Apple rebooting problem hits us…

December 31, 2006 By

Patrick’s brand new 15-inch MacBookPro is randomly rebooting (happened twice in 15 minutes, and four times on Thursday). I thought it was only happening to MacBooks, not the MacBookPros. My son is learning that blind allegience to a company (he’s Apple’s biggest fan) comes with pain too. Anyone else have this problem?

Patrick’s off to the Apple store to see what they say.

As a comparison, I have three PCs. Two of which have never crashed in their entire lifetimes. And I use my PCs nearly around the clock. I have two Macs too and haven’t seen this problem on those.

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  • Christopher Coulter

    “They say The User lives outside the Net and inputs games for pleasure. No one knows for sure, but I intend to find out.”

    “ReBoot!”

    http://www.inwap.com/mf/reboot/index.shtml

  • Christopher Coulter

    “They say The User lives outside the Net and inputs games for pleasure. No one knows for sure, but I intend to find out.”

    “ReBoot!”

    http://www.inwap.com/mf/reboot/index.shtml

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    LayZ: nah, we just left it at the store.

    I had a problem when I worked at a small company (Fawcette) before anyone knew who I was and Dell took care of me promptly. Same at Microsoft when I had a problem two years ago. I admit that Dell has had lots of problems of its own (Shel Israel had tons of problems with them). But, then, Dell hasn’t been overhyped as being “the company of the year” either.

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    LayZ: nah, we just left it at the store.

    I had a problem when I worked at a small company (Fawcette) before anyone knew who I was and Dell took care of me promptly. Same at Microsoft when I had a problem two years ago. I admit that Dell has had lots of problems of its own (Shel Israel had tons of problems with them). But, then, Dell hasn’t been overhyped as being “the company of the year” either.

  • Moose A Moose

    Apple’s hardware quality has taken a nose dive since they’ve been pumping computers out in large numbers. The old Macs that I used to own back in the “real” Mac days of old (8-9.2) were damn near bulletproof. Since they made so few of them compared to now, the quality was higher IMO. I NEVER had a problem with the several Macs I did own. I loved the old beige Macs. They were beautiful machines. I miss the old days.

  • Moose A Moose

    Apple’s hardware quality has taken a nose dive since they’ve been pumping computers out in large numbers. The old Macs that I used to own back in the “real” Mac days of old (8-9.2) were damn near bulletproof. Since they made so few of them compared to now, the quality was higher IMO. I NEVER had a problem with the several Macs I did own. I loved the old beige Macs. They were beautiful machines. I miss the old days.

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    Moose: my brother-in-law who works on the Mac team agrees with you. They’ve ramped up the quantity and he said that has brought quality down.

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    Moose: my brother-in-law who works on the Mac team agrees with you. They’ve ramped up the quantity and he said that has brought quality down.

  • Moose A Moose

    Robert,

    Indeed. Always happens that way, unfortunately. I left the Mac world when OS X came out and went back to the PC. My computer needs were easily met with the old Mac OS. It was simple, it worked fine for what I did and do — surf, read email, and work on book writing. I loved OS 8/9. I tried OS X twice: once when it came out, and again this year on a new MacBook — and I left it for the PC again both times. I think computers in general have become too complicated.

    I also firmly believe that Macs and PCs are grossly overpriced. If you look at the constituent parts of a computer and add them up in terms of value, paying $2000+ for a computer is nuts.

  • Moose A Moose

    Robert,

    Indeed. Always happens that way, unfortunately. I left the Mac world when OS X came out and went back to the PC. My computer needs were easily met with the old Mac OS. It was simple, it worked fine for what I did and do — surf, read email, and work on book writing. I loved OS 8/9. I tried OS X twice: once when it came out, and again this year on a new MacBook — and I left it for the PC again both times. I think computers in general have become too complicated.

    I also firmly believe that Macs and PCs are grossly overpriced. If you look at the constituent parts of a computer and add them up in terms of value, paying $2000+ for a computer is nuts.

  • Joe

    This is whay I ahven’t purchased a Mac, while I’ve been tmepted to buy a Mac Book pro and simply duel boot it,Iv’e had a few Mac friend tell me that their experience with the quaility of the their purchases has been somewhat disappointing.
    Another thing that seems troubling is Apples lack of responce on the subject.

