

[schalliol]

Keep in mind that many of us are still waiting for our units we ordered while the Keynote was ending. As such, anyone who got a damaged one was lucky to get one when they did (just not THAT lucky).

[sp]

Originally Posted by ibook_steve

You've got to be kidding. You take the $2000+ plunge on a brand new machine with brand new technology and now you're complaining because there is a problem with it. You should be happy that Apple is going to replace it. No company is going to simply acknowledge that they've made a defective product. They're going to do everything they can to see if they can help you fix the problem before replacement. Ninety minutes is nothing. I think Apple did a fine job of support here. I think you're being a little too critical.

Steve

"Happy that Apple is going to replace it"? You have got to be kidding. Of course they are going to replace it because that is what any good manufacturer will and has to do. Anyway, i think you missed my point. I am not distressed that i received a unit that was DOA because as anyone who has dealt with manufacturing realizes, that just happens. Nor am i distressed about a 90 min call, that was just salt in the wound; if i had been on the phone for 90 minutes and been told i was getting a new unit in a few days, it would have been 90 minutes well spent.

What I was distressed about was the several week delay in getting me a replacement. Typically a manufacturer will keep a certain amount of hot stock (units that sit on the sideline) based of their past experiences of DOA units so that they can gracefully deal with such situations. If a manufacturer decides to not keep hot stock, which is also fine, then they need to simply push that customer's replacement to the top of the shipping queue and not the manufacturing queue. it's that simple and if they can't do that, then they failed their customer service touch.

regardless, at this point there is nothing i can do about it, and IMHO, in the grand scheme of things, i feel lucky that receiving a broken laptop was what i had to complain about. I just did a bunch of angry typing yesterday which as we all know is dangerous

[wowway1]

Originally Posted by sp

"Happy that Apple is going to replace it"? You have got to be kidding. Of course they are going to replace it because that is what any good manufacturer will and has to do. Anyway, i think you missed my point. I am not distressed that i received a unit that was DOA because as anyone who has dealt with manufacturing realizes, that just happens. Nor am i distressed about a 90 min call, that was just salt in the wound; if i had been on the phone for 90 minutes and been told i was getting a new unit in a few days, it would have been 90 minutes well spent.

What I was distressed about was the several week delay in getting me a replacement. Typically a manufacturer will keep a certain amount of hot stock (units that sit on the sideline) based of their past experiences of DOA units so that they can gracefully deal with such situations. If a manufacturer decides to not keep hot stock, which is also fine, then they need to simply push that customer's replacement to the top of the shipping queue and not the manufacturing queue. it's that simple and if they can't do that, then they failed their customer service touch.

regardless, at this point there is nothing i can do about it, and IMHO, in the grand scheme of things, i feel lucky that receiving a broken laptop was what i had to complain about. I just did a bunch of angry typing yesterday which as we all know is dangerous

Dude you have every reason to be torxed. If I just plopped down that kind of change on a new machine and the best I could get on a replace is 'no ETA' I would be telling Apple where they could stick it. Apple or not, that's just not good business.

My 360 failed a day after I bought it at launch. MS promptly (READ: next-day air) replaced it. Like you pointed out, things happen, but not having a small supply of stock to replace defective units is inexcusable.

[ICD2k3]

Originally Posted by ibook_steve

You've got to be kidding. You take the $2000+ plunge on a brand new machine with brand new technology and now you're complaining because there is a problem with it. You should be happy that Apple is going to replace it. No company is going to simply acknowledge that they've made a defective product. They're going to do everything they can to see if they can help you fix the problem before replacement. Ninety minutes is nothing. I think Apple did a fine job of support here. I think you're being a little too critical.

Steve

you've got to be kidding. "you take the $2000 plunge" - in my opinion a $2000 machine should work, and work damn well. Apple should acknowledge that it is defective because it is 100% their fault he recieved a broken computer. He is not being to critical... he's right.

[ibook_steve]

As has been mentioned many times before, anytime you decide to purchase rev A of anything, especially something as complicated as a laptop, you have to be willing to accept the fact that you may get a lemon. What I was saying is that you have to accept this risk and be prepared for the possibility that you may have to immediately get a repair or replacement. Of course dropping lots of money and getting a lemon sucks, but this is a fact you have to be prepared for if you want to be an early adopter. I still think Apple did a good job here, and I'm sure they will try as much as possible to get the replacement to you before the date you were given.


