collisionbend.com

My six-week-old MacBook (week 26) is suddenly narcoleptic.

I’ve done all of the prescribed tests, including reseating my RAM, and it still takes dozens of attempts to start the computer before it actually boots completely. Once it starts, there is no guarantee that it will continue to function until it’s been up for about 10 minutes — then it will run for hours non-stop, without a single flaw or choke.

This is not a rare condition, either. It has been documented in several places, like here, and here, and here (look under “Problems”).

Even YouTube has been getting submissions on this. (Caution: some of these videos are hilarious!)

I installed the latest firmware update this weekend, and it only seems to have made the problem worse.

Apple is aware of the problem, but they have done nothing about it; they prefer to censor the support forum threads by closing and locking them: disgruntled MacBook owners just open another thread; Apple has closed and locked 30 or 40 threads on this issue on their support forum web site so far.

I spent 30 minutes on the phone with Apple support on this issue earlier this afternoon. Brian (the tech support guy) seemed shocked when I told him that I tried to start my MacBook today about 30 times before it finally started. (Truth be told, he tried to act as if he had never heard of the problem before, which annoyed me.)

“30 times?” he asked.

“Well, it may not have been exactly 30 times. I wasn’t actually counting,” I replied; “it may have been more like 35 or 40 times…” I said into a dead-silent phone.

I wonder what Apple intends to do here. Possibly thousands of the initial run of MacBooks have this issue; a recall seems to be in order.

We’ll wait and see. I’ll keep you posted.

UPDATE — There is some evidence to suggest that reseating the RAM actually does the trick.

I went back in and reseated the RAM a second time after having some misgivings about how it was seated in the first place: the RAM didn’t look like it was in parallel to the case. Ever since, my MacBook has booted consistently (3 times, once on battery power).

There is also some evidence that this is a temporary fix, however. We’ll see.

If poorly-seated RAM is the issue, the one PIA of this computer will be having to carry around a 00 (double-ought) Philips-head screwdriver to reseat the RAM every few weeks.

But, if that is the issue, and that is what will fix it, I think a 59-cent tool in my laptop bag won’t add too much weight.

(71.8 — 67.8 — 4)