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Why I Drilled Holes in My MacBook Pro and Put It in the Oven (ifixit.org)
621 points by ColinWright on Dec 30, 2014 | hide | past | favorite | 372 comments



There is an alternate universe where every time he took his computer apart, he skipped the reflow heat stuff and just put it back together... and it worked identically for identical periods of time between failures. I'm not saying it's this universe, I'm just saying there is one out there.


Are you in my living room?

A few months ago I disassembled and cleaned a grape juice damaged MBP. Tried it afterward and no dice. Tried it yesterday on a bored whim and I now have a working MBP with a sticky keyboard. Why? I have no idea.


Most of the actual logic board is sealed. So unless you spill something corrosive that goes through that seal and damages the logic board liquid can only get to and damage[0] actual connectors between components and physically moving entities. In case of MBP physically moving entities are mostly fans and keyboard.

My guess would be that grape juice shorted some of those connectors. After few months it dried sufficiently, such that when you reseated them short went away.

[0] And by damage I mean mostly short and/or corrode the metal.


Heh. I caught in the rain with my MacBook Air, and it worked fine for a day, but then wouldn't boot up at all and wouldn't hold charge. Three weeks later and rice and all that jazz and nothing. A couple months later, the charger showed a light, but it wouldn't boot and never lit up green.

Six months from the first incident, and I randomly plugged it in and it booted instantly - I was ecstatic. It lasted two weeks before it wouldn't boot up again. A week later, it booted up again, and has been fine ever since.

Beats me man. Apple "Geniuses" wouldn't touch it and wanted me to buy a new one.


Again, this was likely due to the minerals in the water causing a short, and after a long period of time, the mineral "bridges" broke/wore-away, resolving the short, and allowing your macbook to boot.

Regarding the "Apple Geniuses", I doubt there would of been anything they could do for you, other than sit there with a cuetip and attempt to wipe down your entire mainboard after a full disassembly. Not to mention water damage probably isn't covered...


That sounds plausible, though I thought any power running through it would've caused it to burn out. I was actually going to do a full disassembly with a mate of mine who was an EE, but never got round to it. We attempted to do it with my iPhone (which was dunked into a toilet in an unrelated incident), but even cleaning everything with isopropyl alcohol it wouldn't work. I didn't hold high hopes for the MacBook.

And no, water damage wasn't covered by warranty, but it was out of warranty anyhow. I just didn't want to pay another $2K for a MacBook Air (maxed out specs at the time).


Would you have preferred they tell you to leave it alone for a couple of months and maybe it would work again?


How about attempting to fix the issue instead of confirming what I already knew and telling me to buy a new computer? That's what technicians are supposed to do.


They did the same to me, when I dropped my first iPad and cracked the screen. They looked at it, and said "We'll sell you a new one at half price". Oh thanks, not even going to pretend to try to fix it?

But I did buy the new one and let them have the cracked one.


Sounds pretty great, actually. On these modern devices where the LCD is bonded to the glass screen, replacing the screen can cost as much as the device itself.


As a rule of thumb never take a thing to be repaired by someone who's main business is selling new versions of that thing.


Car dealers make more money from servicing cars than selling new cars, though.


Unfortunately rice is mostly placebo. It's something to give your brain a reason to leave the device alone for a while.

Use an actual dessicant. Which might also not work, but then your problem is less likely leftover wetness.


Rice does certainly work as a mild desiccant. Admittedly it is not a terribly effective desiccant, but it still has those properties.


One weird trick I remember from alt.hackers was using WD-40 to remove the water from soaked electronics, and then using high-purity isopropyl(?) alcohol to clean off the WD-40. (You'd want to remove the WD-40 since it would attract dust.)


That's interesting, I'd think you'd just use rubbing alcohol (isopropyl) of >95%, since it will evaporate very rapidly by itself, taking any moisture with it. It also has great cleaning properties by itself (often used to eat the thermal paste gunk off heatsinks). Isopropyl alcohol is what "Swimmers Ear Drops" are mostly made of (for when you get water stuck in your ear).


If it's not water (coffee etc) shower the motherboard with no battery the wash it with distilled water let it dry.

And that works :)


Butane works well too, as long as you don't spray too much and cause condensation.


I wondered that, too. I wonder whether he actually reflowed solder in the oven. Wikipedia gives a sample profile that heats to over 200 degrees Celsius for a minute or so. This uses around 170 degrees Celsius, which is used for preheating in the Wikipedia example. Also, a Google image search gives me reflow heats above 200 degrees for the 5 images I checked.

Also "The speed holes worked: The boot chime rang. The screen glowed. The fans blew." doesn't make sense to me. The extra holes may help and may even fix his problem, but I find it hard to believe that successful booting shows that. Yes, it is a 'little' early for a final verdict.


https://duckduckgo.com/?q=solder+aging

From what I know about heat treat ageing of metals something similar may be happening. Because he is pushing his system through above average temperature cycles, this causes microcrystalline changes in the solder. Ageing at even a temperature below reflow/melt temperatures can help restructure the grain.

If he didn't run his system at such a high temp and then eventually turn it off to cool so much then he might not have the problem to begin with. As a side note, personal experience building pcs for many years has shown me that pcs that sleep/get powered off don't last as long as ones that stay powered on 24/7.


Why do you doubt the temperature did not reflow the board?

When I solder electronics, I'm usually somewhere between 500F to 650F, but that's so things get hot enough quickly enough to not burn. I don't doubt a slow bake at 340F would do the same thing... some online googling shows people doing reflows with toaster ovens in the same temperature range (340F-450F).

It's likely the solder joints were not completely disconnected, but rather simply cracked. So heating them a bit would allow the crack to reconnect, at least for a short while (seems to explain his symptoms of repeated failures after extreme system temperatures during operation).


Is it not true that baking it makes any "cracking" in the soldering smooth out since this is similar to what is done to boards at the factory during construction?


Right. And the reason why it keeps breaking? Well, the solder on the board might not have any flux left, so it might have trouble flowing properly. There could be a cold joint, etc.

If it fails again, one possible next step would be to grab a multimeter and test the resistance across each component on the board. If the resistance is infinite, that might be your problem component.


There's more than resistors on logic board. Also, by even touching component leads with multimeter probes is sometimes enough to connect the joint back thus fooling you to think connection was ok.

Also, the problem might as well be one of the numerous chips in BGA packages whose connection points you can't even see, let alone- probe.


Don't you have to isolate components from the circuit to check resistance? Otherwise, you're looking also the other components look like the other arm(s) of a parallel circuit.


You know what, you're right. I saw a video of someone testing that a chip had been soldered on correctly with a multimeter, but he was testing for the lack of a connection. Testing for a connection would not be done this way.My bad.


physics, 340F will NOT melt solder


Got a source for that? According to Wikipedia, 340F is not far from the melting point for solder. Depending on the solder used, it may have melted, or just gotten soft enough to heal any gaps or cracks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solder#Lead-free_solder


The link you attached lists a few different lead-free solder alloys with the lowest melting at 412F(211C) well above 340F(171C). Eutectic tin/lead solder has a melting point of 361F(183C), also above 340F.

I'm not sure whether or not cracks can heal at temperatures below the melting point, but I would be surprised if that were possible.


So it turns out that home oven manufacturers don't care too much about precision when it comes to oven temperature (and it doesn't matter usually).

A high end home oven will easily swing between +- 25 degrees of the temperature that you have dialed in, and that's if it's well calibrated.

If he didn't dial in "340" quite right, and his oven was average, I can easily see it hitting temperatures of 412+, and that could also account for his varied results.


Not to mention we don't need the solder to completely melt, only soften (depending how badly cracked the joint(s) were).

If this were Mythbusters, we'd call it "Plausible".


It's possible that he did reflow the board. Consumer ovens usually reach 250C, slightly more when in autoclean mode. Lead-free reflow happens above 250C (normally 255-275C).

The whole procedure is wild, though, and I wouldn't recommend trying it out. He was lucky that the board didn't get destroyed. Most SMD components can withstand temperatures above 250C for tens of seconds, not necessarily for nine minutes.


But he writes "and turned the oven up to 340 F". That's about 170 Celsius. The oven probably isn't very precise, but I doubt that's in the 250 Celsius range.


As an anecdata point, mine says it goes to 300. I get 230-250. Bread likes it hot.


I'm guessing he put the board in and then started the oven which took a while to preheat. Industrial reflow heats up the board gradually based on the solder paste manufacturer's suggested heat profile or experimentation/trial and error (e.g. when dealing with small pitch BGAs). 250C for even a few minutes would do quite some damage even to the fire retardant laminate and smell horrible.


