Apple Starts Logic Board Repair Program

QuantumSpritz writes "In response to issues with iBook logic boards flaking out, Apple has posted an FAQ detailing the problems and what to do if you're affected. iBooks purchased in the last 3 years are eligible, and you may be reimbursed if you've already had to pay for repairs."

Good deal.

[Trillan]

This is a lot better than the $50 rebate on Apple store software that users would have probably gotten with a class action. Of course, the class action might happen anyway -- there's a lawyer to be paid, after all.

Figures ...

[JMZorko]

The _day_ I purchase APP for my iBook 700 (which has been sent back to Apple 4 times for this problem in 11 months), Apple does the right thing imho. Oh well -- i'm covered for lots of other things, so it's cool.

What i'm wondering is this: will they replace the board with a newer, better designed board that doesn't exhibit the problem? Yes, it's very laudable that they'll repair them without charge if this is found to be the issue, but i'd rather not have a laptop that dies every 3 months, regardless of whether the repairs are free. At least this means that I can sell my iBook 700 (and 900) and get the G4 model, without feeling like scum. I want to turn people _on_ to Apple, not sell them something that will turn them _off_.

Regards,

John

Re:Figures ...

[Trillan]

Apparently it's a particular component that's failing. From what I understand, the component (not the logic board) is defective.

In other words, once you get a good motherboard it'll stay good. If you keep getting bad ones, they'll die in a few months so just keep trying!

That said, it seems likely that Apple will try to flush the defective logic boards out of the parts inventory. Who knows how succesful they'll be, though? One would think eventually they'd run out...

No Reason To Complain

[Mork29]

Ok, every company makes mistakes and distributes faulty components. There is no way around it. Software and Hardware have bugs. More companies need to take action like this (albeit they took a while this time). Saying that they'll not only replace faulty components but reimburse customers (in any way) for some of their expenses is truly great. This is why companies like Apple and Toshiba always have incredible customer satisfaction ratings, unlike companies who make faulty products and don't do anything about it *cough* Gateway *cough* Microsoft. When companies can bite the bullet, admit a mistake, and do something about it, it truly impresses me.

I love this place

[hype7]

The story about the Linux geek who got burnt [slashdot.org] by a fault that affects less than 0.2% of units shipped hits the front page, letting him complain about "hardware lock in". The vendor response about replacing the faulty part, and reimbursing people who've paid to get it fixed, makes only the apple.slashdot pages (ie buried in the paper).

So much for "new media".

-- james

Re:Thanks Apple!

[Bob Zer Fish]

It took a class action lawsuit before they decided that there really was a problem to begin with. This isn't the first time they've used crappy components either. I had to send my PowerMac 5500/275 back multiple times and it was still buggy. One thing that I've always learned is this: get a 'professional' mac, not one of the cheapo ones. i.e. get a PowerBook instead of an iBook, and get a PowerMac G5 instead of an i/eMac

Why does my ibook keep chugging along??

[acomj]

I have an Ibook purchased in that time frame.. It seems like EVERYONE is having ibook problems.. Yet mine keeps working like a champ and I use it a lot. Its even hit the floor a bunch of times before we got rid of the ethernet cable...

Re:Figures ...

[EricWright]

Hmmm... mine took 18 months to die. My second one has been fine since the repair in August... 5 months now?

Anyway, I bought my iBook at the end of May, 2002... right at the beginning of the mfg period Apple is quoting. I called up my AASP and told them about the program (they hadn't heard anything about it yet) and asked them a) to see what they could find out from apple and b) if my serial number was in that range. I'd check, but it's at home and I'm not.

Does anyone know a way to find out your iBook serial number via ssh connection? :-)

Can you refund me for AppleCare?

[jonnylawUSA]

After having replaced my third logic board only days before my 1 year Apple Care expired, I opted to buy the 2 year extension for fear of it happening again. Now that these problems are covered can I return my unused "Apple Care"? How can a company with such great products have such lousy business policies?

Re:Figures ...

[babbage]

Yeah, that seems to be faster than system_profiler:

$ time ioreg -bls | grep -i serialnumber
....|.. "IOPlatformSerialNumber" = "UV14149YLPY"
....| |.. |.... |.. "iSerialNumber" = 0
....| |........ |.. "iSerialNumber" = 0

real....0m2.742s
user....0m1.070s
sys.... 0m1.370s

(I've converted multiple spaces to periods to keep the formatting sort of stable -- the actual output doesn't have all the dots....)

IMO, the output from system_profiler is a little prettier, but this was definitely faster. I wouldn't be surprised if system_profiler is a wrapper around this.

Re:I love this place

[eunos94]

If you select "Collapse Sections" in the preference menu-->Homepage it will place all the sections stories on the front page also.

Re:No Reason To Complain

[vought]

It's clearly been an issue for some weeks, Apple should have introduced this before now.

Give them a break. When there's an issue like this, it takes several weeks just to get engineering and manufacturing to help the customer support side of the Apple world chase down, isolate, and put in place a fix for a problem like this.

While I'm sure the threat of a class-action suit lit a fire under the folks at AppleCare (who are charged with implementing these REA programs), I can assure you that they've also got a good feedback and reporting mechanism in place that probably made them aware of this problem months ago.

Again, it's no insta-fix. Had Apple announced this program a few weeks ago, without knowing the scope of the problem or having a 100% fix (or flushing service inventory of bad parts, etc.), customers would be complaining right and left that there were no parts. This happened in 1995-6 with the PowerBook 5300 series computer and Performa 52/5300 series computer REA programs, and I can assure you that AppleCare never wants to repeat that debacle with ANY product.

Interesting fact:

The serial number range also tells you exactly when the affected machines were manufactured.

UV220XXXXXX to UV318XXXXXX

Indicates affected machines were built between the 20th week of 2002 and the 18th week of 2003 - at least if Apple's serial number shorthand is still the same as when I worked there.

Re:Something fishy about this

[MoneyT]

Because no known issues means we don't have a user fix, nor a systematic fix in place. Apple may have known there is a problem for the last half year, but that doesn't mean they knew the specific problem or what to do about it yet.