    Mac world is only a few days away and I would like to see a major redo of the Macbook pro line, I would like to see IBM/Lenovo thinkpad quality and durability in the next revision.

  • Joe

    This is whay I ahven’t purchased a Mac, while I’ve been tmepted to buy a Mac Book pro and simply duel boot it,Iv’e had a few Mac friend tell me that their experience with the quaility of the their purchases has been somewhat disappointing.
    Another thing that seems troubling is Apples lack of responce on the subject.

    Mac world is only a few days away and I would like to see a major redo of the Macbook pro line, I would like to see IBM/Lenovo thinkpad quality and durability in the next revision.

  • Donal

    Another possibility is that the power supply unit itself is overheating and shuts down as a result. I had a new PC at work last year that would do that.

    Whatever the cause, you should insist on a replacement – a repair lets them off the hook too easily. Even if the cause is rectified, who knows what other internal components have had their lives shortened as a result?

  • Donal

    Another possibility is that the power supply unit itself is overheating and shuts down as a result. I had a new PC at work last year that would do that.

    Whatever the cause, you should insist on a replacement – a repair lets them off the hook too easily. Even if the cause is rectified, who knows what other internal components have had their lives shortened as a result?

  • http://www.forbinproject.org/blog Justin Broderick

    Hey Robert,

    I had the same problem first with a MacBookPro and then my partners MacBook. After going thru all the software updates and taking them to the Apple Store and having to get a little irate and making a scene.. they were finally replaced by Apple.

    I do think that since they shifted over to Intel they are having some growing pains. But what makes it worse is the attitude of the Apple Store employees that always treat you like either an a-hole or an idiot :(

  • http://www.forbinproject.org/blog Justin Broderick

    Hey Robert,

    I had the same problem first with a MacBookPro and then my partners MacBook. After going thru all the software updates and taking them to the Apple Store and having to get a little irate and making a scene.. they were finally replaced by Apple.

    I do think that since they shifted over to Intel they are having some growing pains. But what makes it worse is the attitude of the Apple Store employees that always treat you like either an a-hole or an idiot :(

  • http://nihilisten.wordpress.com/ nihilisten
  • http://nihilisten.wordpress.com/ nihilisten
  • http://webimpact.wordpress.com/ Corinne

    Apple’s got us wrapped around their little fingers and it’s all because of planned failure. I’m absolutely convinced of it.

  • http://webimpact.wordpress.com/ Corinne

    Apple’s got us wrapped around their little fingers and it’s all because of planned failure. I’m absolutely convinced of it.

  • Chris Hearn

    Apple’s not doing so bad. Imagine if it had been the other way around: Windows switching to a different architecture for whatever reason. How many problems do you think they would have? Windows had been Intel based since day 1, and it took them long enough to get that dreaded BSOD under control.

    All I’m saying is, give Apple some credit. They’ve done a pretty good job with a major OS overhaul, as well as an entirely new product line. Yeah, they’ll have a few bugs to work out, but who doesn’t?

    -Chris. Typed from a 15″ MacBook Pro, with 0 problems to date (knock on wood). :)

  • Chris Hearn

    Apple’s not doing so bad. Imagine if it had been the other way around: Windows switching to a different architecture for whatever reason. How many problems do you think they would have? Windows had been Intel based since day 1, and it took them long enough to get that dreaded BSOD under control.

    All I’m saying is, give Apple some credit. They’ve done a pretty good job with a major OS overhaul, as well as an entirely new product line. Yeah, they’ll have a few bugs to work out, but who doesn’t?

    -Chris. Typed from a 15″ MacBook Pro, with 0 problems to date (knock on wood). :)

  • DAG

    “Upon doing some research and testing with the disc utilities that ship with the machine, it turned out I had some bad RAM”

    Macs have long been known to be picky about their memory modules. Memory sticks that work just fine in other units will behave badly in just about any Mac. Many a strange and seemingly insoluble Mac problem shows immediate improvement when after-market RAM is taken out. Don’t ask me why- but it seems a constant with Apple HW.

  • DAG

    “Upon doing some research and testing with the disc utilities that ship with the machine, it turned out I had some bad RAM”

    Macs have long been known to be picky about their memory modules. Memory sticks that work just fine in other units will behave badly in just about any Mac. Many a strange and seemingly insoluble Mac problem shows immediate improvement when after-market RAM is taken out. Don’t ask me why- but it seems a constant with Apple HW.