He stated he was using a temperature of 340F, which is roughly 170C. Would that temperature also be harmful to SMD components when exposed for several minutes?


Doubtful. As a reference point, typical guidelines for baking out moisture (prior to assembly) are 24 hours at 150C.


I can assure you that it does work. Not sure about 340f though.

I baked a Nvidia GTX470 at 390f for 10 minutes and it eliminated the artifacts/crashing and has been working fine for months.

It probably won't work forever, but it is at least a temporary fix.


I did an oven reflow on an RRoD Xbox motherboard years ago. Worked like a charm. I was a little worried about bursting the caps, but a little insulation and aluminum foil protection apparently kept them cool enough. Lasted for about a year.


I had the same thought after I reflowed the GPU from my iMac. It didn't work before, and it did work after, but it may simply be that dismounting and remounting the heat sink put enough pressure on the cracked solder ball to make it work again. I will never know, short of xray inspection, but it's been working fine for half a year now.


My early 2011 MBP has had one logic board replaced so far at my own expense a short while after AppleCare expired. This site has been compiling relevant information to those experiencing the same problem, and the #mbp2011 hashtag on Twitter is also a good resource for those affected:

http://mbp2011.org/

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23mbp2011


Yes, this problem is widespread and unacknowledged by Apple.

https://www.change.org/p/timothy-d-cook-replace-or-fix-all-2...

It's ludicrous that to attempt to fix this problem, you would have to go so far as to bake your laptop.

It cost me over $US 500 to get this fixed at an Apple Store.


Had two 2007 MacBook Pro's break down that way. Local Apple Care Service providers didn't want to apply Apple-mandated extended warranty. I was pretty disappointed to find out that later models exhibited similar flaws, because the soldering issue of 2007 models was blamed on nVidia.

When a friend was buying her mother a christmas present iPad, I went with her to examine which models handle the tablet workload better. We ended up picking an older generation, non-retina model. A few previous generation retina models, presumably running latest iOS updates, had ridiculously high temperatures just idling on the shelf.


Nvidia made a run of defective GPUs somewhere around 2007-2008. Tom's Hardware claims[0] that all G84 and G86 GPUs other than warranty replacements produced in late 20008 are defective.

It's not a BGA solder issue like we've seen on numerous laptop GPUs over the years, but a problem with the internal interconnects. Heating it, as if to reflow a BGA does temporarily solve the problem, but in my experience, the period of time it keeps working after heating gets shorter each time.

[0] http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-g84-g86-chips-overhe...


Here in Europe Apple is replacing affected logics for free with consumer law claims. The are only two conditions: 1. you need to have the original receipt 2. it must be a non business purchase (so you must be a consumer)


EU rules provide for a two year guarantee, which is nice:

http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/shopping/shopping-abroa...


I had one logic board replaced under AppleCare in 2013. It only took a few months before the new logic board exhibited the same GPU/heat problems.

Finally, just a few days ago -- right before Christmas -- it just up and died. Seeing how I didn't want to pay for a new logic board with the same design defect, I just ended up buying a new laptop (and no, it is not a Mac).

My early 2011 MBP was probably the most expensive laptop I've bought in a long time (the most expensive was the Powerbook 170 - oh how I loved the trackball on that thing), and I loved the form factor and expandability. It really bugs me that it died while it was still more than usable in terms of performance.


I had my "2011 MBP - refurbished" covered under Applecare so I got to at least get it covered as these issues were cropping up. They replaced both the logicboard and the harddrive.

I ended up selling it for whatever I could get for it a month ago and just cutting my losses before the Applecare ran out.


tbh if this is the GPU, then this is prob an AMD and nVidia problem with using cheap solder on their daughterboards. I remember a rash of manufacturers, sony, asus, etc having this sort of issue. I'm kind of leery of discrete gpu's in laptops these days, esp when the Haswell on-board one is good enough for most of what I do.


The issue isn't that EU-mandated tin-alloy solders are cheap, it's that the solder balls aren't solid and non-lead solders are brittle. For components that don't undergo constant radical thermal shifts, this is a nonissue. For the only ball grid array-mounted component on the board (the GPU), this is a recipe for eventual failure.

If the balls were factory tested for solidity this would become far less of an issue. Industry papers on the manufacture of solder balls indicate they are not; when those balls were lead, it didn't matter because lead's not thermally brittle.


ah thanks. hard to me to find laymen articles on this (interest prompted on an ATI daughter card failure on an '09 iMac), so always interesting to find out more.


I always recommend looking into having laptops covered through your insurance company. I have state farm, and my wife and I have our laptops under personal article policies. The coverage is better, broader, and cheaper that anything else I've seen. My wife recently got a surface pro 3 to use during her forest soils PhD, and I was adamant we get nice insurance if she was going to be using it in the field. Two years of no deductible spill, drop, and malfunction coverage through squarespace is 280$. I get the same coverage plus theft and loss for 40 a year through my insurer. And it is a 3 block walk to the office where I can eat pastries and drink coffee while I file a claim. I have only had to file one claim, but it was for a head crash and they covered a new hard drive w/out question.

I'm not saying it is a good fit for everyone, but it works out well for me. I do recommend squarespace for individual parts of a self-built tower pc. I spent 120 on a motherboard and on the third replacement spquarespace upgraded me because it turned out that model had an almost 50% failure rate in the first year.


Don't buy insurance for things that won't ruin you.

The insurer will calculate the risk of whatever happening, and obviously charge more than likelihood * cost.

So unless your risk is higher than average, you're losing money. And keep in mind that the average insurance taker probably has higher risk than the overall population.


I generally agree. However: If you are risk pooling with much lower-risk devices and people, then you can still come out ahead. For example, maybe most people buying that kind of coverage are buying it for devices that rarely break or are lost/damaged -- they might be simply insuring against theft while you're using the damage coverage.


Reminds me of this clip from Seinfeld: http://youtu.be/-Jy5R0XjKC8?t=1m30s


Even if it won't ruin you, unexpectedly having to shell out over a thousand dollars for a new laptop might be so much of a hassle that it's worth "wasting" a few bucks each month to not have to worry about it.


Put those few bucks each month into some interest bearing account and then it can be used for many purposes instead of just a new laptop?


Insurance is about pooling and distributing risk. What you describe might be the right move on average. But people live in the world of specifics, not long-term averages. If your new laptop suddenly breaks a few months after purchase and the replacement cost would cause you distress, then the $20 you have saved in an account doesn't help much.

By this logic, nobody should buy life insurance because the insurance companies have calculated their premiums so that they come out ahead. At least on average.


> By this logic, nobody should buy life insurance because the insurance companies have calculated their premiums so that they come out ahead. At least on average.

If you flip the statement, it's "do insure against things that can ruin you".

Whether life insurance is worth it depends on what you mean by that exactly. You can insure your untimely death with a benefit for your family, but there are also contracts that are more of a form of investment, and combinations thereof.

While arguably once you're dead, you're, well, dead, so you personally might not care that much anymore, your family might. And for them the loss of one of the primary earners of the family is probably ruinous, so it's reasonable to take insurance against that.

The investment case is different, it's essentially just an investment contract with associated cost. In that case, you're just buying a service (managing your investment, and to some degree insuring against investment risk). The two forms are commonly mixed together, and then it depends a lot on the structure and cost of the contract. YMMV, but I think over here these contracts have very intransparent cost structures and are commonly more expensive than getting a plain life insurance and a separate investment contract (or investing yourself, for that matter).


"Insurance is about pooling and distributing risk."

It is also about making insurance companies fabulously wealthy.


Sure, and Tesla is also about making Elon Musk even more fabulously wealthy. I'm fine with that.


$40 a year in a savings account isn't going to net you much.


No, but consider all of the things that you might insure - appliances and electronics. Now take the total cost of insuring them and put it in a bank account. In the case that one of them breaks, the savings will likely cover that replacement. Chance are none of them will break. Do the same thing next year. Not only to you make a little interest, you have all of last year's left-over premiums.


Almost everything I would want to insure as far as appliances and electronics go are already covered by my renters policy, if you do not have a renters policy go get one, right now, mine is only $10/mo with state farm (including an additional addendum to cover up to $10K in personal electronics).

Of course, there's a $500 deductible on that, but the things I expect to happen that would cause me to file a claim on my policy are likely to end up with a lot more damage than that.

My laptop and personal assets I carry when I travel are an entirely different story, a $500 deductible if my duplex burned down or an electrical storm fried every device in my house is pretty acceptable, but that's over 1/3 of the value of the things that go into my laptop bag. Considering I've already had a car broken into and only recovered $200 after my $500 renters deductible a personal assets policy would be well worth it to me if it cost $10/mo.


