SR 17" owners, desperately need your help testing

[xpovos]

Hi guys. If you own a 17" Santa Rosa MacBook Pro with 10.4.10 and AirPort Update 2007-004 installed, I could really use your feedback on a little test I'd like to ask you to perform.

Here's the test:

Unplug the laptop so that it's running on battery power only. Be sure that AirPort is turned on and connected to a wireless network. Using a USB microphone and some recording software (such as Audio Hijack Pro, Soundbooth CS3, whatever), first do a short recording (say about 60 seconds) of you speaking in the left-side USB port that is farthest away from the power connector.

This recording should be clean audio. No static, no pops, no nothing bad.

Now, unplug the mic and plug it into the OTHER left-side USB port. Do another voice recording of about the same length. Then, repeat this with the right-side USB port.

Question: Are either (or both) of these last two recordings filled with pops and static?

If so, turn AirPort off and try again on either of the two bad ports. Clean audio? Then turn AirPort back on and do another recording right away on one of the bad ports. Clean audio. Do yet another recording, I'm betting it's dirty audio.

My hope is that you'll hear clean audio on all three ports each time. Your feedback could help determine if I'm due a replacement laptop.

Thanks.

 

[iTeen]

wow...it is very staticy...i did it on my dads mbp....wierd....another mac prob(not that theres many)

 

[xpovos]

wow...it is very staticy...i did it on my dads mbp....wierd....another mac prob(not that theres many)

That's bad news for me. Without the AirPort Update it's not as bad but it gets progressively worse as time passes. For the kind of work I do, it's unacceptable, so now I have to figure out my options.

Can any 15" SR owners find out if the 15" model is affected?

 

[PimpDaddy]

Try searching the forum... This subject have been up a couple of times before

 

[xpovos]

Try searching the forum... This subject have been up a couple of times before

Actually, I'm pretty sure this specific issue hasn't been covered anywhere before. I searched these forums as well as the Web at large for nearly two weeks, and nobody seemed to notice this particular issue. This definitely isn't the well-known static output issue.

Anyway, an update: Genius has confirmed that this issue apparently affects all 17" AND 15" Santa Rosa models, based on testing of mine as well as all floor models at that particular store. It's a design flaw; Apple may be able to fix it with a software update, but I'm not willing to gamble on that. I've chosen store credit and will be picking up a 24" iMac and a black MacBook later today.

 

[iTeen]

yay a blackbook....u will love it

 

[MaddieBrad]

That's bad news for me. Without the AirPort Update it's not as bad but it gets progressively worse as time passes. For the kind of work I do, it's unacceptable, so now I have to figure out my options.

Can any 15" SR owners find out if the 15" model is affected?

So what line of work are you in? If you are talking about recording...I don't know anyone that uses a USB Microphone for recording and gets paid to do so. I use a firewire audio interface. If recording is your livelihood you should to. A MOTU 828 or a Firewire 410.

b

 

[xpovos]

So what line of work are you in? If you are talking about recording...I don't know anyone that uses a USB Microphone for recording and gets paid to do so. I use a firewire audio interface. If recording is your livelihood you should to. A MOTU 828 or a Firewire 410.

b

No, recording isn't my livelihood. If it were, I definitely wouldn't be using a USB mic for it. --- I'm a professor and am recording tons of audio for screencast tutorials, recording my classroom lectures and then syncing with captured whiteboard slides to make vodcasts, etc. In other words, I don't need absolutely top quality sound, but I do want it to sound sufficiently professional---and have to do it on a budget.

 

[xpovos]

yay a blackbook....u will love it

I already do, although I had definitely gotten spoiled by the larger display with higher resolution. But this blackbook has its own benefits over the 17" MBP as well. Everything's a trade-off.

My decision to go back to using a MB as opposed to a MBP came down to reliability concerns. As I've stated before, I've had a total of 6 MacBook Pros, and now with this latest 17" problem, it turns out that 5 of those have had pretty serious issues. Since this last issue turned out to be an engineering problem---and when the Genius escalated it to engineering, those guys had never heard of it either---which affects all current SR MBP models, I couldn't justify the MBP anymore.