Apple Woes
| Thu Nov. 20, 2008 6:22 PM PST
APPLE WOES....So remember how you guys were all over me for years about how bad PCs sucked and how I should get a Mac to solve all my problems etc. etc.? And so I finally got one a few months ago, and it worked fine. (Not really any better than a PC, to be honest, but it was fine.) Remember all that?
Well, guess what? I haven't used my MacBook for a couple of months, but I pulled it out the other day and discovered that Macs don't hibernate in order to extend battery life. They just go into standby mode when you close the lid, and then hibernate right before the battery goes completely dead. So of course my battery was completely dead. No big deal, though: I just plugged in the charger and went away for a few hours.
And nothing happened. The notebook no longer recognizes the battery and declines to charge it even a tiny bit. Reinstalled the battery, but that didn't do any good. So now what? Take it into an Apple store and find out what's wrong, I guess. What a pain. Why can't Apple make decent hardware, anyway?
Continues Below
Continued From Above
Comments
Submitted by Patrick O'Grady (not verified) on Thu Nov. 20, 2008 6:31 PM PST.
Got to read that owner's manual, Hoss. My G3 500MHz "Pismo" PowerBook, circa 2000, is only on its second battery. My G3 800MHz iBook is still running off the original battery. My MacBook gets used maybe twice a week and still ticks over like a fine Swiss watch. And this Mac, a G4 450MHz "Sawtooth" Power Mac, well ... it old, but it ain't dead. Yet.
Submitted by Chris Brown (not verified) on Thu Nov. 20, 2008 6:32 PM PST.
Just say no to peer pressure, especially when applied by Apple evangelists.
Submitted by Szabe (not verified) on Thu Nov. 20, 2008 6:36 PM PST.
I had a similar experience with HP last year. I had the pleasure of mailing the laptop to them, waiting 2 months for them to fix it, then yelling at their customer service for 2 weeks straight because FedEx lost the return package and they were convinced that was my fault.
In short: be grateful for the Mac store.
Kevin, You don't buy Apple for decent hardware. You don't buy Apple for world class software. You buy Apple because you are a man of style, and culture. You feel the need to consume conspicuously.
No self respecting Apple user would ever let an Apple product spend two days unused. You should be ashamed of yourself. You can expect a call from Steve Jobs.
Submitted by Rick Alber (not verified) on Thu Nov. 20, 2008 6:48 PM PST.
I used to use a Mac. I found that it really didn't work well unless fed a constant stream of blind idolatry. Your Macbook is apparently feeling unloved, Kevin.
Submitted by Christopher (not verified) on Thu Nov. 20, 2008 6:49 PM PST.
Oh really RB? Apple has the best customer service in the business. The easiest to use operating system, stable world class software. In fact, designwise it's all kind of boring. You buy apple because it will last you forever and always work and when it doesn't there's a company there wanting to do well by you and fix whatever they can at their expense. Typing this on a 7 year old Mac that runs as well as the day I bought it. And has allowed me to upgrade to all the latest software. Pee-Cees are crap. And are designed specifically to have to be replaced every two years. Apple products have the longest lifespan in the business.
As for Kevin's Mac, sounds like he doesn't know how to use. That being said, my brother bought a Dell. Battery died during month 2. And he was NEVER ABLE TO GET IT FIXED. Yes that's right. Dell only has a 30 day warranty and that could given a flying if their computer breaks down after that.
I too have recently learned that while apple makes a great operating system, it puts out pathetic quality hardware.
Read these comments on the macbook powercord. My macbook's chord fell apart too & I think it is why my battery stopped holding a charge and my wireless has no signal any more.
Fuck Apple. I'm never buying a computer from them again.
Um... yeah dude. No laptop is meant to be used that way.
Moreover, (a) hibernation would not have saved you, (b) if you were actually, you know, using your laptop, the feature you deride actually blows Windows sleep mode away any time.
Make no mistake. There are problems with Apple hardware, in particular with batteries. The battery typically becomes unreliable after a solid year or year and a half of use, unless you take real good care of it.