Do you expect the insurance company to lose money on your account? Do you expect to beat out the professionals at their game?


No, I certainly don't, but the cost of insuring a $2000 laptop is more cost effective than saving the equivalent amount, it would take me approximately 20 years to put enough into a savings account to cover its loss if I put the same in as the insurance premium on it.

Insurance is there to protect against the unexpected, hopefully I'll never have another laptop stolen again, but it's cheaper to cover the loss with an insurance policy in case it happens again.

EDIT: In addition, insurance is designed to spread the risk. If 200 people pay $10/mo to insure their $2000 laptops, and one is stolen every other month, the insurance company still comes out on top.


Setting aside catastrophic losses˚ there seem to be roughly two strategies. You can take out insurance on your non-catastrophic items, or you could take the money that you would pay into insurance and instead save / invest it.

We should expect the insurance strategy to be a net win iff the insurance company loses money on the account. If it feels otherwise, a combination of the loss aversion and hyperbolic discount rate biases may be at work.

On the other hand, it's easy to end up in a financial situation where coming up with $2,000 on short notice is very difficult, and at that point there may be value in using insurance to shift the cost from a random large cost to smaller and more predictable chunks. It's just worth knowing that this is not cheaper.

˚ I'll define catastrophic losses as those things that must be replaced quickly and which cost enough that replacing them out of pocket would be a severe hardship if they're able to at all.


I don't have comprehensive insurance on my car, and the premiums have over time added up to more than its value.


Except healthcare! You're required to buy it in the US now, but regardless...the hospitals would negotiate with insurance companies to <50% of the bill (and I've seen >90% reduction)- you can't do that as an individual and will generally be stuck with the full price.


Health cost can very easily ruin you, even if you are quite well off. Even the possibly better prices negotiated by insurances for a serious illness are ruinous, and keep in mind you most likely won't have an income while you're seriously ill. Reduced cost in the US is just icing on top.

So everyone definitely needs insurance for healthcare.


Ah, I think you misunderstood my point. I was specifically saying that getting health insurance was important- even if you have enough money to cover the cost generally. I mentioned insurance negotiation to emphasis that there were outside factors contributing to making it must-have.


This is awful advice!

Losing a smartphone isn't going to ruin me, but it sure would piss me off to have to fork out £500 or whatever because it gets jacked. Similarly, someone could break into my house and clean it out. Not going to ruin me, but I'd rather not have to replace everything.

The whole point of insurance is collective risk-spreading. Yes, this means that the majority (by value) of people with insurance will have 'wasted' money, in the sense that they purchase insurance without claiming. But that's not what they're purchasing – they're trading off a small, certain cost for the elimination of a large, uncertain cost. That's a purchase of 'certainty' or 'stability' – and it's what they get.

In other words, since you have no reliable way to understand risk and likelihood of a particular event happening, it's not possible to decide if you are at a higher risk than average.


No, that what you gave is awful advice, to anyone who cares about their money!

Go talk to an _honest_ insurance broker (not some State Farm or other company you see on TV commercials) or better yet a financial adviser. You should reserve an insurance claim for catastrophic issues only. You should also have max deductibles. Forking over 500 for a lost iPhone is a MUCH cheaper deal than paying insurance premiums for that coverage and then the INEVITABLE rate hike because this claim appears on your CLUE report.

I made the same naive mistake as your assumptions when I was young. Lost a 1k watch, made a claim, went about my jolly day with my nice check for $750 (250 deductible). 1 year later when I go to buy a house I am surprised by how much my insurance rates are. FOUR years later after that claim fell off my CLUE report my premiums went way down. I paid the insurance company more than the $750 I got from them.

I was lucky in that my neighbor was an insurance broker and told me low deductibles are taking advantage of suckers and the lesser fortunate who are scared into these policies. What he advises most of his clients to do is take the highest deductible they can, then put aside that amount of deductible in some low earning liquid account. Now when you have an accident you "pay your self" and keep your insurance rates low.

Don't be a sucker.


I don't think there's any debate about the benefits of a high deductible, or that you should avoid claiming on insurance if you judge that the extra expenditure is worth saving your claim-free status.

I'm in the UK, so I can't help but assume there are differences in the insurance market. I have a comprehensive insurance policy that covers buildings, contents and accidental damage, and that covers things like smartphones too. Despite a couple of previous claims for stolen and damaged electronics, the rates are pretty good. The marginal cost for accidental damage is minimal.

But yes, low deductibles are a sucker's game.


Why not put the money in the bank only and skip the insurance then, if you're not going to use it anyway?

Don't be a sucker.


Yes, for things that you can afford to cover yourself.

As a counterexample, for all but the richest people having catastrophic health insurance is a good idea.


"The whole point of insurance is collective risk-spreading"

If you can afford to replace the item yourself you can instead spread that risk over time (and multiple items) by essentially self-insuring.

I absolutely agree you should buy insurance for "large, uncertain costs", but a smartphone or laptop is not that for a lot of people.

Healthcare and liability (auto, homeowners/renters, etc) are two examples of actually "large, uncertain costs" for most people.


And even for healthcare and liability you can opt for high deductibles. (Though in some countries buying comprehensive health insurance perhaps via your employer even is either mandatory or tax advantaged. The tax advantage might be big enough to change the calculations.)


Over time, you're probably paying 2x or 3x in insurance premiums compared with what the loss would be.

Consider also the overall effect if you invested the premiums instead of paying them.


This is also nutty. The guy is clearly risk-averse, which means if he did invest he would go for a risk-free rate, which is.... 0.90% right now?


I've had this conversation with friends before. Some people can't see outside their own risk profile.


I pay $45.00 a year for a $2,062, no-deductible policy on my MacBook Pro through State Farm. I'd have to have the MacBook for 45 years for the premiums to even equal the payout on loss.


22 years if you invest the premiums at 7%. (At 45 years you'd have $12,858.70.) Add this up for all the other non-catastrophic items you have insurance for.

I know when you're young 45 years seems like it'll never happen, but if you're lucky it does.


[deleted]


Take a look at any chart of the S&P 500 over decades. What matters is the day you invest, and the day you cash out. The wiggles in between mean nothing.

Buying another laptop doesn't change the math.

If you're consistently having losses that makes insuring you unprofitable, you're likely to see large escalations on your premiums. Insurance companies do keep tabs on this, and premiums are customized to the individual customer. You may be paying higher rates on car and home policies than others.


[deleted]


If you're well aware of the true costs of those choices, and choose them rationally, there's no problem with that.

Lots of people don't know that, though. The prof who taught me accounting used to work as a car salesman, and he told me that the money is made not by selling cars, but by selling financing to people who refused to understand what the financing cost them. (I say refused because he was a nice guy and would try to explain to them what it would really cost them, and they refused to even hear the explanation.)

I've been around long enough to realize the benefits of self-insuring as much as possible, buying cash instead of financing, and the benefits of long term investing and not worrying about the daily (or even yearly) gyrations in the market.

It's not a joke that dead people statistically have far better investment returns than live ones, because they just let their investments ride instead of trying to time them.


You can't guarantee 100% expense coverage during random events. Not everybody has thousands of dollars laying around in emergency fund for 12+ months. Committing to an insurance policy is simply a semi-guaranteed safety net.

Have tons of cash? You should still probably look at a cheaper plan with a super high deductible.


I'd buy a cheaper computer before one so expensive it would be a fiscal catastrophe if I lost it. Buying a computer on credit is just as bad, might as well just set fire to money.

In fact, my laptop is a $500 one I bought 2 years ago for travel use and didn't want to be too upset if it was lost/broken/stolen.

My previous one was 10 years old and was a bit heavy :-)


"Buying a computer on credit is just as bad, might as well just set fire to money".

You are not living in reality. Most of people live on credit and can't afford to pay for things in full.

Especially not $500 laptops "for travel".


Please take a look at the antecedents in this thread. The person had a Surface Pro 3 (a thousand dollar item) he was buying insurance for.

If I had to buy such on credit, I'd opt instead for a $150 machine from a pawn shop I could pay in full.


A $500 laptop is garbage and hardly adequate for the use of most of the people that frequent HN. I mean, what does $500 buy you? A shitty TN panel with a subpar resolution, color reproduction and viewing angle, often shoddy build quality, tons of bulk and probably a spinning drive (I wouldn't buy a laptop without a SSD today).

Not everybody on the planet needs something svelte and sexy, but for those of us who work on their machines a $500 POS doesn't cut it.


