Apple sued over defective PowerBook memory slots

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Apple is facing a new class-action lawsuit that charges the company with failing to fully recognize the scope of a memory slot defect in its PowerBook G4 notebooks, which has left thousands of customers with no choice but to foot hefty repair costs on their own.



New York resident Giorgio Gomelsky filed the 19-page complaint in a Northern California court last week on behalf of himself and all similarly-situated complainants who purchased an Apple PowerBook manufactured with defective memory slots from January 1, 2003 to the present.



Specifically, the suit alleges that the earlier generation Mac notebooks contain a defect that manifests itself when an owner tries to add additional memory to the first or second memory slot available in most PowerBooks, namely the PowerBook G4



"Typically, when the additional memory is added, the PowerBook does not recognize the memory, resulting in slower processing speeds, decreased computer function and other computing problems," the complaint says. "Unfortunately for consumers, because both memory slots are hardwired to the PowerBook's motherboard, consumers who choose to repair the defect can incur costs of more than $500 in parts and labor."



Faced with complaints over the matter, Apple initiated a Memory Slot Repair Extension Program covering 15-inch 1.67 and 1.5GHz PowerBook G4s manufactured between January 2005 and April 2005, which expired on July 24th. The suit alleges, however, that the scope of the problem extended well beyond the range of PowerBooks that the Mac maker agreed to cover as part of the program.



Gomelsky was one of "tens of thousands of people nationwide" that purchased PowerBooks with defective memory slots, and whose notebook's serial numbers fell outside the range of serial numbers provide by Apple, according to the complaint. This has left those customers with "no recourse other than to repair the defective memory slots at their own expense."



Attorneys for Gomelsky are seeking compensatory damages in the form of reimbursement of expenses incurred by their client and other class members who've had to pay out of their own pocket to repair the damaged memory slots. As part of their claim, they charge the Cupertino-based company with a litany of offenses, including violations of the California business code, breach of warranty, negligence and unjust enrichment.



The complaint further alleges that Apple failed to provide adequate notice of the Extended Warranty and didn't contact PowerBook G4 owners to inform them that they may be covered under the warranty before it expired. Since the defect sometimes takes months or years to manifest, customers who've just begun to discover the flaw will be unable to receive reimbursement for repairs now that the Extended Warranty has expired, it adds.



After being denied repairs, Gomelsky reportedly wrote a letter that was mailed to Apple's Cupertino-based offices back in December of 2006. He received a written reply, which again denied his request for a repair. In March of the following year, he wrote another letter to the company, citing online petitions and "the thousands of complaints posted on internet forums by owners of PowerBooks with defective memory slots"



When his second letter went unanswered, Gomelsky lodged a complaint with the Attorney General of California, according to the suit.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 56
    I had this problem. My serial number was out of range. I had no AppleCare and my warranty was out.



    I called Apple and they made good on it anyway. I got a whole new logic board and all the labor for free.



    This doesn't absolve anyone of anything -- but it may be illustrative of the nature of Apple as a whole system. They really do take care of their customers.
  • Reply 2 of 56
    nagrommenagromme Posts: 2,834member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Prufrock View Post


    I had this problem. My serial number was out of range. I had no AppleCare and my warranty was out.



    I called Apple and they made good on it anyway. I got a whole new logic board and all the labor for free.



    This doesn't absolve anyone of anything -- but it may be illustrative of the nature of Apple as a whole system. They really do take care of their customers.



    Agreed--but officially addressing it is better than unofficially, so if the problem extends to other models, then so should their extended repair program.



    And I expect that's just what will happen. Plus some lawyers will get some money
  • Reply 3 of 56
    lol come on apple fans gather around. Apple messed up... lets give them our blessings. Lets tell ourselves why it is okay they screwed up this time. I know why I know why! Don't blame apple..! It is ok because they make funny commercials about their competitor PC! Woot go apple! lol Sheesh... you guys make me want to throw my mac up against the wall...
  • Reply 4 of 56
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Prufrock View Post


    I had this problem. My serial number was out of range. I had no AppleCare and my warranty was out.



