MacBook Pro laptop update ? massive Apple Care covered repairs save the day!

Some readers have asked for an update on the incessant blowing fan saga regarding my relatively new MacBook Pro. ?Last week, I took it to the Apple store. ?The fan was totally freaking out, the laptop was overheating as a result, and I was close to panic. ?So I did a week’s worth of work ahead of time so I could be without the laptop while it was repaired.

And boy, did it need repair. ?The problem? ?It had taken in so much dust in the 15 or so months I’ve had it, the fans gunked up to the point of shorting out a circuit in the logic board. ?This blew out the heat sensor, blew out the backlighting on the keyboard (which frankly, I hadn’t noticed was gone), blew out the fan mechanism, and if I hadn’t taken it in when I did, who knows what else would have gotten blown out. ?The repairs? ?New logic board, new keyboard, new fans, new top casing, new circuitry….almost a total rehab.

Before you start making cracks about how I need to clean my apartment more often, I’m pretty sure this is a design flaw in the MacBook Pro. ?I’ve never had this problem with any other laptop, including a previous Powerbook G4. ?I think the fan intake may be too large, which leads to sucking in way too much dust over time. ?The back of the MacBook Pro has a pretty wide intake, almost the width of the laptop, probably to address previous documented histories of Apple laptops running very hot. ?The fix may have created another problem – heavy air intake, which leads to heavy dust gunking, which leads to near catastrophe.

The Apple store guy said to prevent this, I should get a can of compressed air and blast it into the back of the laptop every month or so. ?Believe me, I’m gonna do just that. ?But I’m also emailing this post to Apple folks as a heads up about this problem, and if any of my readers have this model MacBook Pro, go out right now, get Apple Care long term coverage for repairs, because if my laptop wasn’t covered, this would have been about a $1,000 or more fix. ?Thanks to Apple Care, I now have a largely brand new laptop, at no cost.

Let the video editing resume!!