I did work on an Acer C7 ($200 with about $200 worth of SSD+Memory and a $100 23" LCD when I was home, total cost $500) with Ubuntu for about half a year. I initially bought the machine to travel with, and it became a workstation when another machine malfunctioned. I do a mixture of C, Python, Javascript, and Clojure development. It was absolutely fine. Clojure needed a settings tweak to bootstrap the repl properly (it was slow at over a minute), but I never left the repl, so it was a one time cost. C/Python/JS have compilers that were fast even on a dual-core Celeron. tmux/bash/vim were fast (as always).

I did everything on that machine up to and including playing TFC via Steam. It ran an IRC client, Chrome, Firefox, VirtualBox for Windows, and my xterm w/tmux. I don't know that I'd give up my rMBP for it, but I did a lot of work on the chromebook.

As far as a developer machine goes, a $300 special 14-15" screen plus $200 of RAM+SSD would probably be fine for 99% of what I do. This likely doesn't work for those who need Photoshop, do video editing, or need to rebuild their OS (rebuilding world in FreeBSD on the thing would have been a bit much). If you're slinging JS, Python, Ruby, Erlang, Clojure, Java or something similar and you can't get by on 16GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD, something is atypical.


You do have a good point, a $500 laptop doesn't make for a great development machine. But that's not what I use it for, I use it as a travel machine. (It can be used for dev in a pinch, and I carry along a full size $9.99 keyboard and wireless mouse for that purpose.)

I use a desktop for dev built with about $600 in parts from newegg, excluding the display. I do get a bit spendy on the display, as that is the most bang for the buck value to me. None of the high end laptops have a display large enough for dev for me. Portability and dev are at odds.

But this thread is about insurance to protect against the loss of a high end laptop. I presume that someone doing serious computer work is making enough money that they don't actually need insurance to cover the loss of even a high end laptop, and the premiums hence won't be worth it.


BTW, my laptop is an ASUS X202E. It's small, and the build quality is surprisingly good. You can also get usable laptops from the pawn shop for $150. A bonus is you'll never have to worry about someone stealing it :-)


What is stopping me from putting away in a saving account (or any separate account) some 20-30 bucks every month/year so I can retrieve them later in case I need them to replace my laptop/phone/tablet/whatever, instead of giving more than what I'd need to somebody else and effectively lose that money?


House always wins.


Or at least, on average.


Surely you mean SquareTrade, right?


Man those squarespace ads on podcasts have done their job...


Just a note to anyone here who may be having this problem: I had an early 2011 MBP, the GPU died three times in three months. Apple charged me $300 to fix it the first time, did it for free the second time because it was still under repair warranty, and then replaced the machine entirely with a brand new 15" MBPr the third time. Obviously, the fact that it failed three times in as many months is unacceptable (and probably uncommon) but if you're struggling with this, do set up a genius bar appointment and see if they can do anything for you.


I was sitting in an Apple store getting the battery replaced on my MacBook Air. It only lasted 300 cycles instead of the 1,000 it is supposed to. My battery replacement was free despite being outside the 1 year warranty.

Next to me a woman had brought in her laptop because of problems (did not overhear what), and they replaced it for free despite it being 3 years old.

I definitely agree that the first step with Apple stuff is to see what they'll do for you. Hitting the Apple store is the best way to do that, but they're not everywhere. I wonder if the mail-in folks have as much latitude to please the customer. (And of course if you mail it in, you're missing your computer for at least a week or two.)


If you go to the store, you're missing it for days as well. I was told a repair would take 3-5 biz days after I dropped it off - drop off on Monday, Tuesday is first biz day, etc. So.. effectively up to 1 week no computer, out min $300, and no replacement in the meantime.


It probably depends on where you go and what the problem is.

I've had 1 day turnaround from my local Apple store on a repair. On another repair (replace failing SSD) they fixed it in a few hours.

They also replaced an iPhone 5C screen in a few hours.


Guess Apple isn't as good down under. Terrible support from Apple in Singapore and Australia, from my personal experience.


Same thing for me, but mine was a 2009 17" MBR and didn't start failing until earlier this year


>I had a hunch that the problem was related to the thermal paste: When I disassembled it the first time, I had to scrape some thermal pads from under the Thunderbolt controller and the system hub. This left a large gap between the heat spreader and the chip. I’d tried to fill the gap with an extra big gob of thermal paste, but I suspected that the paste hadn’t gotten a good seal.

Well yeah, that's a problem as thermal paste is only meant to fill in the microscopic irregularities of the contact surfaces and isn't some magical thermal bridge. Thermal paste has thermal properties on par with most condiments. Thermal pads are particularly bad. I would use a metal shim to bridge such a gap, not just more thermal paste.


I've said it before and I'll say it again: while the "giant aluminum heatsink" idea generally works pretty well for the MacBooks and has for some time, it's not the same as if Apple were to really fix the thermal engineering in their machines: The machines could run downright cool if only Apple were to steal some ideas from Lenovo and Asus.

As a side benefit, Apple could begin referring to the machines as "laptops" again in their marketing from time to time (which they have abstained from for at least the last 5+ years).


To your second point, I doubt anyone will call anything a laptop ever again unless it runs at or below room temperature. There is a volume of evidence[0] that hot objects placed on the male genitals for an extended period of time can have a negative impact on fertility (and who knows what else, e.g. birth defects? Since it is likely damaging the semen).

The liability issues are just too great. We're talking class action levels of expenditure.

[0]http://www.webmd.com/infertility-and-reproduction/news/20041...


> ever again

I don't understand this claim. They are still calling hot devices laptops today. Do you mean that at some point in the future they will stop, and then they will never again call these devices laptops?


I don't think Apple ever calls any of their machines 'laptops' – that's the point.


That's true, but I have a hard time believing it has anything to do with the fact that their laptops can get really hot. It's clearly marketing to differentiate themselves from their competitors.


Apple stopped using the word 'laptop' when they were still struggling with trying to put a G5 in a portable computer that didn't require jet engine fans.


I've also wondered about the effect of heated car seats male fertility - seems like a class action suit waiting to happen.


I use my thinkpad on my lap all the time. Since I installed the ssd, I can't even remember the last time I heard the fan run.


Try Minecraft with a render distance of sixteen chunks.


Or 32 chunks in minecraft 1.8.


Well, even 10 chunks in Minecraft 1.2.5 would make my MacBook Pro (late 2009; Snow Leopard) really churn.


I think "laptop" is one step below "luggable" on the list of uncool things to call a portable computer. I doubt they'd want to return to using that word.


I have the same laptop model and I'm on my 4th logic board. Luckily, we have 5 years of warranty for hardware failures by law where I live.


That must annoy the hell out of phone manufacturers. Even the two years in the EU is pushing it for a large number of phones.


Well, as a consumer rather than a phone manufacturer, I certainly appreciate living in the EU. For a several-hundred-€ phone to not be expected to last two years is a pretty depressing position.


It also probably keeps you from being able to buy a €20 phone. There are trade-offs in nearly anything.


What are you talking about? I can get a €20 Samsung in any place that still sells dumbphones. I got a €30 Nokia 5 years ago and it still works splendid.


This is what drives me insane about the state of modern electronic device quality. It seems the less you pay, the longer it lasts. This is completely the opposite of how it is with traditional goods like furniture, utensils, tools, and so on. Maybe it's over-engineering, maybe it's forced obsolescence, maybe it's something beyond my comprehension. But it stinks.


I think that's partly because by the time those components get to the cheap product they've been out in the wild for several years and improved substantially over time. The same thing happens with cars. Today, buying the top of the line BMW or Mercedes almost guarantees you more electrical/functional issues than a mid or entry level model where the technology is flowing down but been in the market for 3 - 7 + years and significantly improved.


Well, a more expensive phone has way more (hardware) features, and thus way more points of failure. Makes perfect sense to me, though I do understand your position.

Snow Leopard has been praised as the best OS X release for focusing almost solely on bug fixing. I wish releases such as this were more common both in soft- and in hardware.


> Well, a more expensive phone has way more (hardware) features, and thus way more points of failure.

That's an excellent point. Nokia of old was often associated with build quality, but the more advanced you got, the more stuff would break. Their cheaper Symbian phones tended to last forever, but the N-series, especially the N900, had more hardware issues than their cheaper brethren. Given that the N900 was basically a full fledged computer in a phone form factor there were a lot of potential points of failure, the biggest of which was the faulty USB port.

> Snow Leopard has been praised as the best OS X release for focusing almost solely on bug fixing.

