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MacBook Pro Stage Light Fault: Apple's Design Turns $6 Fix Into a $600 Nightmare (9to5mac.com)

Posted by msmash on from the show-me-the-money dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Some MacBook Pro owners have complained of a 'stage light' effect, where they see uneven backlighting at the bottom of the display. For some, the symptom is only the first stage, with the backlight failing altogether. iFixit says that it has identified the cause -- and the way in which Apple changed the design of the Touch Bar generation for the MacBook Pro turns what would otherwise be a $6 fix into a $600 nightmare. The problem, says the company, is caused by Apple using much thinner ribbon cables instead of the thicker wires used in previous generation MacBook Pro models.

12 of 166 comments (clear)

  1. Entire display unit by 110010001000 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The article says the problem is the cables, but due to the design the entire display unit needs to be thrown in a landfill and replaced with a new one. Yet I always see tech companies talk about being "green", but they have moved away from designs that minimize waste. And I don't buy that "our parts are recycled" garbage. It all just gets sent to China where a "recycler" dumps it somewhere.

    1. Re:Entire display unit by burtosis · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Don't be stupid, they don't just dump circuit boards like that!!! They have valuable metals in them. You burn them in a smoking heap, and when you can get close enough without hacking your lungs up, you recover the valuable bits. Then you dump it somewhere.

    2. Re:Entire display unit by Zorro · · Score: 4, Informative

      China no longer accepts recycled electronics. It just gets dumped in Africa now.

    3. Re:Entire display unit by blackest_k · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I believe in the quest for a thinner screen they moved the driver board from the screen to the body with some too short cables bridging the gap instead. This can lead to back light failure if you open the screen out too far.
      I like my old macbook pro but I dislike intensely their recent design choices over the last 5 years or so.

      Mag safe a reliable keyboard upgradeable ram ssd / hdd sd card slot all gone and replaced with junk.

      If only you could buy a modern mainboard that would fit in a macbook pro chassis.
      That way keep what is good and upgrade to something more powerful.
           

      --
      Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
    4. Re:Entire display unit by ctilsie242 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In general, Apple's form over function has been the cause of a number of big issues. At least in the Jobs era, he would not let something ship unless he personally checked it out that things were decent.

      Apple has backed themselves into a corner. IMHO, they don't seem to be selling as many devices, so they are jacking up the price. However, this is only going to get into a negative feedback loop as other device makers come out with $1500 models with folding screens, 3+ cameras, ability to run x86 programs and operating systems, so the phone can run as a desktop PC, and other stuff.

      As for Macs, same thing. Apple needs to look at splitting the Mac line into "toys", stuff that looks great, but has issues, versus "workhorse" machines which may not be as thin... but are well built and can be upgraded if need be. Apple can easily do this... the 2008 MacBooks are a testament to that. Barring that, maybe Apple should spin off the Mac line, a la Claris or Filemaker, and have it designed with something other than Steven King's "Thinner" in mind.

    5. Re:Entire display unit by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The Quest for Thinner and Lighter, is actually causing a lot of problems in general. Remember the Note 7 catching fire. That is because they made the device too thin, and jammed the battery in too tight that it didn't allow for the battery expansion.

      Being that the displays with the computing force behind it, is thinner, then the plastic bevel covering the glass CRT from my first Computer. We are in general (not just Apple) is sacrificing too many features for thin and light, where most of the devices are already not too heavy or too thick to be practical.

      Me I don't care that I lost my headphone jack on my iPhone, but a lot of people do, and I understand why they do mind. The reason for waterproofing, and giving extra space for the battery and keeping it thin and light, we are at a point where thin and light means feature sacrifice, perhaps we should temporarily step away from that goal.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    6. Re:Entire display unit by nukenerd · · Score: 4, Funny

      That's what they bought it for.

  2. Typical Apple misdesign... by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 5, Informative

    Typical Apple misdesign, or rather malicious design to prevent repair. This isn't new, though. Remember the old iBooks that were literally built around a 2.5" spinny hard drive? Or the newer iMacs where a fragile glass screen is GLUED over all of the replaceable parts. What about the last-generation Time Capsule, where replacing the hard drive would be child's play, except for a short cable routed below the drive with fragile connectors buried deep in the unit which are almost impossible to unplug without damage. If the cable were a few inches longer, it would be easy to replace the drive.

    Apple are masters of malicious design to prevent repair and reuse. They pretend to be an environmentally responsible company, but they're really shits in this respect, since the best form of recycling is long-term use.

    1. Re:Typical Apple misdesign... by King_TJ · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Unfortunately, very true ... although as someone who once worked as a Mac technician (not for Apple)? Their repair-ability really comes and goes in waves. You can tell that over the years, Apple went back and forth on how easy they wanted their systems to be for users to service or at least upgrade.

      There was actually a time-frame (somewhere around 2010?) where Apple took considerable interest in letting users open up their own Macs and do a number of warranty repairs on their own. They used to have a self-service section of their web site with instructions for some of the work required, if you opted to just receive the repair part and do the work yourself.

      Right now, in this Tim Cook era? Apple is on a full-on crusade to make everything difficult to impossible to open up and service. All of the Macbook Pros and Macbooks are nearly disposable designs. If you spill liquid into one, you're looking at a repair that amounts to them just selling you all new innards, put back in the original shell - at a cost that's only $300 or so less than buying a new machine.

    2. Re:Typical Apple misdesign... by citylivin · · Score: 4, Informative

      "malicious design to prevent repair" is a quite deliberate exaggeration

      Please. The old imac screens were magnet'ed on. A simple suction cup and the glass is removed.

      The parent is right, all new screens since around 2013 have been glued on. Why would they do this if not to prevent people upgrading their hardware or changing components?

      Sure you can hopefully slice the screen off without damaging it, then buy a $15 kit of adhesive strips to reattach. And then you can pray you didnt fuck anything up, or have a spec of dust between the glass and the screen, causing you to disassemble once more.

      I haven't personally had to do it yet (luckily professionally, most people dont use macs), but it seems like a nightmare. Especially if you compare it to the process that came before it.

      --
      As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
  3. blame johnny ive for this by f00zbll · · Score: 5, Insightful

    this freakin stupid fad of thinner and lighter laptops passed the point of diminishing returns several years back. No, I want a laptop that lasts longer, not one that gets less batter life just so it can be .02mm thinner. All the stupid people going stupid over "it's thinner" are partly to blame.

  4. Re:ShutUp by hawk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    >very bit of it gets recycled damn it.

    No, just the more valuable 1s.

    he 0s go to landfills.

    hawk