  • RetiredMidn

    Robert, do the spontaneous reboots occur when it’s running on battery?

    I experienced similar symptoms with my MacBook Pro that turned out to be resolved by battery replacement. Before any of the Sony battery recalls (my machine was probably in the second or third week of shipments), my battery was exhibiting the “swelling” symptoms that seem to be occurring in some more recent models. I now suspect that the battary voltage was periodically dropping to zero and resettting the laptop.

    FWIW, after “due diligence” to ensure that the cause wasn’t more mundane, the local Apple Genius decided to replace the battery, apologized for not having one in stock, promised availability in 3-4 days, and called to tell me it was available in two. While I would rather the problem hadn’t occurred at all, I can’t fault the service I received.

    FWIW, my co-workers who wouldn’t even look at a Mac are foaming-at-the-mouth angry at Dell over the unreliability and poor service response we have been receiving for the Dell laptops and desktops we have been equipping our new employees with. For me, it hasn’t been much different from the pain I’ve experienced with Wintel systems in previous jobs,

  • RetiredMidn

    Robert, do the spontaneous reboots occur when it’s running on battery?

    I experienced similar symptoms with my MacBook Pro that turned out to be resolved by battery replacement. Before any of the Sony battery recalls (my machine was probably in the second or third week of shipments), my battery was exhibiting the “swelling” symptoms that seem to be occurring in some more recent models. I now suspect that the battary voltage was periodically dropping to zero and resettting the laptop.

    FWIW, after “due diligence” to ensure that the cause wasn’t more mundane, the local Apple Genius decided to replace the battery, apologized for not having one in stock, promised availability in 3-4 days, and called to tell me it was available in two. While I would rather the problem hadn’t occurred at all, I can’t fault the service I received.

    FWIW, my co-workers who wouldn’t even look at a Mac are foaming-at-the-mouth angry at Dell over the unreliability and poor service response we have been receiving for the Dell laptops and desktops we have been equipping our new employees with. For me, it hasn’t been much different from the pain I’ve experienced with Wintel systems in previous jobs,

  • http://neouto.wordpress.com/ neouto

    “I have three PCs. Two of which have never crashed in their entire lifetimes.”

    Never crushed? wow thats nice, but come to think of it ever since i got my new asus notebook, it hasnt crush much either. i couldnt say the same for my old notebook tho.

    for some reason, i have always have a image of PC=Crush.

  • http://neouto.wordpress.com/ neouto

    “I have three PCs. Two of which have never crashed in their entire lifetimes.”

    Never crushed? wow thats nice, but come to think of it ever since i got my new asus notebook, it hasnt crush much either. i couldnt say the same for my old notebook tho.

    for some reason, i have always have a image of PC=Crush.

  • http://www.ringnokia.com/ Stefan Constantinescu

    should’ve got a thinkpad

  • http://www.ringnokia.com Stefan Constantinescu

    should’ve got a thinkpad

  • http://tdjc.be/ drmike

    *chuckle* My brand new iPod is randomly rebooting. 4 times in teh 90 minute walk to get to the coffee shop here this morning. Does that count?

    Gotta admit that I don’t think much of Dell myself. When I had my Dell servers, I’d hear from their sales people while waiting to hear back from their tech folks. I wasn’t too happy about that.

    Regards,
    -drmike

  • http://tdjc.be drmike

    *chuckle* My brand new iPod is randomly rebooting. 4 times in teh 90 minute walk to get to the coffee shop here this morning. Does that count?

    Gotta admit that I don’t think much of Dell myself. When I had my Dell servers, I’d hear from their sales people while waiting to hear back from their tech folks. I wasn’t too happy about that.

    Regards,
    -drmike

  • http://www.stat.ucla.edu/~jose HG

    We’ve been a 90% Mac shop on the desktop and in servers for the past five years–switching from Sun and Windows. We buy machines in batches between 10 to 50 at a time. We’ve noticed hardware problems clustering around lots of computers manufactured in the same time and place. But this has been so infrequent as to not be considered systemic. When it’s happened, its affected about 1% of the purchased machines.

