R8442269
That would be my AppleCare support incident number. I feel it is only fair to list the bad things that I have experienced with my MacBook Pro along with the good things I have listed in previous posts (here, and here). On Wednesday of last week, I was at home and using my laptop to play World of Warcraft when the screen went dark. I don’t say blank because the display was still showing data, just no backlight. So iputzed with it for a while to verify it wasn’t a software issue, but the subtle fritzing noise that happened from the bottom left hand corner of the screen when I powered it on pretty much convinced me that the inverter board had burned out. (The inverter board is the thing that converts the DC power that comes from the battery to AC current to power the backlight.)
Side note: This kind of problem is what I usually refer to as “infant death syndrome.” Most parts in a computer either die very early in their life or last for their expected (long) lifetime. I have ahd this happen with several computers in the past, so while annoying, it wasn’t overly surpising.
So on Thursday I drove up to the Apple store in Richmond and made myself known to the Genius Bar. Being a rainy day in the middle of the week, Chris was able to help me almost immediately. He asked what was up as he was finishing with his last customer. I explained the problem and he nodded. We booted up the laptop, he verified that there was actually video even though the backlight was dead and confirmed it was the inverter board. He filled out some paperwork and my laptop was prepared to take a voyage further west than i had ever been (that would be Texas).
Apple has declared my MacBook Pro fixed and I should be getting it back today. 6 day turnaround seems quite good to me. Oh and it was completely free. I’m obviously not happy that I had a problem, but I was very impressed both with the help at my local Apple store and the speed at which they have taken care of the issue. Let’s just hope it is fixed.