Steve

[AppleCello]

My Order was placed on Feb 15 and is listed with an estimated ship date of March 16, putting it at the outside of "3-4 weeks." We will see how long it actually takes to get to me. Its looking like the 3-4 weeks is a play-it-safe estimate, but im not going to expect it before then.

Its a 2.0ghz, stock specs. nothing added, nothing changed.

[wowway1]

I hope for his sake you're right Steve.

[jamil5454]

Originally Posted by ICD2k3

you've got to be kidding. "you take the $2000 plunge" - in my opinion a $2000 machine should work, and work damn well. Apple should acknowledge that it is defective because it is 100% their fault he recieved a broken computer. He is not being to critical... he's right.

I think what ibook_steve was trying to say is to not be so surprised that there are DOA MBPs, and if you get one, it's not the end of the world. You'll get a replacement soon enough. I wouldn't be really angry, just heavily disappointed. For all we know, it could have been FedEx's fault.

[terigox]

I tend to concur with steve, I mean yes, it is very easy to get upset about something like this, but the fact of the matter is, there is such a high demand for these things right now, and they probably don't want to mess up their entire pre-order shipping schedule.

I'm sure there is a reason, a decent one at that, and like anything else, as upsetting it is, we just have to be patient due to the high demand of these things.

**tries to calm everyone down**

Although, if I get a lemon, I might be right back here ranting with ya

[matherman]

sorry to hear about the macbook i ordered a 15" 1.67 dual layer and it came complete with no sound and a red beam shinning out the side. Sent it back and macconnection shipped a new one out quick. Been working like a champ for three months now.

[schalliol]

red beam sticking out the side? Is that the digital audio port just running with nothing connected?

[///Milien]

Still no update from Apple on a timeline other than a statement stating that my replacement has been approved to be an expedited build. At this rate I may have a better chance of getting a stock 2.0 from my local Apple store.

[wowway1]

...sure, if you steal one of their display models.

I really don't understand the need for my local apple store to put the only three MBPs they've received on demo. I mean, it's going to be months before you can waltz into a store and buy one, so why not just allocate every available unit for sale?

[John123]

Originally Posted by wowway1

...sure, if you steal one of their display models.

I really don't understand the need for my local apple store to put the only three MBPs they've received on demo. I mean, it's going to be months before you can waltz into a store and buy one, so why not just allocate every available unit for sale?

No, not months. Weeks, and not too many of them.

[kkress]

My MBP was not exactly dead on arrival, however 10 min after turning it on the first time its screen went black and from that point on refused to start again. Based on the Specialist I talked to its a hardware failure. I have a case ID with Apple and they will be replacing it, but no estimate on how much longer I'll have to wait.

[noobuskahn]

You take the $2000+ plunge on a brand new machine with brand new technology and now you're complaining because there is a problem with it.

Yes, he does, because he expects a high quality product with cutting edge technology for a fairly high price to work when he buys it.

You should be happy that Apple is going to replace it.

Actually, I wouldn't be happy that a company is simply going to replace a faulty product that is supposed to run correctly when I buy it. It would make me even more frustrated if I was told that it wouldn't even ship for another month.

No company is going to simply acknowledge that they've made a defective product.

What are they going to do? Say he just opened it up and destroyed it with his laser-vision?

I think Apple did a fine job of support here. I think you're being a little too critical.

I think Apple is playing on the idea that all of their customers are blind fan-boys like you who will just accept any mistake Apple makes and blame it on the customer as being overly "critical". It is quite apparent that a new "quality" laptop should work correctly right when it is recieved, and when a replacement won't even be shipped for over 25 days, I'd say that isn't very devoted to the customer. The underproduction of the MBP is a HORRIBLE business plan. The company should have produced a certain amount of the product before it went off and shipped it, because yes, there WILL be some defects, and people WILL need replacements. Making a customer who pre-ordered the product wait another month after he recieves a broken product is poor management.

The level to which some people on these forums will stubbornly and blindly support Apple is beginning to repulse me after simply a day of reading these forums.

[DigitalEl]

My first THREE iMacs (a strawberry, a blueberry & a graphite) were DOA. Apple rep on the phone said it must've been a "bad lot." Finally got another graphite and it served me well.

My 12" PowerBook was also dead on arrival. I swapped it out and it, too, has served me well. Damn screws keep falling out of the display though... And the thing is barely off my desk. Build quality-wise, it's no ThinkPad... Still, I'll buy a MacBook someday.

If they'd make a tank-like, black plastic Mac laptop, I'd buy it. A ruggedized, rubbery coated (like the Moto PEBL) iPod would be cool, too... But I digress.