That's the last version of OS X I have used on a daily basis, and from what I've heard I missed out on a ton of new bugs introduced in Lion and up. Of course my aging Mac mini CoreDuo, even with a Core2Duo upgrade, is no longer fast enough for daily use and won't take a newer OS anyway. I'm not buying another Mac for a long time (if ever) as I can't justify the expense, but given what I've heard about Yosemite's stability maybe that's a good thing. OpenBSD runs great on my current self-built system so I don't really have a need for OS X anymore.


I really enjoyed using Snow Leopard, skipped the Lion and Moutain Goat upgrades but did go with Mavericks, had no problems whatsoever, plus Yosemite has been fine for me, if not a teeny bit sluggish for me. But what widespread stability issues have you heard of? I haven't had any problems.

I am still on Mavericks at work, thank goodness for the fix for multiple screens as Mountain Lion would be useless!


One of the biggest smartphone features is "thinness". Thinner phones are considered better.

Thinner phones are also significantly weaker, can flex more, can get cracked circuit boards, cracked solder joints, etc.

The biggest feature of many phones decreases reliability.


Maybe cheap phones last longer because you use them less. In my experience is is usually the moving parts that break (switches and sockets). I want a device designed to work without any physical switches.


I got a 14e LG dumbphone 4+ years ago. That's what I still travel with today. The battery lasts longer than my Samsung S4.


If you're talking about smartphones, no smartphone is really that cheap. They get you later.


They're talking about brick phones. I don't agree with them but since you're confused, others might be. EDIT:Weirdly decided OP was a man... fixed.


Lumia 520: $30


OK, sorry. My broader point, though, is that cell phones are in most cases priced in a dishonest way by hiding the cost of the phone in different places and saying the phone is only however much money.


Maybe they ought to make better phones.


In Australia, there is a minimum 1-year warranty, which is extended 'a reasonable amount' if the product is sold as a quality item (ie: 'put your money where your mouth is').

It was funny watching Apple a while back market its products to consumers as a quality item, but tell the government that it was 'just another computer', because they didn't want to honour their warranties past 1 year.


Where do you live?


Norway


Can I just send my MBP Late 2011 to you so that you can send it to Apple to be replaced? The #mbp2011 group should really just set up a bunch of people there so that we can send it to Apple Norway to be replaced since MBP's warranties are worldwide anyway.


Is that part of the EU wide protection places like the UK, Germany, etc also get or something specific to your country?


Checking the Apple legalese [1] [2] it seems that we can "choose" between Apple One Year Limited Warranty and consumer law [3] which happens to be 6 (England and Wales) or 5 (Scotland) years. Can anyone clarify that for me please? My screen is flickering on certain gradient backgrounds but my 1 year warranty was over before I noticed it.

[1] https://www.apple.com/legal/warranty/

[2] https://www.apple.com/legal/warranty/statutoryrights.html

[3] https://www.apple.com/legal/warranty/products/uk-ireland-uni...


Reading your first two links makes it seem like you get both, given that your statutory rights aren't affected by Apple's own warranty, so for the coverage for the first or 3 years you can get anything solved via AppleCare, and for the remaining 2 or 3 you'd be making the claim to Apple (if you bought it via their stores or their website) as part of your statutory rights.


In Australia a manufacturer's warranty cannot override your statutory rights. The warranty rights are useful if they are better than your statutory rights though.

Apple has previously been in trouble for trying to avoid their statutory requirements here, eg http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/apple-f...


Apple can't deny consumer law, so no. In countries like Norway (5 years "right of complaint" for electronics where the manufacturer is obligated to either repair or provide an equivalent product, new or refurbished), Apple has to oblige the consumer, by law.



EU provides 6 years but not from the manufacturer - from the seller. I actually had a problem where Apple told me my manufacturer warranty was up and explained I still had 6 years from the seller (Vodafone) and to go to them. Vodafone pretended the law didn't exist. Eventually Apple were kind enough to replace the device even though they had no obligation to.


I wonder how that applies when you purchase something from an Apple Store, since that means they're both.

I remember seeing a page on the Apple website listing info for extended warranties in EU member countries, which I assume this specific defect in the 2011 Macbooks is covered by.


If you purchase it from the Apple store they provide the 6 years (the genius told me this).


Vodafone and rubbish customer service sure tend to go together.


I've been with almost all UK phone companies (I used to buy a new iPhone each year for dev reasons but run simultaneous 2 year contracts meaning I had to be with two phone companies at a time) and they are all terrible.


EU provides 6 years? How so?


Strong consumer protection is one of the core goals of the EU. http://ec.europa.eu/justice/consumer-marketing/index_en.htm: "The Charter of Fundamental Rights and the European treaties since the Single European Act guarantee a high level of consumer protection in the EU. It is also a general objective defined in Article 12 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU."

It isn't 6 years throughout the EU and for every product, though. The EU directive (= the text the EU writes that tells member countries what to achieve through their laws) states (paraphrasing a lot) that consumers may expect a device they buy to be what is advertised and to last as long as a typical device of what is advertised lasts (Business-to-business is different; there, it is more 'buyer beware')

As is typical for EU directives, that isn't very specific (partly for the better, as being specific would mean that such directives need to be revised all the time) and only describes a goal, not how to reach it.

Individual countries will vary in how they translate that into law. Apparently, Norway went for a very strong consumer protection.


6 years seems great an all as the consumer, but I'd imagine the retailers/manufacturers are not just taking this extra burden all on themselves, but likely passing it down the chain to the consumer via higher purchase price, higher contract price, decreased service quality, fewer staffers, or... etc...

Needless to say, I sure wouldn't even want a smart phone from 6 years ago. People get upset at the USA's more-or-less forced upgrades every 2ish years, but that cadence does seem to fit the timing of when I start to feel my phone is not up to par... 2 or 3 newer generations of devices have come out since my purchase, my battery is starting to lose life (usually never covered by any warranty as this is a standard "wear-n-tear" item like car tires). I'd think a 2 or 3 year warranty should suffice in most cases.


>> "Needless to say, I sure wouldn't even want a smart phone from 6 years ago."

It covers all items though, not just smartphones. If I buy a fridge or an oven I expect it last 6 years minimum. Also, I'm regularly surprised by people using very old smartphones (4-5 years).


At this point there's little reason a smartphone couldn't last 6 years. My current device (a Sony Xperia Z3) has a quad-core 2.3GHz processor and 3GB of RAM, my desktop computer 6 years ago was less powerful than the device sitting in my pocket!

Sure, I wouldn't expect to play all the fancy high-end mobile games (like I ever play mobile games...) that come out 6 years from now, but I see absolutely no reason I couldn't continue to use the phone for email, web browsing, facebook, etc.


Norway is not EU member


It is member of EEA [1] though which means they "adopt almost all EU legislation related to the single market, except laws on agriculture and fisheries."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Area


Shame that the holes are drilled so haphazardly. If only for the aesthetics, print out a template with the holes drawn on a circle, evenly spaced. Then use that as a guide to drill. Or find a local hacker group with a CNC drilling machine which will drill the holes with perfect alignment. Done right, it may have looked little different than a case with holes machined that way by the manufacturer.


He probably drilled them while filled with rage. Which is probably what I would have done. I was surprised the holes were so small. I would have just went over kill.


Agreed on the hole pattern.

Laser drilling is an option too:

https://www.ncms.org/wp-content/NCMS_files/CTMA/Symposium200...


I had a mini-ITX case where the AGP port (yes, it was a while ago) was right up against one of the walls, so the GPU fan was pinned against the wall. As expected, the machine crashed every time I started up a game. We fixed it by drilling holes in the wall right where the GPU fan faces it. The next version of the same case came with an array of holes drilled in that exact same spot, so I guess we were on to something.


This is one of the philosophical beefs I've developed against discrete GPU's, particularly in laptops. I've been using 13" unibodies with iGP's (Sandy, Ivy, Hassy vintages) and haven't had any of these problems. Bad stick of RAM, sure, but I blame samsung or whoever their supplier was. But most of the MBP deaths I've heard about from friends have been with AMD/nVidia GPU daughter cards on the 15's. My rMBP 13" also has side vents and vents under the screen which are very much unblocked and unobstructed.

It might be also I don't game on laptops...I save that for a desktop with a GTX670 card and plenty of fans..


Why the beef against discrete GPUs? Shouldn't the complaint be against cases not properly designed to house them? MacBooks also use, quite frustratingly so, damn near the slowest Nvidia mobile GPU you can buy! A newer model might actually run faster and cooler.


Discrete GPUs are soldered to boards using ball-gate arrays, a technique which was invented with lead solder balls in mind. The patent holder died before the EU mandated non-lead solders.

