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Apple Faces Up to the MacBook Whining
Whiney Mac Fanboy writes "The Register is reporting that Apple has finally admitted to the 'high pitched whining' problems with it's MacBook line — but only to tell customers to contact AppleCare. From the article: 'MacBook Pro users have complained about numerous noises emanating from their machines since the Intel-based notebooks began shipping in February this year. Audible irritations reported by machine owners include whining sounds coming from the screen, from the body of the notebook, and from the area below the screen hinge when the laptop's running on batteries and both cores of the Core Duo CPU are enabled.'"
I have owned a Macbook Pro since March and while I did have the weird battery swelling problem thanks to a parts manufacturer screwing up the battery casing, I never once had the whine, nor did anyone I know or any Pro's I saw at Apple Stores in the area.
From reading around it also seemed like the same handful of people where making the most noise. While Im glad Apple is now fixing it, I cant help but think its not as widespread a problem as its being made out to be on the internet.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
I remember the power adaptor thing, they issued a recall and replaced the adaptors.
Did your friend also happen to work for the company that sold 3rd party warranties?
All manufacturers have problems with laptops. Diff is: If Apple has swelling batteries, the whole internet screams in agony. If Dell's laptops explode, it's just business as usual.
Mac laptops always seem to have these fucked up problems. /Hyperbole
I have a macbook pro. Nice Machine. So far nothing has come up but I use it pretty lightly. I have also had a Titanium (prone to hinge and case cracks), 12" Powerbook, Aluminum powerbook, Powerbook G3 Pismo (GREAT LAPTOP!), Powerbook G3 Wallstreet, and supported all models of apple laptop as my job. The bottom line is you get Applecare when you purchase a laptop and it will be covered during its useful lifetime. Anything surviving beyond that (3 years) is just bonus time. We have seen plenty of 8 year old (or more) mac laptops boot and run just fine. Someone hauls one in every now and then. I had a sony VAIO that practially fell apart in my hands after 3 years, we had a batch of HP laptops with docking stations that would stop working after a month (a clip would bend up), had a run of dells with bad hard drives, etc etc. At the end of the day, there are just as many hardware problems with PC's as Macs, but you get it repaired and its ok. If there were only 2 types of PC laptops (instead of 1001) you would see these kinds of stories about pc's too. Remember the Dell that blew up?
music lover since 1969
It's "fesses up", which means to acknowledge, admit, avow, concede, confess, grant or own (up).
To face up means something completely different and nothing that makes sense in this context.
Mmmm.. Donuts
Everyone ought to know to not buy first-gen Apple hardware by now - the large majority of first gen hardware have issues that get resolved in the second revision.
I've heard this from several Mac fans for a long time. However, in my opinion, this is completely unacceptable. First of all, to purchase a Mac, you need to plunk down a non-trivial amount of money. Secondly, Apple doesn't keep selling the old generation of products for very long, so if you use your Mac for work, and you suddenly need a new one, then you have no choice but to purchase a first-gen machine.
The _correct_ way to solve the problem is to put more resources into quality control, and don't release something until it is working satisfactory.
Doh!
Without hearing your particular system, I can't really say for sure - but I've owned 2 G5 dual 2.0Ghz towers and both have exhibited what I'd call a "slight electrical whine", which varies by CPU load.
This has been discussed all over the Mac forums in the past, and for many people, doing such things as changing the speed settings from "Automatic" to the full performance mode elimiated much of it.
I don't find the noise "annoying" at all, really. I considered it a perfectly acceptable noise that my system was just going to make from time to time. If the machine had louder cooling fans in it (like most PCs I've used), I suspect it would drown the whining noise out completely.
I believe Apple also did several revisions of the G5's power supply, because early revisions were more prone to causing the system to make the whining or "chirping" noise.
The "Genius bar" at Apple stores tends to be staffed by a lot of people who *like* Macs and Apple products, but don't necessarily have loads of technical knowledge about them. It's "hit or miss", in my experience. I think it's largely because they don't pay enough for what they really want/need in terms of quality of employees. But hey - that's retail for you. (I remember here in St. Louis, MO when the quad G5 tower first came out, my friend went to the local Apple store to see one and nobody there was even aware it existed!)