That is the only real problem though. Build wise MacBooks beat most PC laptops, and are generally on par with ThinkPads, Vaios, and high end Dells. Trust me, I've seen quite a few of all of them. The battery is the only issue I'd say these other ones are more reliable in over a length of time.
Submitted by Frank (not verified) on Thu Nov. 20, 2008 6:52 PM PST.
Kevin,
By letting it hibernate for so long and drain the battery all the way, you probably killed the System Management Controller. You can reset it fairly easily:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1411
Hope that helps...
The polarity on the battery has probably been reversed. This is an issue if you drain the battery and leave it flat for too long. This is not a problem unique to Apple batteries, although Apple Li-ion batteries do seem to need a bit of shepherding to make them last a long time (monthly discharge-recharge cycles, for instance).
As for two months of hibernation... probably a bad idea with any laptop. Either shut it down and pop the battery or cycle the machine every now and then.
Gee Kevin, it almost as if you're trying to start something with this post.
PS I had to disable hibernation on my Dell. It always always always hung up trying to wake up, requiring a hard reboot. And I'm running it pretty much stock. Nothing not made by Microsoft, Abobe or MacAfee. By contrast, my MacBook Pro wakes just fine, and the sleep is plenty low power to go days without a recharge so long as you keep the lid closed.
Kevin:
You should let it charge for more than a few hours. Like, a day.
If that doesn't work, then take it to the Genius Bar. They will fix it on the spot, if it's under warranty, it'll be free. But they will probably tell you that you should, you know, turn it off if you're not going to use it for three months.
Seriously, dude. Letting it sleep for three months and then wondering why it's drained is kind of...well...goofy.
It's so refreshing to know that there are other liberals who aren't into Macs. I'm a programmer, so maybe my opinions are outside of the mainstream, but I absolutely hate it when a computer tries to guess what you want it to do. It's the source of endless frustration to me, and it seems to be the guiding philosophy of Apple.
Two years after I bought a G3 800MHz iBook the screen connection went dead. Apple admitted it was a "known issue", sent a shipping package and I had it back in two days. It was out of warranty but they fixed it free of charge. It is also still running on it's first battery. Gotta love that customer service!
you people. I cannot believe that Kevin **planned** to leave it alone for a couple of months. But -- I love this -- blame the user!! Gee, he should have KNOWN all this geeky stuff about batteries!! Cripes. For people who are supposed to focus on user-friendliness... whatever. But kudos to the people who explained that he should just take it to the genius bar. That's exactly right.
Frank is right, more than likely you just need to reset the System Management Controller (they used to call it the Power Management Unit). And if you're going to leave your MacBook unused for a few months, I suggest you shut it down.
If this procedure doesn't work, post the exact model of MacBook you've got and we'll take another crack at it. These problems all have simple solutions.
you people. I cannot believe that Kevin **planned** to leave it alone for a couple of months. But -- I love this -- blame the user!! Gee, he should have KNOWN all this geeky stuff about batteries!!
It's all in the manual, and what's not in the manual is discussed online in the forums.
There's an Apple Store at Fashion Island in Newport Beach. Kevin will look just fine showing up there in docksiders.
Sheesh Kevin, first your car battery, now this. Must be something about you and batteries.
I suspect that hardware engineers put in a "being used by former software marketing weenie" sensor, and purposely screw up everything if it detects that condition.
OTOH, this kind of makes me wonder about Li batteries for cars.
I began to like Mac after I found out on mmy daughter's laptop that you can open a shell window and use the csh commands just like in any other unix workstation of the eighties and nineties. Any machine that lets me use AWK is good enough for me.
Thirding the advice to reset your SMC. Unless the battery is toast (in which case just take it down to the apple store and they'll replace it for free), that will fix it with little fuss.