    I called Apple and they made good on it anyway. I got a whole new logic board and all the labor for free.



    This doesn't absolve anyone of anything -- but it may be illustrative of the nature of Apple as a whole system. They really do take care of their customers.



    I had a dual G5 from h#$%....in the shop 7 times. Apple not only covered it all, but the last repairs were 6 weeks after the Applecare ended and they extended it by 3 months for that fix. I've since sold it and it has not had any more problems.
  • Reply 5 of 56
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Prufrock View Post


    I had this problem. My serial number was out of range. I had no AppleCare and my warranty was out.



    I called Apple and they made good on it anyway. I got a whole new logic board and all the labor for free.



    This doesn't absolve anyone of anything -- but it may be illustrative of the nature of Apple as a whole system. They really do take care of their customers.





    I had the same situation. No apple care and out of range serial. I coughed up the $300 to fix the logic board. After a month in the shop and a couple hours on the phone they simply migrated my data to a brand new macbook pro. Not a bad deal at all. $300 and a month without a computer in exchange for an upgrade to a better intel machine. Go Apple!
  • Reply 6 of 56
    Why didn't these people figure out the memory slot problem during the initial one-year warranty period?
  • Reply 7 of 56
    Yeah, sure, Daniel0418, you're a Mac user. Yeah, I believe that. Doesn't everyone here?



    Your tone and diction betray your true nature, sir, and it isn't Apple-centric. We all know that this company makes mistakes; ALL do. Nevertheless, they hit a great many more home runs than strike-outs, hence the overwhelming support you see on sites such as these.



    The fact is that your acerbic invective belies your true WinDell proclivities. You are clearly outside the circle of those who have chosen the True Way. Admit it; it will do your heart good. (And then go purge your bowels of the hatred that is so solidly lodged there.)
  • Reply 8 of 56
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hillstones View Post


    Why didn't these people figure out the memory slot problem during the initial one-year warranty period?



    I did not find out about my memory problem until this summer. I took out a 512 stick and put in a 1gig stick. Thats when the slot stopped working. I checked the pins, nothing is bent or wrong with the slot. I put the new memory in the top bay and no problems with that card. I tried the old card and still nothing. I didn't call apple because of many reasons. #1 my laptop is out of warrenty & #2 I know they will ask 'Did you buy Apple ram or third party ram?' Everytime I have sent my laptop in I get it back with out the third party memory in the unit forcing me to put the memory back into the the unit. Rather agravating that it's actually a known issue and I am stuck at 1gig ram instead of 2gig ram.



    If anyone from apple reads these boards, would sure love a comment back as to how I can get this repaired with no cost to myself.



    1.25Ghz PB G4



    Kurt
  • Reply 9 of 56
    messiahmessiah Posts: 1,689member
    I had a similar situation with a colleagues MacBook Pro which he purchased directly from Apple.



    I knew something was up when it had a single 1GB DIMM in it, as opposed to the two 512GB DIMMs in every other similar MacBook Pro. Sure enough, as soon as I installed any other DIMM in the second slot if started to KP. I must have tried four or five different DIMMs in there, and they all caused the same problems.



    I'm a bit suspicious that it left the factory with a single 1GB DIMM installed...
  • Reply 10 of 56
    Let me be the first to say ... WAH!



    Powerbooks are hardly even usable machines anymore. Get over it and try to lower your sense of entitlement.
  • Reply 11 of 56
    robb01robb01 Posts: 148member
    That's so true, what a sad thing



    _________________

  • Reply 12 of 56
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Messiah View Post


    I knew something was up when it had a single 1GB DIMM in it, as opposed to the two 512GB DIMMs in every other similar MacBook Pro.