The reason this matters is because the process by which those solder balls are made does not check for the presence of voids in them. At least 10% of these balls (regardless of composition) x-ray as having voids.

GPUs go through the most radical thermal shifts of any surface mounted component. Lead has a sense of humor about that kind of temperature change; tin alloys do not and begin to crack after a sustained number of shifts. This happened on my 2011 MBP which was not used for gaming.

It's worth noting that the iMacs made the same year, where the discrete GPU was a replaceable daughtercard, had a voluntary recall for exactly the same reported video problems. The irony here is that the average cost of having a GPU reballed is about $150US, with a high rate of reliability compared to reflowing. Part of that reliability comes from reballers refusing to use anything but lead.

The EU is directly responsible for this problem but Apple is responsible to its users and with a cash reserve outstripping the US Treasury's, could have absorbed the cost of repairing these MBPs easily.


Yes, happened to my iMac. The good folks at the Genius Bar ended up replacing my entire computer w/ a Haswell one.


Whoa, I did not know all that. Very interesting. Thanks!


Can you post a link to the picture of the side vents? I thought all rMBP has vents in the screen hinge area. Also does this feature exist on 15" rMBP too?



I wonder if it's worth the effort sure it may reflow solder if it's hot enough but the high temp lead-free solder or whatever Apple uses may require very high temperatures to get it to melt even a bit.

I've changed enough capacitors on power supplies to know the damn things have solder that's practically indestructible, our old Pace solder station iron cranked to something like 850F and still I'm sitting there 5 or 10 minutes cursing it all the time, and nine more caps to go x two leads each.

Plus that heat would degrade the life of components too so who knows if it's ever worth it. But I guess cheaper than spending thousands on a new Macbook Pro.


Often the issue is the component is sinking most of the heat away from the joint. If the giant chunk of metal your heating can dissipate the power of your soldering iron, you're not gonna heat much up.


True but even with the component removed and trying to clean up jagged solder on legs it's tough stuff to get to melt.

This is the solder that comes from the factory we just use the lead-free regular stuff when it goes back in.


This is what happens when function plays second fiddle to form.


Apple moved from PowerPC to Intel because the new generation of PowerPC chips wouldn't run cool enough to put in a laptop.

Intel had long been pushing for cooler chips and longer battery life. Beginning with its Centrino line and the Pentium M processor.

Apple hopped in right after the Core chips landed (dual core), and these chips were amazing for Apple. They could continue with the macbook pro design with a new and faster chip.

Then Intel went on a speed binge again and tried to yield the most bang for your buck, sacrificing thermals and battery life.

Now finally with the Haswell chips they took a step back and tried to improve battery and thermals. And hopefully Broadwell will be even better.


Were Ivy Bridge considered to be OK? I have a 2012 MBP with the top IvyBridge i7 and it gets warm if you play games (in Windows) but I hardly ever hear the fan any other time (I compile C++ on it all the time). I just thought I'd ask as the "dead MacBook" stories frighten me.


So why didn't apple adapt their cases to fit the new thermal profile by placing a couple ghastly holes where they were needed?


They did. The retina macbook pro has vents on the sides.


Not in time for the OP it would seem.


I don't think he got the retina MacBook. I got the retina macbook and have never had heat issues or noise issues, the fans are super quiet. That said, I'm on my second battery-upper shell combo, and my third screen-hinge combo, so take it for what it's worth.


>third screen-hinge combo yeah, but in all fairness I haven't found a modern laptop that does that right outside of convertible tablets that are notoriously beefed up in that regard.

even Lenovo hinges suck now.


You'd think after 10 years having model after model of aluminium built laptops, Apple would have found a way to solve the heat issues they always have... but nope, they still think it's a good idea to put the heat exhaust vent right up against the bottom lip of the screen where it is still blocked when the machine is in use.


Where else can one put air vents on a laptop? The sides are taken up by expansion ports and speakers. The front is blocked by the battery. The bottom is often obstructed by blankets, clothing, etc. The top is for the keyboard, trackpad, and palm rest.

Putting vents at the hinge actually makes the most sense. It guarantees ventilation ports won't be fully obstructed. The vents face away from the user, reducing fan noise. Air ducts are short, since that area is close to the CPU/GPU.

It's hard to cool a laptop that can generate 85 watts of heat. Moreso if one cares about it looking nice and being thin. You may not like the trade-offs Apple chooses, but they put a lot of thought into their industrial design.


The thinness is the critical problem, and to be honest with most consumer electronics (phones especially; please give me a larger, replaceable battery), I wish they would stop the race to the bottom and instead deliver more functional and longer-lasting productions.

I have an rMBP 15" and a 15" Lenovo Y500. The Y500 cost less than half of the rMBP for equivalent performance but the experience, battery, screen, trackpad, etc are of course much better on the Mac. But for intensive tasks, even with nearly identical internals and the same OS, the Y500 is far more pleasant to use. Say what you want about Lenovo and the terrible things they've done to their laptops in the last few years, but the Y500 is designed to expel heat in the least obtrusive manner possible and it does an amazing job.

At full bore, all cores, maybe a game, the Y500 happily pushes a lot of air out the side vent, and the keyboard, trackpad, bezels, etc., stay very cool.

With the same workload, the rMBP gets very, very hot and seems to blow a small amount of air out of the keyboard (?), occasionally burning my fingers, It's loud and very uncomfortable to use.

In a sense it definitely makes me feel like I overpaid for the extra speed, since I can't use it comfortably anyway.


My Thinkpad has air vents on the left hand side, and also on the back. Except, the ones on the back aren't blocked like they are on Macbooks, because the Thinkpads design is based on what is sensible rather than on what will make the thinnest possible computer.


I don't know what model you have, but my old T61p with dedicated graphics had the same heating issues as my newer Macbook Pro.


A T420 with no heat issues whatsoever.

[edit] Not a great image but you can see where the vents are on the back and the left hand side on this image:

https://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSpIDoMt_OkYzjIF9E6...

Doesn't matter how far I fold the screen back, the vents aren't blocked by it.


From this review ( http://www.cnet.com/products/lenovo-thinkpad-t420/ ):

"Thick and bulky, with a keyboard studded with enough auxiliary buttons to look like a space shuttle control panel, the T420 is as old-school as a laptop can be."

I mean, it's all a matter of trade-offs, as the parent says. Personally I have been using my Macbook mostly as a desktop replacement, so in hindsight I would probably trade the small form factor for better cooling and more sustained performance, for people using a laptop more "dynamically" (carrying it around daily), I can see mobility to come first.

EDIT: Have you ever owned an ultrabook or a netbook ? I went from a T61p to a Macbook Air the the increase in mobility was significant. I used it on bed, on the couch, on the train, with no discomfort at all even after hours on end, unlike the bulkier laptops I owned before.


I don't get this recent idea that a laptop needs to be as thin and light as an envelope to be "mobile". I have as much "mobility" with this Thinkpad as someone with a Macbook air. Next you'll be telling me I'm sacrificing mobility with my phone because it's twice as thick as an iPhone 6. This argument seems like it would only come from somebody who has sacrificed usability for thinness and needs to come up with a way to justify it. Does a Macbook have "increased mobility" over thicker laptops? I severely doubt it.

The Thinkpad may have more buttons than a Macbook, but I've never seen this as a disadvantage... The Thinkpad keyboard is much nicer to use than the Macbook keyboard. I've owned both. I'll admit that the Macbook keyboard looks nicer though. But that's the point isn't it. Macs are for people who care what their computers look like more than how useful they are.


>I don't get this recent idea that a laptop needs to be as thin and light as an envelope to be "mobile".

Weight is hardly a big differentiator for MacBook Pros, as I understand it. The difference in weight between the ThinkPad T420, which the grandparent mentions, and the latest 15" MacBook Pro isn't that great: they weigh 4.9 lb (2.24 kg) and 4.5 pounds (2.06 kg) respectively according to the official specs. I suppose the ThinkPad will have a slightly heavier power adapter as well.


Exactly, this idea that Apple have sacrificed things like useful ports and useful heat vents, for mobility, it's just flat out wrong. They have sacrificed those things yes, but not for mobility, for looking pretty.


As someone who's gone from boxy laptops to an Air... yes, there is a difference in "mobility". I take my Air out to a cafe or a park or whatever to get work done a LOT more than I took my old Powerbooks.

Heavier computers are something I had to make a decision to go out with. I knew I would be lugging it around on my shoulder and feeling grumpy. But the Air? It, plus a Wacom tablet next to it, takes up less room than the hardback sketchbooks I used to haul around as a matter of course. And I can sit out under a tree on a nice day and do finished, full-color art with a lot less mass than hauling a paint box around. (The fact that a full charge lasts most of a day helps a lot, too. I only take the power brick when I'm going out of town.)

