After years of toiling as a student on my iBook G4, I was lucky enough to be in a position to upgrade to the Intel line of Macs after graduation. My iBook had been my first Mac, and it’s reliability and beauty effortlessly recruited me into the Apple cult. After a few years, however, it was starting to show its age, so it was time to take the next step.

However, after about 3 months of solid performance from my new machine (a MacBook Pro 15.4″ 1.83 GHz Core Duo), problems started to crop up. I had already grown accustomed to the intense heat put out by the machine (particularly on the bar over the function keys and precisely where you place your wrists while typing), and I had found a wonderful little app to stop the incredibly annoying whine (QuietMBP). However, the new noises were much scarier, and seemed to originate from the right fan near the power button:

Shortly after this began, my CD/DVD drive began to have problems, routinely ejecting a disc multiple times before finally loading it up. Then, the death knell: my power adapter stopped charging. If I held the laptop vertically with the adapter pressing into it from below, I could sometimes get it to charge for 30 seconds or a minute, but then it would cut out again. So, without power, I was forced to take my book in for service.

After about a week’s wait, my warranty covered the replacement of the following:

• Logic Board
• Right Fan
• Power Adapter
• Superdrive

And all of this after my battery got recalled! My little guy is starting to resemble Frankenstein, stitched together from the warehouses of multiple generations of Apple laptops. I realize this computer is the first generation of Intel Macs, but the widespread problems encountered by users, and first-hand experience with my machine and those of friends makes me wonder if Apple didn’t rush these to market without sufficient hardware and real-world testing. Nevertheless, the warranty covered everything, the shipment of parts was relatively quick, and everything seems to be running smoothly (and quieter and cooler) now. I still wouldn’t trade this for an older (though perhaps more reliable) machine.

Edit: Three months after this round of repairs, both fans failed again. They were again covered by warranty, but again I had to wait while the fans were ordered and installed. As a small business person, being without my work machine is extremely frustrating and potentially costly. I am considering requesting Apple cover the cost of an Extended Warranty (3 year AppleCare), as the track record for this machine since its purchase has been so dreadful. I doubt they’ll go for it, but it’s worth a shot.

For others having problems with the heat and fan noise caused by the MacBook Pro, try downloading smcFanControl 2.1 by Hendrik Holtmann. It’s a free app that sits in your Menu bar and displays the temperature of your machine and the current fan speed (in RPM). This helps to monitor which applications are causing the fans to run fast and the computer to heat up, and also indicated to me that both fans were dead (running at 0rpm). When this was the case, the CPU heated up to 89 degrees C and Mac OS X became extremely sluggish. Needless to say I unplugged and took it into the ER asap!