Why are Apple MacBooks so unreliable?

[maverick786us]

Last night I was watching Netflix in my M1 MacBook Pro 16 it suddenly turned off, and didn’t power on, I tried to reset, pressed power button for 10 seconds tried hard reset by using tricks mentioned in internet. Nothing help. So I first visited Apple certified repair centre they said they will charge $150 for assessment which is non refundable, regardless they repair it or not. So I told them to **** themself and visited another Apple repair centre they said that something happened to the motherboard and they will charge $200 for repair. Their are 80% chances for it to repair if it doesn’t work then they will get a new motherboard for which they haven’t told me the cost but I will have to wait for 15 days. Why are Apple MacBooks so unreliable? If you check my earlier threads my first MacBook had speakers issue that keep on replicating after replacing the speakers twice and their were dead pixels. This is my second MacBook it’s warranty was over on December 2023 and I came across this issue.

 

[calliex]

Sorry for your problem. I have been an apple user since 1984. All of Macs both desktops and laptops have lasted 10 years or more. My last laptop 2012 MPB lasted 13 years and just died a week ago. I have never bought apple care, not sure if I have been just lucky or what. I hope you can get your machine taken care of. I now have 16 in M1 MBP hope it lasts

 

[Apple_Robert]

MacBooks are very reliable but, like any mass produced product, there will be some that require repair.

 

[mmkerc]

It sucks that you are having so many problems with your MacBooks. Like others have commented I have been using Macs since 1985 and have not had any quality issues. That said I did know a guy I worked with that had his Mac's go bad similar to what you mentioned; audio issues, and motherboard went bad (two computers). Both for no obvious reason. He was an electrical engineer and was curious ran some check on the power supply to his house and found some variations. Don't remember exactly what it was but it was a combination of voltage and frequency fluctuations. He got some sort of UPS/transformer that stabilized the issue and did not have problems after that.

Not sure if it was the issue, or not but that is all I can offer in terms of possible cause.

 

[Pakaku]

I wouldn't blame all Macbooks for being unreliable, just because you had a bad experience with exactly one Macbook

 

[GMShadow]

Buy another brand next time then. 🤷‍♂️

 

[maverick786us]

Sorry for your problem. I have been an apple user since 1984. All of Macs both desktops and laptops have lasted 10 years or more. My last laptop 2012 MPB lasted 13 years and just died a week ago. I have never bought apple care, not sure if I have been just lucky or what. I hope you can get your machine taken care of. I now have 16 in M1 MBP hope it lasts

I am an apple user too using apple products for decades. With iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and AirPods Pro, I never faced issues. Those products are top notch in terms of quality, reliability and performance, lasted for decades. Though I change iPhones every 2 years. I handle my gadgets with extra care. I only had bad experience with MacBook. I got my MacBook repaird. The service centre guy said that its motherboard power circuit was damaged, which they replaced at a premium of $240

 

[Thirio2]

Consumer Reports surveys used to show an abysmal reliability problem for all brands of computers, but Apple was the most reliable by a good margin. That being said, my 2 Dell laptops lasted much longer than at least 2 MacBooks. The jury is still out on 2 others. It sounds like you were either unlucky or your computer maybe had some rough service (which happens a lot with portable devices).

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote:
"So I first visited Apple certified repair centre they said they will charge $150 for assessment which is non refundable"

I've never heard of an Apple Store genius bar charging $$$ just to "look at it".

Where (in the world) did you take it?

 

[capamac]

I've used Macs since the 1990s ... Mac quality varies.
The worst Mac I had was a iBook G3/700 that had a failed mobo, along with an obviously shoddy repair job (loose screws). The repaired iBook failed a second time. I got so annoyed I intentionally avoided Apple for years, switching to Linux PCs. During my PC era, I had one PC fail repeatedly, but the other PCs I used were reliable.

Then I went back to Mac with a 2011 MacBook Pro 13" and that was much more reliable than the iBook, but the trackpad on the MacBook died after four years. I replaced it with a 2015 MacBook Pro which lasted six years before the trackpad died. This time, I opened the Mac and noticed corrosion on the trackpad circuit. I never got it wet ... i think some electrical component failed and leaked on teh trackpad circuit. I replaced the trackpad using parts from ifixit and the MacBook Pro is now back in use.

My main Mac is the M1 Air which I've been using daily since 2020 and that's been super reliable. But I make back-ups every other month or so.

Other reliable Macs I've used: Iici, IIsi, 8100, SE/30, 6100, Quadra, 7500, blue and white G3.

On balance I've found Macs to be reliable, but there have been outliers.

Apple sources parts from third parties, pretty sure, so dunno how much Apple is directly responsible for any problem.

 

[cjsuk]

Want to try Dell. I don't think any of my high end precision ones lasted more than a year.

 

[3Rock]

I am an apple user too using apple products for decades. With iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and AirPods Pro, I never faced issues. Those products are top notch in terms of quality, reliability and performance, lasted for decades. Though I change iPhones every 2 years. I handle my gadgets with extra care. I only had bad experience with MacBook. I got my MacBook repaird. The service centre guy said that its motherboard power circuit was damaged, which they replaced at a premium of $240

I am assuming you did not have AppleCare + ?. How old is that notebook you have? This is why anything really expensive will have AppleCare plus.

 

[MBAir2010]

Want to try Dell. I don't think any of my high end precision ones lasted more than a year.