Now, I will admit that I do also care about how stuff looks. I'm an artist; it's my job. But my experience is that there is something really, really different about having a laptop that does everything you need, and weighs less than a hardbound book.


Taking your point to the next logical conclusion you would be okay taking a desktop computer with twin monitors instead of s MacBook Air.

I mean be serious. Thinness and weight are critical to a non insignificant group of people. They could be people like myself who have to take his laptop to/fro work slongside gym wear and s number of books. I couldn't physically csrry s heavier laptop.


Weight may be, but thinness isn't. My X230 thinkpad is the same weight as a macbook air, but thicker. More ports, better cooling, and infinitely easier to do replace/alter anything to do with the machine.


I haven't had any of the ultra thin ultrabooks. I do have a netbook (slightly older Acer model), but the screen was too limiting on it. So now I use a Thinkpad X230. The differences between the X230 and my work laptop (HP Elitebook 8470) is night and day -- I have no problem carying the X230, but wouldn't dream of lugging around the 8470.


How did you get your T420 to have no heating issues? What processor/GPU combo do you have?

I have a T420 and have major heating issues with it playing games. I've tried everything: thinkpad fan control that turns the fan up to 7000RPM, clearing everything out with compressed air, replacing the thermal paste..

After a few years of observations, I think the problem may lie in software.. It seems like when I'm playing games and what not my CPU gets turboboosted, which stays there until it reaches about 90C, when it gets severely throttled, killing framerate and all. I use linux, so right now I have several scripts that goes and disables turbo boost. However, even at that point, it still will boost the CPU when running certain GL applications... Not sure why.

In fact, I've noticed this issue on all Sandybridge laptops I own/have encountered: the 2011 MBP, a dell inspiron... Ivy bridge computers seems to have no issue with this (W530, 2012 MBP).


My wife uses my older T420 with a dual core i7 and an nvidia workstation GPU of some sort as a Sims 3/4 machine with Windows 8 and never has heat issues. I'm currently using a W530 with Red Hat 6 for work and it gets hot occasionally but never enough to feel more than mildly uncomfortable to the touch and certainly never enough to cause any short term problems. Granted, I only ever use it for running a few VMs, not for any games.

I wonder how many of these Macbook issues stem from popularity. If you look at any vendor's forums, you will find a bunch of posts about issues that a lot of people are having. They never make news, though, because how many people own an HP 5370-2wt20 laptop? A lot of people own HP laptops, but they don't have one model that makes up a large percentage of the laptop market. Macs, on the other hand, have a single (ish) model that makes up a large percentage of the laptop market. If there is an issue that affects 1% of HP 8209-c50mg buyers versus 1% of Macbook Pro buyers, only the Macbook numbers will be large enough to make news.


I've wondered that too about other manufactures defects, that they probably suffer the same flaws with the bad ball solder on the GPUs but they didn't sell the same numbers as a MBP so it goes unnoticed.


Not real Red Hat 6 though right? I used 6.2 all those years ago.

Do you mean RHEL 6? :-)


Yup. Sorry, I have a tendency to use Red Hat and RHEL interchangeably.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation release 6.5 (Santiago).


I skipped the Nvidia option and use the onboard Intel graphics, because I don't play games on laptops. All laptops get hot when used for gaming. I have a separate desktop for gaming.


> I have a T420 and have major heating issues with it playing games.

In my experience, almost no consumer laptop is designed with a gaming thermal load in mind (aka heavy cpu + max gpu for extended periods of time). I'm not even sure it's possible in a conventional laptop case.

... I know this is completely useless advice, but don't do heavy gaming on a laptop without expecting problems. There are other form factors much better thermally suited.

tl;dr: mobility/thermal-tolerance/performance, pick two


One thing is that the T420 is not sold as a consumer laptop. Under Windows, running AutoCAD/SolidWorks will drive temperature of 90+ degrees. This laptop is suppose to be for those kind of work. Furthermore, I'm not even running heavy games. I'm running things like FTL, or older 3D games like RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, or even sometimes just watching YouTube videos at 1080p.

Regardless, thermal performance under heavy load in laptop should either be tolerated, or the manufacturers should disable higher clock speeds.

My W530 on the other hand has no issue with heat. Heavy gaming puts it to about 75-80C. It is also much bulkier in size.

Edit: my dedicated graphics is off most of the time. Even then, CPU alone can drive the temperature up through the roof.


I always thought it was odd no one made an external heatsink for laptops.

Apparently at one point (1983) someone thought it was possible: http://papers.sae.org/831101/


Every heating issue I had with my T420 is solved by opening up the laptop and thoroughly cleaning with compressed air. It will stays good for a few years until the dust gathers up again.


Do you have numbers on what your computer's temperature is at when it's idling and when it's on full load (CPU maxed out)? At idle I'm coming in at around 52C with ambient temperature at around 20C. Full load I can go to 90C, when the computer will automatically downclock, which is something that's not desirable.

I have opened up my laptop more than once and cleaned all the areas i can, but I still can't seem to get the temperature to go down like others claim. At this point I'm considering replacing my fan assembly and see if I have better luck but haven't gotten around to do so.


My x220 has air vents at the back, on the left side and several at the bottom of its base. Even when it heats up the temperature stays very much controlled.


Perhaps your unit? I have a T61p still in regular use here and it's never had a heat issue?


Have you got dedicated graphics ?

To me the issue was present mostly when gaming, not really during normal use (with the Macbook is the same).

It failed me after a few years and sold it for spares.


I believe it has an Nvidia card in it. While I did game on it awhile ago I haven't for several years now. Possibly I haven't pushed the hardware long enough to cause GPU thermal issues to arise.


My T410 has vents on the bottom and on the left side.

So, when it's on my lap it doesn't get enough airflow and burns my leg.

So much for 'sensible' design.


Most laptops have the batteries on the back, making the front available for connectors. Most laptops have ventilation on a side, and some complement it with bottom holes.

Also, Apple could place their CPU/GPU wherever they wanted.


The original eeepc uses the keyboard as heatsink.


Thanks for pointing this out; I used the original EeePC for a long time but could only remember that I had had a laptop where the heat exhausted through the keyboard, not which model. Interesting but once it really started to kick up, this may not actually be a good option.


My Latitude E5430 has them on the left side near the back, and two places on the bottom (the rear left side and the front middle).


That laptop is twice as thick as a rMBP and puts out less than half as much heat. Even if Apple put vents in those places, it wouldn't cool adequately; the vent area would be half that of the Dell. To get the same temperatures, airflow would have to be 4x faster than in the Dell. And as I said before, vents on the bottom increase the risk of overheating when used on a bed or carpet.

Critics hold Apple to a higher standard than other companies, and the media reports Apple's failings more than other companies. There are tons of examples: iPhone 6 bending (it's just as sturdy as other phones), solder separation issues (rare; limited to a few first-gen models), overheating (again, rare and usually first-gen models). Other manufacturers have similar issues, but you never hear about them because they don't get eyeballs. Few care if some model of HP laptop overheats.

In general, Apple makes quality hardware. If it were otherwise, they wouldn't be able to charge so much.

Edit: I have no idea why this comment has been downvoted. Anyone want to clue me in?


"In general, Apple makes quality hardware. If it were otherwise, they wouldn't be able to charge so much."

My experience of Apple hardware, from owning it myself and from seeing how it fares for those around me who also use it, is that it's pretty, but poorly designed, lacking in features, and very unreliable.

They are able to charge so much because they market it well. Also, OSX is a decent OS in comparison to Windows, for those who can't be bothered to learn Linux.


I administer about 40 servers under linux (well mostly with Chef and docker), I used to use linux on my main computer for 6 years (debian, gentoo and ubuntu). I have a freebsd server at home that I use for fun. And yet despite all that, my main computer for work nowadays is a mbp retina because I like OS X as an OS and as a GUI (despite some of it's bugs and annoyances). So I don't really agree with you.

In term of hardware, I've had a few lemons and I've complained loudly but under Applecare, Apple replaced the mbp retina I had that failed 3 times with a new model (which runs perfectly fin) so I can't really complain.

I've also had very long lived devices from Apple, my first ibook lasted 4-5 years until my parents sat on it, my wife's old powerbook lasted 6 years until it was stolen, my first generation iphone still works perfectly fine...

One thing I did learn though is never to buy a first generation model from Apple, they tend to be unreliable (at least in my anecdotical experience)


I don't really think that "learning Linux" makes it a better OS. Investing your time into Linux, maybe, but some of us want our OS to be time savers, not a time sinks.