    When a Mac does run well, it is an experience that everyone I’ve met typically appreciates, be they student gamer or researcher working with Windows. Recently we couldn’t get a Dell fast enough for a number crunching project which had a deadline of a week. We deployed an Intel Mac Pro 3 GHz system running Windows Server 2003 instead. Needless to say, the researchers got their work done and were blown away by the revelation that Apple hardware could do this.

    We have labs and servers running Mac OS X. The labs have thousands of students hitting them weekly. They don’t crash.

    We administer about 200 desktop and laptop systems and about 15 servers. Over the years, I noticed my colleagues in other departments would be stamping out Windows vulnerabilities while our systems would be running. Maybe that’s security by obscurity, but it’s been great for us (so far). Generally, I see it takes about 2.5 times the number of workers to administror Windows systems as it does Mac systems. We’re basically two adminstrators, so we’d have to add three more to run Windows. For a small department such as ours that’s a great savings of money.

    Please don’t take this confession too far. There’s no science behind it, but I felt it needed saying just to balance out the critique.

  • http://www.stat.ucla.edu/~jose HG

    We’ve been a 90% Mac shop on the desktop and in servers for the past five years–switching from Sun and Windows. We buy machines in batches between 10 to 50 at a time. We’ve noticed hardware problems clustering around lots of computers manufactured in the same time and place. But this has been so infrequent as to not be considered systemic. When it’s happened, its affected about 1% of the purchased machines.

    When a Mac does run well, it is an experience that everyone I’ve met typically appreciates, be they student gamer or researcher working with Windows. Recently we couldn’t get a Dell fast enough for a number crunching project which had a deadline of a week. We deployed an Intel Mac Pro 3 GHz system running Windows Server 2003 instead. Needless to say, the researchers got their work done and were blown away by the revelation that Apple hardware could do this.

    We have labs and servers running Mac OS X. The labs have thousands of students hitting them weekly. They don’t crash.

    We administer about 200 desktop and laptop systems and about 15 servers. Over the years, I noticed my colleagues in other departments would be stamping out Windows vulnerabilities while our systems would be running. Maybe that’s security by obscurity, but it’s been great for us (so far). Generally, I see it takes about 2.5 times the number of workers to administror Windows systems as it does Mac systems. We’re basically two adminstrators, so we’d have to add three more to run Windows. For a small department such as ours that’s a great savings of money.

    Please don’t take this confession too far. There’s no science behind it, but I felt it needed saying just to balance out the critique.

  • http://thisblogtitleforsale.com/ rich (richmanwisco)

    Gee, apples are computers,too. Who knew?

  • http://thisblogtitleforsale.com rich (richmanwisco)

    Gee, apples are computers,too. Who knew?

  • Luke

    Chris Hearn, NT has been run on intel, Alpha, MIPS, and PPC, with no problems. And, according to Jobs, OSX has been running on intel for years (internally at Apple). So Apple can’t use the “hardware switch” as an excuse for the lower build quality.

    I have a 2002 PowerBook, and its build quality is miles ahead of the computers that Apple is shovelling out today.

  • Luke

    Chris Hearn, NT has been run on intel, Alpha, MIPS, and PPC, with no problems. And, according to Jobs, OSX has been running on intel for years (internally at Apple). So Apple can’t use the “hardware switch” as an excuse for the lower build quality.

    I have a 2002 PowerBook, and its build quality is miles ahead of the computers that Apple is shovelling out today.

  • rj malfalfa

    your sons blind allegance will be ok-your son is smart cause Apple’s come with great integrated software-unlike any PC ive tested or ben given lately-
    the rebooting problem will be fixed-at least there is an Apple store to go to for help-brand new PC and needs help from Microsoft store or HP store or even a close by Dell Store-not going to happen-

    so wait and see before you get DOWN on apple products-I run a lab of new PC’s-they always cause me major trouble-our apple lab-never a problem-

    thanks for listening RJ Malfalfa

  • rj malfalfa

    your sons blind allegance will be ok-your son is smart cause Apple’s come with great integrated software-unlike any PC ive tested or ben given lately-
    the rebooting problem will be fixed-at least there is an Apple store to go to for help-brand new PC and needs help from Microsoft store or HP store or even a close by Dell Store-not going to happen-

    so wait and see before you get DOWN on apple products-I run a lab of new PC’s-they always cause me major trouble-our apple lab-never a problem-

    thanks for listening RJ Malfalfa

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    RJ: Microsoft’s products are sold in a lot more stores than Apple ones are. Best Buy and Fry’s are FAR bigger stores (and have much better return policies) than Apple stores do. Oh, so does Walmart and Costco (Costco lets you return PCs for any reason up to a year after purchase, they don’t even need to be defective like my son’s Apple product is).

