Thursday, May 15, 2014

Murphy's Law Strikes Back!

I suppose that you know what Murphy's law is. If not, it means basically that "everything that can go wrong WILL go wrong". And that's exactly what happened to me yesterday and why you don't have new posts today. Less than one year after my Mac Book Pro mother board crashed it happened again and i spent several hours today at an Apple repair shop to understand "what the hell was going on".

To speak frankly, i was literally furious ( you've never seen me furious, but believe me, you don't want to ). It's a very, very, VERY bad joke and considering the price of these bloody mother boards i expected it would work more than ten months. But it didn't, and the only good thing is that this time i had the time to save my most important files when i saw that something was going wrong, before my Mac crashed with no way to restart it again. 

According to Apple it will take ten days like last time and it means that during that time i won't be able to post "long" posts with plenty of pictures like i do generally. Mainly because all i have left now to communicate is my iPad and the Blogger App is very badly designed. But i promise you that i will do my best to post each day or so. The Facebook App is not really better than the Blogger one but it's a bit easier to post so you can follow me on the D&M Facebook page until i get my Mac back.

That said, if it's the same problem it's the same price too - 500€ - and i don't even dare to ask for your generous help like i did last time - thanks again to all of you who've been greatly helpful last year. But to tell the truth if some of you want to do a kind donation it will be very welcome. You can send it through Paypal at: lawrence55@wanadoo.fr.  Another way to help can be to order a copy of the DLP book or to offer one to a friend, see link at the top of the right column. 

Frankly, the situation is ridiculous and i think that the walls of the Apple repair shop are probably still shaking from my anger this afternoon (!)  Anyway, i thank you by advance for your help, and i'll do my best, as always, to provide you in the days to come the most interesting news.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

You know, if you left a Time Machine drive (so, an external hard drive) permanently connected to your MacBook Pro, you'd never have to worry about having "time to save my most important files". So, that's something worth doing, to save you all this stress.

Jones said...

You should not have to pay anything after just 10 months. If sth fails after just 10 months, that is, IMO, cleary the manufacturer´s fault, and in that case, the general 2-year European warranty apllies.

Alain Littaye said...

Jones, i agree, but the MBP was bought in May 2011 and the guarantee ended last year. And the Apple guarantee on the mother board changed last year in July is of three months only. What i should have done ( and definitely will do on my next MBP ) is to have take a three years Apple Care. If any of you buy a Mac soon, this is my advice: definitely take the 3 years Apple Care, soecially if you buy a Mac Book Pro!

Unknown said...

Good day mister Littaye,
First of all, as a long time reader of your blog, I’d like to complement you on the incredible work you put in disneyandmore. I’m very sorry to hear about the crash of your motherboard, and hope your inconvenience will stay at a minimum. As a law student I’d like to point out however that you should not be obligated to pay a dime for the repairs. I assume the Apple store told you otherwise, but the 2-year EU warranty DOES apply to your case. Even if the warranty on your original purchase of the MBP has expired. Based on your story and reaction to Jones this is the scenario I base my claim upon: When your motherboard crashed down last time the warranty of your MBP had already expired, thus you had to pay for a new motherboard. This new motherboard came with 2 years of EU warranty. I know apple tries to convince you that their warranty only lasts 3 months, but under European law they simply can NOT give you a warranty on a product that is less than the 2 year minimum. So, even though the warranty expired on the MBP as a whole, the new motherboard still has a valid warranty. Therefore all the costs to repair or replace the faulty product have to be paid by the party that sold you the motherboard (e.g. Apple). In conclusion: the Apple store is legally not allowed to charge you for the repair/replacement. (Given that you let apple know the product was flawed within 2 moths of noticing said flaw, as you did)

I advise you to find an official EU/government page in French stating what I said above and bring that along to the Apple store. Don’t take no for an answer and remain calm, the law is on your side.

Jones said...

3 months only? I´m not a lawyer, but i don´t think Apple can limit the warranty to three months - if it was a new MB, at least. Regardless of that, given the high price of Apple products, and given the fact that it is already your secon MB, one should assume they´d replace it for free anyway - or at the very least for a special, lower price. I mean, two broken MBs in a row? And they do not offer you *anything*? If I hear things like that, i agree that "Apple care" is an option - but I also have to say that it´s not the first solution that comes to my mind...

BJ Niegowski said...

Do yourself a favor and purchase a second hand computer with linux installed just as a stop gap measure. Never had one c__p out on me.

Alain Littaye said...

Thanks to all for your advices. I'm really thinking to buy a new Mac, and take a 3 years Apple Care with it. This way i'll be covered for all problems during the next three years and i'll re-sell it after two years for a new one, what i've always consider that anyone should do, while the Mac value is still up. My big mistake has been to don't have take a 3 years Apple Care when i bought this MBP in 2011, as using a Mac Book Pro all day like an iMac is not really good for it, as good as the MBP can be.