    As I recall, as RAM prices fell, they did make all the MBPs use a single stick instead of spacing out over two slots. While this is a bit fishy, since they don't currently do this, knowingly shipping faulty HW and expecting that people wouldn't use the 2nd RAM slot doesn't sound like a a reasonable conclusion to me.
  • Reply 13 of 56
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hillstones View Post


    Why didn't these people figure out the memory slot problem during the initial one-year warranty period?



    A good number of failures can be from heating and cooling of components poorly designed or manufactured. Time is a factor. More is worse. Anything made of more than one material (each of which have different expansion rates) can separate over time. We had Apple IIs with DIP socketed RAM that failed after several years and needed cleaning and re-seating. Generally solid connections as are used in most computers today are more reliable. Look at original iBook keyboards keyboards to see what happens with a first stab at layered materials and heat. RAM sockets still fall into this category because there is a physical connection plus heating and cooling. Last machines I saw with more than a rare such failures were the original Bondi iMacs. Not to mention that swapping RAM in those was like working inside a vacuum cleaner bag.



    @daniel: you'll notice that sentiments here are running strongly in favor of the users and hoping Apple steps up and settles / fixes the issue.
  • Reply 14 of 56
    emig647emig647 Posts: 2,455member
    Ok I had this happen with me on my 1.25ghz g4 PB. I BEGGED apple to fix it, and they wouldn't. I ended up selling the powerbook for next to nothing so I could upgrade. This happened before the Intels even came out... wth do they expect? This is like 4 years AFTER THE FACT. I even tried to get on board with a class action lawsuit on this back then that never developed. From what i was told there were a few going on about this... but I guess they all backed out once apple did the 1.5->1.67 repairs... man this pisses me off.
  • Reply 15 of 56
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hillstones View Post


    Why didn't these people figure out the memory slot problem during the initial one-year warranty period?



    Not everyone goes out to buy more memory during the first year they own a laptop.
  • Reply 16 of 56
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Virgil-TB2 View Post


    Let me be the first to say ... WAH!



    Powerbooks are hardly even usable machines anymore. Get over it and try to lower your sense of entitlement.



    They are quite usable. Even with Leopard installed.
  • Reply 17 of 56
    I got my PB in July of 2005. This happened to me...twice. First time I was under warranty, and they replaced it. Second time, I wasn't so lucky. No matter how much I begged and pleaded, they wouldn't replace it, so I'm stuck with 1 GB of RAM.
  • Reply 18 of 56
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hillstones View Post


    Why didn't these people figure out the memory slot problem during the initial one-year warranty period?



    folks find out that there is a problem because they try to coax extra life out of a computer system that is way beyond its time and then they scream foul because they have to pay for repairs. what is even more amusing is that they could have taken that money and ended up with a much better computer for the same amount.



    if you walk in with a 'tude, you aren't going to get anything. screaming and cussing ain't the way. if you walk in and talk to them nicely, most companies will bend over to help you out. be it a replacement, a free repair or a discount on a new system. if you are nice to them, they are nice to you. if you are an ass, sorry but this is a 5 year old machine way past even the extended warranty if you hadn't been a total miser and refused to buy it and you are SOL.
  • Reply 19 of 56
    cubertcubert Posts: 728member
    Holy crap, I'm one of these! My 1.5GHz PowerBook (July 2004 rev. - the second to last PowerBook revision) has had the exact same problem! I thought it was an isolated issue and decided to suck it up and not do anything about it as it happened outside the 3 year warranty.
  • Reply 20 of 56
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    knowingly shipping faulty HW



    and your proof that Apple 'knowingly' did anything is? do you have some internal company memo where they confess this information.



    to say that they knew they were shipping bad machines and hoped no one figured it out until all warranties were over is a bit like saying that the iphone team researched every way of unlocking the phones and made sure that their software updates 100% bricked all methods -- rather than the more likely truth which is that they didn't bother making sure the updates didn't brick tampered phones.
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