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    RJ: Microsoft’s products are sold in a lot more stores than Apple ones are. Best Buy and Fry’s are FAR bigger stores (and have much better return policies) than Apple stores do. Oh, so does Walmart and Costco (Costco lets you return PCs for any reason up to a year after purchase, they don’t even need to be defective like my son’s Apple product is).

  • http://thunderlounge.com/ Luke

    Crazy. I hadn’t heard about this popping its head up since the C2D switch. Although I’ll admit I’ve kinda let my reading slip a bit over the past month due to project commitments.

    Sorry to hear about it though. :(

    But, it happens. Doesn’t matter what you buy.

    Part of the adaptation to the Intel world I guess. But overall it is getting better. The whole “running on Intel since” is kind of a crock, IMHO. Running it on a test bench, and on mass produced machines are entirely two separate things. Not to mention the percentage of machines that have an issue compared to those which don’t is very small.

    I’ll take an Apple with a bite out of it any day over something that requires penicillin! :D

  • http://thunderlounge.com/ Luke

    Crazy. I hadn’t heard about this popping its head up since the C2D switch. Although I’ll admit I’ve kinda let my reading slip a bit over the past month due to project commitments.

    Sorry to hear about it though. :(

    But, it happens. Doesn’t matter what you buy.

    Part of the adaptation to the Intel world I guess. But overall it is getting better. The whole “running on Intel since” is kind of a crock, IMHO. Running it on a test bench, and on mass produced machines are entirely two separate things. Not to mention the percentage of machines that have an issue compared to those which don’t is very small.

    I’ll take an Apple with a bite out of it any day over something that requires penicillin! :D

  • http://vondiggity.wordpress.com/ vondiggity

    Ha! Dell Tech support! I worked in a computer lab that had some Dell machines, and one of them had its powersupply go up in smoke. No big deal, its under warranty. Well, I called the Dell tech support line, and the tech rep on the other end wanted me to run the Dell diagnostics! This was even after I explained to him that the powersupply caught on fire. For now when I need PC’s I go to Gateway. Much better tech support on the business side.

  • http://vondiggity.wordpress.com/ vondiggity

    Ha! Dell Tech support! I worked in a computer lab that had some Dell machines, and one of them had its powersupply go up in smoke. No big deal, its under warranty. Well, I called the Dell tech support line, and the tech rep on the other end wanted me to run the Dell diagnostics! This was even after I explained to him that the powersupply caught on fire. For now when I need PC’s I go to Gateway. Much better tech support on the business side.

  • Jayakumar Hariharan

    Did I tell you about my visit to the Apple Store in Forum, Bangalore some months back?

    Well, the store had perhaps six visitors at that time, but for some reason, me and my son Sriduth were invisible to the Apple “Professionals” in the store. After maybe half an hour, we walked out and Apple lost one iPod sale!

    I wrote about this to every apple email id I could find, but is yet to get a response.

    Jay, from Bangalore
    http://ideaburger.blogspot.com

  • Jayakumar Hariharan

    Did I tell you about my visit to the Apple Store in Forum, Bangalore some months back?

    Well, the store had perhaps six visitors at that time, but for some reason, me and my son Sriduth were invisible to the Apple “Professionals” in the store. After maybe half an hour, we walked out and Apple lost one iPod sale!

    I wrote about this to every apple email id I could find, but is yet to get a response.

    Jay, from Bangalore
    http://ideaburger.blogspot.com

  • Phil

    Had the same problem. I had my memory upgraded at the store, before I picked the M-Pro up. When I got it home, it started rebooting all over the place. Took it back; they swapped out the memory chip for a new one; never a problem since. Happy customer here.

  • Phil

    Had the same problem. I had my memory upgraded at the store, before I picked the M-Pro up. When I got it home, it started rebooting all over the place. Took it back; they swapped out the memory chip for a new one; never a problem since. Happy customer here.

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