> Apple makes quality hardware. If it were otherwise, they wouldn't be able to charge so much.

How's that Kool Aid taste?


As opposed to a mbp, which apparently will eventually overheat regardless of where it's placed.


> In general, Apple makes quality hardware. If it were otherwise, they wouldn't be able to charge so much.

Oh, so you have never heard of the power of Marketing and branding ?


I hate laptops with vents on the bottom. I can't put it on my lap without constantly thinking did my leg obstructed the hole, I can't put it on the bed because the vents will be clogged. The only place where laptops with vents on the bottom works well is the desk.


[flagged]


Is that "reality distortion field" jab pointed at me? The best laptop in my life is/was my trusty Thinkpad w520. No vents at the bottom, no overheating problems (two previous laptops were HP EliteBooks - a toy computers compared to Lenovo). Now I'm working on MacBook Pro, and yes, it's slicker than w520, but it have problems with heat.


Please stop.


Who are you to tell somebody else to stop posting in a public forum? No, putting "please" in front does not make your aggression any less impolite.


It's very passive aggressive but it seemed to work, he said that and 10 minutes later half my comments on this page dropped from +4 to -4.


There are people/bots that will go through your comment history and downvote all your recent comments when you piss off the wrong users.


[flagged]


If you want flame wars and care about upvotes/downvotes, there are plenty of other websites that will oblige.

Here posts are supposed to add something to the discussion, not to "tease" or provoke a response.


When someone is blatantly exhibiting cognitive dissonance and reasoning has failed to sway them why not tease them a bit? They deserve it.


Even if that's true, it degrades the discourse, and the harm that does to the community trumps whatever "teasing" a given user may or may not deserve.


Are you pg?


The reason I asked is because parent user About says "I use this account for things I can't say: http://paulgraham.com/say.html".

His previous posts do not confirm the identity, but it does correlate with Paul Graham.


The problem is that as you push the screen back from vertical, the area for air to escape gets reduced.


I had not noticed that but it is true! Does anyone know if the case acts as a good heatsink? I always assumed that was why they went with aluminium, other than it looking great.


they have little feet, they could totally put ventilation on the bottom (in fact many laptops do that already)


Except the feet can come off, thus rendering the ventilation useless if that were to happen.


I don't know... maybe on the side like my Latitude. I thought Apple users knew how to "think outside the box" LOL!


I'm sure Apple has done some pretty exhaustive (no pun intended) thermodynamic analysis of the case design.

I have three macbooks, two airs and a 13" mpbr, and none have had any thermal issues at all, even in the heat of summer.

If you are using a laptop in a way that generates that much heat, you probably get about 1 hour of battery life, which sort of defeats the purpose of having a laptop in the first place. A larger fan or heavier case material would also make the laptop less user-friendly for the vast majority of users.


I'm a big fan of desktops... But you know, sometimes people want a portable computer, and also want to use it intensively once on a while.


  I'm sure Apple has done some pretty exhaustive (no pun
  intended) thermodynamic analysis of the case design.
If (as this article says) users have to reflow their boards and drill holes in their cases, I would say not exhaustive enough!


I think a big part of why the early 2011 MBPs are an outlier is that the Sandy Bridge CPUs Apple put in the 2011 MBP simply ran very hot under load.


My guess is they don't care as long at the vast majority make it past their warranty date


I've never had a macbook break down even way past warranty.


I have always used an external laptop cooler with my macbook.


If you are speaking about stands with fans at the bottom, in my experience they do next to nothing.

All they do is "cooling" the aluminum bottom case, which has no contact (or though holes) with the inside parts of the laptop generating heath.


I owned an early Macbook Pro 2011 model. I had the logic board replaced 4 times and the 4th time paid out of pocket. After that one burnt out I gave up and bought a new computer. Simply the worst computer I ever owned.


For what it's worth, Hewlett-Packard had a very similar problem with a line of theirs using the same GPU (and the same lead-free solder), and Microsoft's Red Ring of Death is fundamentally the same problem.

The fact that you can only get a discrete GPU'd MBP now if you buy the most expensive model while the Iris Pro is capable of doing <i>everything</i> a discrete GPU did indicates that Apple's cut their losses with this technology. The motherboard's fine. The decision to accede to EU environmental mandates was the point of failure.

No one in the industry sufficiently tested leadfree solder in GPU BGA mounts before going into production and to be fair, it was a year before people started noticing failures. Apple's dismal head-burying response only made it worse.


I only replaced my logic board once before it died, but I consider it the best -and- worst computer I ever owned. Outside of the fact that the board design was $*#$#387 and that it didn't have USB 3, it was a great computer in that it was fast, solid, light and easily upgraded. As prices came down, I kept upgrading the RAM and storage.


I have question related to this issue. Which MacBook model, new, refurbished or used, should I buy if I want it to last as long as possible and be useful for doing OS X-specific programming tasks?


2010 MBP were very good, 2011 MBP had the issues highlighted in the article, 2012 MBP seem to be ok.

2012 Retina MBP are generally good but have some known issues (eg LG display losing pixels). Mine's currently getting a bunch of things fixed which will probably end up being a new keyboard, logic board, and another LCD.

2013-2014 rMBP seem to have the 2012 issues fixed.

Airs are ok so long as you don't intend on flogging them. They can have overheating issues too.


I have a 2012 MBP (non retina). Never ever had any problems with it at all, runs cool and I compile all day long (C++). Not much gaming going on, but when I do (under Windows on it) it goes mental with the fans. It is the top i7 one with the dedicated nVidia GPU in it, but I have no complaints about it (so far).

EDIT: I must also state that it has a plethora of ports on it that are lacking on the retina models. Gigabit ethernet (with AVB for audio, hurray), Thunderbolt (or Mini DisplayPort for driving a screen/TV with audio over it for HDMI too) FireWire (for audio interfaces), two USB3 ports, SD slot, mic input, audio out (headphone or optical S/PDIF), button to indicate amount of battery remaining (so you don't have to turn it on to find out) and a DVDR/CD drive. Can't beat them in my opinion.

I chuckled observing the MacBook Air user with his bag of appendages for ethernet and powering a display. Sort of defeated having the super slim device!


Any that fits in your budget.

I've been running on MBPs since 2008 and never had one give up. (My oldest one still is running as a test device).


Girlfriend has a 2008 MB that I bought off Ebay, other than the hard drive dying (and giving me ample warning and time to replace first), it's had no problem. Since it's limited to 4GB RAM, it isn't really ideal for development, but she runs Photoshop and Illustrator on it (albeit, a bit slow for my taste).

I personally own a late 2011 MBP (same as the article, I believe) with 8GB RAM, also no problems, running a pretty standard development set up.

I have another 2012 MBP through work which is a bit beefed up, though still nothing fancy. Also no problems. Also manage a couple of 2010 Mac servers there which have been running steady since late 2010.

Oh, and none of these have SSDs. So, say what you will about non-SSD, they work well enough for development.

All in all, have to agree -- whatever fits your budget, at least in my personal experience, will work pretty well. I know that people do certainly have issues with them occasionally, but when I compare my luck with them to my luck with various other brands (Compaq, Dell, etc), they've lasted significantly longer with few or no problems.


If that's a 2008 MacBook that you have, it should be able to (unofficially) take at least 6GB RAM. I have a 2007 MacBook with 6GB RAM and I've never had any problems with the RAM upgrade (running Lion & Mountain Lion, at least). Try looking up your model number in the small print here:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/MacBook/DDR2/


I'd be interested in this as well - has Apple fixed this heat issue in the 2012 MacBook Pro (non-Retina) models that they still have on sale in the Apple Store?


I'm going to say MacBook Air - it runs cool equipped with solid-state components and integrated graphics. Whichever one you choose, make sure you get the SSD storage option, as it will run much cooler and simply perform better.

It amazes me that Apple still ships computers with spinning hard drives in 2014, let alone a laptop.


I have hard drives fail on me and SSDs fail on me at work. It is far easier to get data from a hard disk in the case of failure, which is why I still use disks at the moment. Of course, backups are a necessity in all occasions but I would rather trust a spinning platter than can be taken out of a defective hard disk (with a bust circuit board) and put in another disk than a bunch of chips on a board.


Anecdotal, but I've bought refurbished stuff a couple times and had to repeatedly replace logic boards and other parts. I probably wouldn't do that again.


Counter-anecdote-- my 2010 Macbook refurb is still running swimmingly after a couple upgrades.


I heard from my repair guy that the models after 2011 are much harder/more expensive to upgrade and repair.


As long as possible? Run OS X in a VM.


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