My Dell XPS 13" 3870 BASE model opened brand new on May 12, 2019
ceased on October 4 2022.....
reason being Dell would not send a replacement battery with 3 months of request.
which was no remedy since the USB_c ports were not connection to the logic board.
the XPS did fail that last 4 months in use.

I am typing this on a MacBook Air 11" 2010 with a new battery, new charger new 265SSD
with Mountain Lion OSX.

 

[Calaveras]

Last night I was watching Netflix in my M1 MacBook Pro 16 it suddenly turned off, and didn’t power on, I tried to reset, pressed power button for 10 seconds tried hard reset by using tricks mentioned in internet. Nothing help. So I first visited Apple certified repair centre they said they will charge $150 for assessment which is non refundable, regardless they repair it or not. So I told them to **** themself and visited another Apple repair centre they said that something happened to the motherboard and they will charge $200 for repair. Their are 80% chances for it to repair if it doesn’t work then they will get a new motherboard for which they haven’t told me the cost but I will have to wait for 15 days. Why are Apple MacBooks so unreliable? If you check my earlier threads my first MacBook had speakers issue that keep on replicating after replacing the speakers twice and their were dead pixels. This is my second MacBook it’s warranty was over on December 2023 and I came across this issue.

I've noticed the QC has dropped a lot in the last 10 years.
Used to ewaste my old Macs when I'd wrung every last drop of usefulness from them. Last few I was forced to upgrade by swelling batteries or other such stupid problems when they still had enough power to be a useful machine.
I used to always brag that Macs stay useful longer than Windows machines due to better build quality. But Tim Cooks penny shaving approach has eroded that feature.

 

[TokyoKiller]

OP wrote:
"So I first visited Apple certified repair centre they said they will charge $150 for assessment which is non refundable"

I've never heard of an Apple Store genius bar charging $$$ just to "look at it".

Where (in the world) did you take it?

He didn’t say an Apple store.

 

[dmccloud]

Want to try Dell. I don't think any of my high end precision ones lasted more than a year.

Dell pulled off a strange feat when they purchased Alienware back in the day. They somehow managed to make Alienware machines worse while also making Dell products worse. The saddest part of this tale is that the decline in product quality (and the move towards increasingly proprietary internal components) has only grown since then. Dell may actually have eclipsed HP in the "we use tons of proprietary junk so you can't upgrade anything" department at this point.

 

[TokyoKiller]

Dell pulled off a strange feat when they purchased Alienware back in the day. They somehow managed to make Alienware machines worse while also making Dell products worse. The saddest part of this tale is that the decline in product quality (and the move towards increasingly proprietary internal components) has only grown since then. Dell may actually have eclipsed HP in the "we use tons of proprietary junk so you can't upgrade anything" department at this point.

I’d say things have improved since Michael Dell took the company back and went private. Their monitors are amazing.

 

[NewOldStock]

You got to get rid of Black Cats they bring bad luck.

 

[Chuckeee]

Want to try Dell. I don't think any of my high end precision ones lasted more than a year.

My Dell XPS 13" 3870 BASE model opened brand new on May 12, 2019
ceased on October 4 2022.....
reason being Dell would not send a replacement battery with 3 months of request.
which was no remedy since the USB_c ports were not connection to the logic board.
the XPS did fail that last 4 months in use.

Still significantly more reliable and better customer service than modern HP machines

 

[cjsuk]

Still significantly more reliable and better customer service than modern HP machines

I rather like the new HP machines. They seem to end up converting a lot of people to macOS

 

[maverick786us]

I am assuming you did not have AppleCare + ?. How old is that notebook you have? This is why anything really expensive will have AppleCare plus.

When I bought this Mac, apple care + for 2 costed me nearly $300 so I was out of $. Though I am not sure if Apple Care + would cover this particular defect

 

[maverick786us]

OP wrote:
"So I first visited Apple certified repair centre they said they will charge $150 for assessment which is non refundable"

I've never heard of an Apple Store genius bar charging $$$ just to "look at it".

Where (in the world) did you take it?

It wasn't apple store it was an apple certified repair center, those idiots said.

 

[mi7chy]

Issue might be Apple's approach with fan curve preferring higher operating temperature at the expense of shorter component lifetime to give the impression of quieter operation. Common failure point is capacitors that fail short. To counter this, use a utility to alter the fan curve to activate cooling sooner and keep it running cooler to increase lifetime. Rule of thumb is capacitor lifetime doubles for every 10C drop in operating temperature from rated temperature.

Table showing effects of temperature on lifetime of two capacitors rated for 2000 and 5000 hours at 105C.

 

[maverick786us]

Issue might be Apple's approach with fan curve preferring higher operating temperature at the expense of shorter component lifetime to give the impression of quieter operation. Common failure point is capacitors that fail short. To counter this, use a utility to alter the fan curve to activate cooling sooner and keep it running cooler to increase lifetime. Rule of thumb is capacitor lifetime doubles for every 10C drop in operating temperature from rated temperature.

Table showing effects of temperature on lifetime of two capacitors rated for 2000 and 5000 hours at 105C.

That repair also fixed vibration issue I was facing while charging my MacBook, ever since it arrived. So it looks like the power circuit issue was somehow connected with it.

 

[altaic]

repair centre

service centre

You’re sure you’re from Columbus, GA?