There's nothing wrong with my MacBook Pro and that's bad

That's the good news since I brought it back into the Apple Store on Saturday; this is the second time my new notebook is in for service. The bad news is: there's nothing wrong with it because it's working fine for the techs at the Apple store. They've looped through the hardware tests numerous times and I'm going back to pick it up tonight having had nothing actually replaced. I'll let folks skip past the next part to write their "it must be user error" comments now; go ahead, I'll wait. ;)

OK, now that you're back, let's put some logic into this. I spoke with the store rep at length and he thinks it could be something in my computing environment since the issue isn't happening at the store. That's fair and reasonable. I've occasionally connected a Plantronics USB headset to the computer and I vary between wired and wireless Ethernet access on my Linksys router. That's about it in terms of non-native Mac touchpoints. At this point, I'll be scratching my head over this and waiting for the issue to resurface. I was told to call Apple Care as soon as it happens (assuming it does, which I assume it will) so it can be troubleshooted within the environment. Again, no qualms with my service from the Apple folks, but I'm truly frustrated with the hardware that works for a while and then decides to quit on me.

Comments

[Chrisboff]

Did the techs test the Macbook while it was connected to a wireless network?
I've heard that the airport on some of the early generation MB Pros caused random crashing while it was on.

[Matt Propst]

User Error, pfft! I wonder if they know about Microsoft MVPs?

[Kevin C. Tofel]

Chrisboff, I assume they did, but I'll ask. When I brought the machine in it appeared they had an open WiFi network in the store.

Matt, that's a kind thought but you're living in a 'Parallel' environment where MVPs hang out in Apple stores. ;)

[Frustrated Consumer]

The only time in my life I've gotten the 'Gray Screen of Death' on my Mac is using Firefox to load a website one time. I don't remember what site it was, but it was consistent. Scared me to death - I had never seen it do that before!

If you do use Firefox regularly, I might suggest try using Safari for a while instead just to see if that changes your luck.
Or you could search the Firefox bug track system to see if there are any reports for your situation. That's the nice part about open source!
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/

[Kevin C. Tofel]

Thanks for the thought; I've alternated between Safari, Camino and Firefox to no avail. I suspect it's hardware related since many apps (even the Crash Reporter) have crashed.

[Matt Propst]

Kevin I think the point here is more of an issue that you've got the technical know how to know when to take it into the "House of Apple" and when you can fix it yourself. It's not an ID-10-T error here ;-)

Parallel universe or not.

[Mark Polino]

Hmmm. User error causing Grey Veil of Death? Doesn't seem possible with the Fisher-Price, er, Apple, interface. Rule number one of being a consumer, Kevin, it's not your fault. If they didn't want you using it in a non pure Apple environment, they should have made it with nothing but proprietary ports!

When you take it back for a third time. Ask them if they can change the Grey Veil of Death to a BSOD. When you're feeling pain, it helps to have a comfortable and familiar environment.

Mark

[Mike Cane]

Man, I will NEVER NEVER NEVER buy Apple refurb! NEVER EVER!!!

[Elo]

Kevin, can't you just return it and buy a new one ? If they will allow you to do that it might save you a lot of grief. The problem is not going to magically disappear and if I were you I would have lost any confidence about long term reliability of that particular machine. A new one would relieve you of any doubts and bring a lot of peace of mind.

[Jonathan Balkind]

If it "isn't hardware" as they are so saying, could it be to do with Parallels? I mean, it does some funny emulation stuff does it not?

Only a guess though, it's probably some other software or they're wrong and it's hardware.

[Matt]

As I said before, these intermittent problems are killer to find on any platform; the theory about the environment in interesting, and maybe there's something there, but it might be really hard to isolate. Hopefully, this visit counts as one of your three, so when it fails again, you can get it replaced.

I, too, would avoid refurbs. It doesn't matter how great the company is or what they do to them, it's just like used cars -- you really don't know if the previous owner bent it good. Even if it were a new one, and it started flaking out like this, I'd take it back. Might be how yours became a "refurb."

[Roberto]

Might worth a shot. This is just a theory, since some other non Apple laptops used to have memory socket issues, which would cause random BSODs. One way to possible test this, is to remove the memory socket cover, and while the unit is running simply press or move around the black bar that holds the piece of memory in. First the top and if it doesn't freeze, then remove the top memory if in place while the unit is turned off, then try the bottom memory holding socket to see which socket might be bad.

If all this doesn't produce any results, you might also try slightly! twisting the chassis to see if any other component might be causing the issue (some small sized Sonys used to have an issue like this where the user would twist the unit and the laptop would completely freeze up, it was determined that mfging defects were the cause of it and required system board replacement and not user error.)

Keep in mind that when techs are running burn in tests the units are non moving and nobody is typing on them either.

[Chris Magnusson]

I went through the same thing with my Tecra M4. It was nearly dead - no video, no optical drive light, no indication of posting, nothing. It was this way for over a week. So I took it into the nearest TASC and (after an excruciatingly long wait during which I decided to buy a machine from another vendor) they found nothing wrong with it. The difference from your scenario (other than MVP status ;) ) is that it hasn't acted up again.

[Nikoooo]

Hey Kevin,

a very good way to have the Apple Care people trusting you when you will call them back (because we all know you eventually will...) is to have a list of what you tested and why. Indeed they will immediately understand you know what you are talking about and will be actually more helpful.

Else did you check for errors while having the wifi on or off? If it is the networking environment, then the error should disappear once you are disconnected.

good luck

[Kevin C. Tofel]

Good point and I'm keeping a list of tests / crashes as they occur this time around. I'm not going to plug in my USB headset, just to remove that from the equation. Therefore, the only environmental item left is my network(s). I have three separate networks in the house and all of them use a Linksys router. I have read of some Mac issues with the Linksys WRT54G, which is what I'm connecting to. Although I've had no network issues with the six Windows machines that connect to this router, I did see that there was a firmware update, which I applied last night. Other than that, no changes in the environment.

While I understand the Apple support folks thinking it's something in my environment (it's certainly logical since the machine works at the store), I can't understand why the hardware test would show a failure when testing the memory or logic board. Those aren't environmental issues IMO.