Service Report Melbourne,AUS Metro Area: Dead Pixels + Fan for MacBook
So I got a MacBook 2ghz Core[1]Duo 2gb RAM off eBay. Been tinkering with it for about 1 week, then decided to send it in for a bit of checkup.
Firstly, the 2 sticks of 1gb RAM are not Apple-original, but they are two different brands, so overall that's fine, the likelyhood of failure of both sticks is very low. If 1 stick goes, a replacement is not tragic, in the sense that the eBay price was good.
I checked the hard disk, the 60gb 5400rpm that comes with the White 2ghz MacBook Core[1]Duo appears to be a Seagate Momentus 5400 -- generally a solid 2.5" drive.
The screen showed 1 dead pixel and two white spots... I am happy to report that AppleCentre Malvern in Melbourne metro area technician has said he'll replace the screen. Cool. It's been about 4 days since I first put it in, so maybe another 3-5 working days for next week I could get my MacBook back with the new screen. I will report back here.
Friday Jan 26 is Australia Day, by the way ("The 4th of July of Australia)... Not without of course the challenging issues just like USA of indigenous communities being fracked, etc. etc.
Firstly, the 2 sticks of 1gb RAM are not Apple-original, but they are two different brands, so overall that's fine, the likelyhood of failure of both sticks is very low. If 1 stick goes, a replacement is not tragic, in the sense that the eBay price was good.
I checked the hard disk, the 60gb 5400rpm that comes with the White 2ghz MacBook Core[1]Duo appears to be a Seagate Momentus 5400 -- generally a solid 2.5" drive.
The screen showed 1 dead pixel and two white spots... I am happy to report that AppleCentre Malvern in Melbourne metro area technician has said he'll replace the screen. Cool. It's been about 4 days since I first put it in, so maybe another 3-5 working days for next week I could get my MacBook back with the new screen. I will report back here.
Friday Jan 26 is Australia Day, by the way ("The 4th of July of Australia)... Not without of course the challenging issues just like USA of indigenous communities being fracked, etc. etc.
Comments
The MacBook though is very good with 2gb of RAM, handling Rosetta of Photoshop and Flash/Fireworks, for example, and Parallels (build 1920, IIRC) WinXP2 runs very snappy. Though demanding Rosetta and Parallels at the same time does bring on some delays.
The only issue is fan noise/ speed. There is one fan in the MacBook, whereas two in the MacBookPro. The MacBookPro Core2Duo heat and fan issues seem to be handled very well (though the screen continues to be a bit "grainy" for the matte version.
The MacBook Core[1]Duo runs as follows, and I believe thermals for MacBook Core2Duo may be slightly better but hard to say, running both cores 100% load of the MacBook Core2Duo yields similar strong fan noise from my brief testing of a demo model.
MacBook Core[1]Duo:
Minimum rpm 1500rpm - 40-50degC, simple tasks
2800rom - 50-55degC, quite a number of Intel native applications running (30% average CPU load both cores)
*Okay, kinda blends into background noise*
3500-4500rpm - 65degC --> Adobe/Macromedia in Rosetta 2gb
Also, Parallels WinXP2 when Windows has a process or two running away with 100% CPU in Windows...
*Noticable noise*
6200 max rpm, 85degC --> Max load of about 80% both cores, eg. H.264 or other video encoding.
*LOUD*
I have placed my MacBook on "Cool Feet" (quite nice, http://www.cableyoyo.com/coolfeethome.html )
The Service Centre has said that my fan noise is normal even when fully ramped. In so far as fan speed does move with processor load, this is kinda okay. It's just my perfectionist nature.
There's huge threads going on with the revA MacBook heat/fan, but given it's power especially what I experience at the maxed 2gb of RAM, and with the current 5400rpm, it's kind of acceptable.
Any reports would be handy. Thanks.
BTW I use SMCFanControl app to set the fan speed, so I can adjust it to higher to run a bit cooler as I feel (control freak kinda thing, possibly..!) and to prevent fan speed ramping up and down.
Anyway, thoughts, rambling, and reports, feel free to say whatever, on this thread.
will be my first mac
will be using for adobe flash too.
Friday Jan 26 is Australia Day, by the way ("The 4th of July of Australia)... Not without of course the challenging issues just like USA of indigenous communities being fracked, etc. etc.
Australia Day is so far from being anything like the Fourth of July. To my knowledge, July 4th is celebrated because that was the day that the Americans became independant from the English. Something we Australians have yet to do.
Australia Day marks the day that Govenor Phillip and the first fleet arrived in Sydney Harbour in 1788, basically the day that white man came to Australia for good.
Sorry to be a stickler, but it annoys me when people make historical comparrisons that are so far off. If you were making a comparrison to the two days being public holidays... then maybe I'll let it through.
Australia Day is so far from being anything like the Fourth of July. To my knowledge, July 4th is celebrated because that was the day that the Americans became independant from the English. Something we Australians have yet to do.
Australia Day marks the day that Govenor Phillip and the first fleet arrived in Sydney Harbour in 1788, basically the day that white man came to Australia for good.
Sorry to be a stickler, but it annoys me when people make historical comparrisons that are so far off. If you were making a comparrison to the two days being public holidays... then maybe I'll let it through.
I was trying to make things "simple" for the North Americans reading this. But yes, if we were to delve deeper into it, Australia Day has many, many, many issues and is nothing close to the 4th of July besides being a "national holiday where you wave the flag lots and have a few (or more) drinks". Most Australians would be happy to wear a flag, have a beer, and sing Waltzing Matilda, enjoy the fireworks, and that's about it. That's most of what I saw in downtown Melbourne anyway. Nary a recognition of the aboriginal people that were here first anywhere to be seen... And it's 2007. At least there wasn't much violence or over-patriotism....