The Bean Blog

Laptop FAIL!

Nov 4, 2009 A day in our life

Yesterday was my very own terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

It started out like every other day. My alarm went off. I hit snooze. It went off again. I hit snooze again. Rinse and repeat. Then I finally dragged my tired behind out from under the very warm and cozy covers in to the very crisp and cold air. I stumbled down the stairs, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, and made my way to my desk.

Every. Single. Morning. the first thing I do is open up my Macbook Pro to check (1) my mail and (2) Facebook. But yesterday morning something went terribly wrong.

I opened up my laptop and there was nothing.

I held down the power button to turn it off and then back on. The keyboard lit up, but there was still nothing on the screen.

I started to panic.

I could hear the ding of a new email. I heard the chirp of my IM. The computer was clearly on, but the monitor was blank.

Then came the heart palpitations and the sweats. I hollered out to Lee. OMGMYLAPTOPISN’TWORKING! Lee tried to plug it in to an external monitor. Nothing.

With shaky hands I consulted the expert on such matters. Google. I used my work laptop [work would have to wait, this was an emergency] to search for “HOLY SHIT MY MACBOOK PRO MONITOR IS BROKE” or something like that and immediately found the issue. Macbook Pro 15-inch and 17-inch models with NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor that were manufactured between May 2007 and September 2008 could have some video issues. I have a Macbook Pro. And I bought it in September 2007. I was sure this was the problem.

I scoured the Apple website for the local authorized Apple dealer and sent Lee out the door with instructions to “not come back until my computer is fixed.”

The local authorized Apple dealer in town is closed over the lunch hour. So Lee sat outside the store for a half hour waiting for them to return. The first lady Lee talked to told him he’d need to take my laptop home to call Apple. Apparently you are supposed to get some kind of code from Apple before you bring it in for service. I’m pretty sure Lee started to panic at that point. He knew there was no way he could bring my broken laptop home without me totally losing my shit. So were there some alternatives?

Luckily the Apple tech said he was aware of the problem and already had the necessary code. Whew! Lee let out a sigh of relief.

The tech ripped out my baby’s motherboard, hooked it up to some machine, and determined the problem. Yep, it was the known graphics processor. So the good news was this problem was covered for free even though my warranty is expired. The bad news was they needed to order a new motherboard and hold my baby hostage until it came in.

After I stopped sobbing I tried to make the best of my ruined day.

I was busy today with conference call after conference call. Around 3pm I checked my cell phone. I had a missed call from a number I didn’t recognize. And a voicemail. I listened to my messages and literally screamed out “HALLELUJAH!” Just over 24 hours later and they were already done with my laptop. The local authorized Apple dealer is my new hero.

As soon as I walked in the door I looked for my Macbook. It wasn’t on my desk. “Where is my laptop?” I asked Lee frantically.

“Didn’t I call you? I thought I called you. They called the wrong person. It wasn’t your laptop that was done,” he said.

“WHAT?!” I yelled.

Lee started laughing. Asshole. He was kidding. He had hidden my laptop so he could see the look of desperation and sadness on my face. But I’ve forgiven him now that I’ve had some special time with my Macbook. So excuse me while I make sweet sweet love to my laptop for a while.

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Tags: apple, graphic processor, macbook pro, NVIDIA, NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT, video card