Hello,
I purchased my MacBook Air last year and use it for my photography business while I am on the road. *I needed a light and reasonably powerful computer to do editing in the field to check focus, colors, etc. *I was initially pleased with the computer until I started to use it more and put the computer under a bit of load. *After a while of putting the computer under load where the Kernal_Task would go to 170% CPU usage in Activity monitor. *This would cause the computer to become very unresponsive and nearly unusable until Kernal_Task would come down to a reasonable CPU usage level.
While Kernal_Task is at 150-170% the application that I was using becomes unresponsive as well and will drop down to a minimal CPU usage, such as going from fully*utilizing*the processors to using less than 10% of the processors. *I needed the computer on the road for a while and had to put up with the issue until it calmed down enough to where I could call AppleCare and try to solve it. *I setup a Genius Bar appointment and brought the computer in, the Genius was presented the issue and said that it was "normal" and "in spec" when I knew that what I was experiencing on the computer was not.
I then called AppleCare and had it sent in for a mail-in repair and got it back with nothing*relevant*to the issue replaced. *I then setup yet another Genius Bar appointment and demonstrated the issue again (The nearest Apple Store is an hour and a half drive each way). *This time I was there for literally hours because they did an erase and install right in the store, after that finished the issue was demonstrated again in front of the Genius. *This time he escalated the issue to Engineering.
After this I waited about two weeks and then called AppleCare again to check on the issue. *The Genius who I spoke with looked at all of the case notes on the computer and then I spoke with him for about half an hour or so and he came back and said that he would replace the computer for me. *He was very helpful and said that I could go down to the Apple Store and they would replace the computer for me and I would be on my way.
I drive to the Apple Store thinking that all of my troubles with the computer were finally over and I could have a useable computer for when I am on the road. *Although once I get to the Apple Store the Genius looks at the case notes and goes back to consult with the manager and comes back saying that they could not replace my computer in the store because I ordered it online. *He then said that I could call up AppleCare again and that they would replace the computer.
I then proceeded to call AppleCare yet again and talk to another representative. *This time he looked at the case notes and said that he could not replace the computer and that I had been told lies by 2 different people. *He barely offered an*apology*for me getting false hope that my issue would be resolved through the replacement of the computer, for the gas that I wasted to go down to the Apple Store and that I wasted an entire day. *He arranged for yet another mail-in repair and I was without my computer for another couple of days.
I just got the computer back late last week and initially I thought that they had fixed it. *But then it started to have Kernal_Task go to 150% processor utilization yet again so I knew that even another mail-in repair hadn't fixed the issue. *But then it got worse, I had my iPhone plugged into the wall to charge and was answering a text message, I was browsing the web at the same time. *As soon as I touched my MacBook Air it shocked me while I was texting! *I jumped back because of that and then a couple of minutes later, to my horror, the computer started to make a sizzling sound, which I managed to get a recording of. *After I got the recording I immediately shut the computer down and now I'm scared to turn it back on because I don't want it to start a fire! *I'm floored by how much trouble I've been through with this computer and something needs to be done, I can't even trust the computer enough to use it right now.