/dutifully ignoring the bait you laid in your post for those of us who know something about computers
Neil Stephenson wrote an article awhile back (search "In the beginning... there was the command line") about the differences between Apple, Windows, and Linux. Although it's out of date, his main point still seems to be true: Apple is a hardware company, and designs OS's to work with their hardware, Microsoft is a software company and designs OS's that work with anything you want to install them on and should allow you to run MS Office, and Linux is the MoFo in the building.
Anyways, don't bash the Mac people over this- I had a Gateway that did the same thing. If you want you could try to order the connector between power plug and battery and reinstall it.
I am a mostly Linux fascist (what Fake Steve Jobs would call a "freetard") more than an Apple fan, but I have to agree this is straight up operator error. The computer goes to sleep when you close the lid so that it wakes up quickly; this is a feature not a bug.
If you're going to leave the computer for a while, shut it down properly or plug it in. (If you're going to leave it for months, obviously plugging it in would waste energy, so shut it down.) In general, rechargeable batteries can withstand about 500 discharge cycles, so every time you let the battery run down, you're getting closer to the time you'll need to replace it.
I guess they need to put more warnings on the package. Also don't immerse the computer in water or place it in the oven.
This was bound to happen. Buying a mac was just an expensive way of getting back at his readers for years of abuse. I expect he'll turn it into a hot rock for inkblot some coming friday.
That is the only real problem though. Build wise MacBooks beat most PC laptops, and are generally on par with ThinkPads, Vaios, and high end Dells. Trust me, I've seen quite a few of all of them. The battery is the only issue I'd say these other ones are more reliable in over a length of time.
Comparing a MacBook to "most PC laptops" is like comparing a Cadillac DTS to a Kia and then saying American cars are better built than foreign ones. When you say they're on par with ThinkPads, Vaios and high end Dells, at least you're in the neighborhood, but you're still comparing a higher priced product to lower priced alternatives.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1411
Notebook batteries are not meant to be left with partial charges, so it is good that it went dead. Macs do have the peculiarity that if the battery goes below a certain level of charge it can stop recognizing it. Resetting the PMU will fix that most of the time (meaning greater than 50% of the time, less than 100%).
It's galling how many people have been trained to blame the victim.
This is a case of a particularly nasty Apple bug. It ain't Kevin's fault, and he has thousands, that his Macbook has a bug he is unaware of. And it shouldn't be that Kevin has to visit an Apple store to have that bug recognized or fixed.
This ain't rocket science sheeple.
I've had both, Mac & PC. Each have their strengths and limitations, as well as their apostles and perceived apostates (ref. any above comment boasting a word in all caps), and you just dig the hell out of stirring it all up from time to time, yes Mr. Drum? Good times, good times....
I have been a Mac user since 1984 and do prefer the software to all others. That said, I had no hardware problems until about 2000 with any machine. Since then, EVERY computer I have bought has landed me in trouble:
*2000 Mac Pro G3 - failed hard drive within months
* Macbook Pro G4 failed motherboard (twice), failed optical drive, failed hard drive ( my brother now has the machine so he has to deal with some of these issues not me)
*Macbook Pro (12") multiple failures of motherboard
*Macbook Pro (17" Intel) failed motherboard and optical drive (repaired under Appplecare which is a form of 10% taxation)
iMac (G5) desktop failed hard drive, failed optical drive (and it has just now started making death throes noises again).
Apple, it seems, makes crap machines but lovely software. I am caught now between a huge investment in Mac software, etc, and an absolute contempt for Windows products. Living in parts of Asia where Macs are just not well served complicates all my computer problems.
As a lifelong Mac user I have to say that maybe Mac is not the way to go. Especially at the premium you pay for the product.
I hope you bought the AppleCare. When I had a MacBook (back in the G6 days) it went through 3 motherboards, 2 drives and they eventually replaced the machine with a new one, which promptly got recalled and got a new motherboard.
I had to rebuild that thing every few months because it kept breaking. Now I use a $750 HP tablet that works fine.
Apple makes beautiful products, but you have to be prepared for them to break on a semi-regular basis.
