February 25, 2005

[Mac] My PB went bye-bye after a few hours!

Yes, you read the heading right... my PB is dead. Just recieved it in the afternoon, did not register as I was not online. Brought it home. Was in the midst ot setting things up. Changed the power settings to never to go to sleep on ac power, and about 1minute later. the fan kicked in (really loudly), and it went into hard sleep! Unplugged the AC supply, took out the battery and unplugged the USB optical mouse. And tried to boot it up, no joy.
Held down the power button, nothing. Did all the apple commands, like hold down Apple-key+p+r and then power on,fan kicked in loudly in an instant, heard the 2 Apple chimes, and got to login screen and it went to sleep. Went into single-user mode, and the kernel message came up :

Power Management received emergency overtemp signal. Going to sleep.

Wierd thing was, the laptop did not feel like it was overheating at all! And ran the system test from the disk supplied with PB, and it failed on the following error :
2STH/1/2 : CPU BOTTOMSIDE and was told to contact Apple support. Left if overnight unplugged, and tried again the morning, situation was still unchanged.
So I rang Apple support. The tech support guy was really helpful, since I called early, PB support engeers were quite numbered, but I was 1st on the queue. After explaining my situation, he tried to find a resolution with the engineers via chat, I was directed to our closest reseller, and troubleshooting folks (in Dublin). Was given the case # to refer to my issue with PB. And I was also given an address of Streamline in Dangon (I think), and I thought I misheard the biz park name, it was "Galway Business Park"! That's miles away.
Anyway, I was given the customer# and phone# to call. Got through to a really helpful girl, who went through some troubleshooting with me, and was recommended to get a replacement from Apple. And Apple can contact her if they wished wrt to my issue with the PB.
So back to ring Apple again, and finally got to another tech support person. Confirmed the replacement, and was forwarded to aftersales. Double-confirmed the tech support#, and PB issue, and put down a replacement for me.
So TNT will contact me, I was to write the return number on the box, and I am on the next shipment from the factory (as I got a faulty PB, I am high on the priority list), and that ships out on March 8th! And that is the earliest they can get to me. I am really happy with Apple support, but was very disappointed that after a month and 2 days wait, I ended up with a broken PB, and now I have to wait again.

Oh, and just got my Apple order confirmation. Now I am waiting for TNT to call...

Posted by whykay at February 25, 2005 01:13 PM