duhn·net

During the past week my MacBook Pro 15″ has developed a tendency to spontaneously shut down when running on battery.

I searched Apple Support for the issue and found this Resetting MacBook and MacBook Pro Power Management Unit (PMU) and tried the shutdown and press power button for 5 seconds. Then the machine woke up (without the power adapter connected) and the procedure gave me approximately 12 min of battery life from boot-up to spontaneous shutdown. A defective battery is a ticking timebomb. It is bound to go off and destroy my work when I disconnect my otherwise cleverly designed MagSafe power-cord. It is kind of a tricky problem because my MacBook Pro seems to run normally when the power adapter is plugged in.

Another thing is the MacBook gets rather hot lately. My temperature widget says 77°C on the CPU and 47°C on the harddrive. I just thought it was caused ny the nice sunny 30°C weather we have been having lately. Maybe not?

The heat issue seems to be causing the battery a slight bulge protruding the computer case.

I grabbed my phone and called Apple Support…

My first call started out with me waiting while listening to classical music with horrible sound quality for 10 min. Then the hard-to-understand-norwegian-support-guy starts off by telling me that my 90 day free phone support has run out. He tries to help me anyway and suggests that I reset my power managment unit (PMU). See where this is going? I try to reset my PMU and the machine boots up nicely. The support guy says bye – I hang up – and poof the machine goes dead of course.

I tried calling again – same number – same crummy music – boring. They should use pop music tracks from iTunes Music Store instead.

This time I got to talk to an even more difficult-to-understand young lady – who explains once over that my 90-day support has run out.. But I can buy AppleCare Protection Plan – only 3.000,- kr (around $500) and then they will gladly send out a technician. I ask to get the address of a repair shop where I can send my possibly defective MacBook Pro. Then she starts asking me to drive to Copenhagen. I try and explain to her that I am a student, and I do not have the time nor the money to go to Copenhagen just to get my laptop fixed. She reluctantly gave me the phone numbers for the repairshop InfoCare and for another one called OfficeLine.

InfoCare refused to talk to me since I did not have a case number from Apple Support. But to get a case number I would have to buy more telephone support from Apple.

Then I tried calling OfficeLine. My hopes were low at this point. I did not think they would help me, due to the fact that I bought my Mac at the Apple Online Store not in one of their stores. The guy at the other end of the line just said: “Come to downtown Århus to our shop and bring your MacBook Pro. We will take a look at it and send it off to the repair shop. Remember to bring your Apple Online Store purchase receipt. Oh, and by the way OfficeLine is called humac now.”

I took my MacBook Pro to humac at Fredens Torv. The friendly guy at the shop tried using another battery, and tried resetting the PMU and finally he wrote an error report and shipped it off to their repair shop.

I am a bit puzzled by the behaviour of Apple Support. How come they did not know anything about the service I could get at my local store? How come they kept telling me to bring my MacBook to Copenhagen? The answer is clear and troubling: The Apple Telephone Support only exists to make people buy more support. No thanks.

I might be back for Apple Pro Care at the end of my free 1 year warranty period (which circa half a year full warranty + one and a half years partial if you consult Danish legislation).