Kalmiya has been to the Apple Store in Baton Rouge twice. The first time was for a multitude of issues, including my keyboard and trackpad intermittently not working (and finally not working at all), my battery sucking, my superdrive occasionally randomly ejecting, and probably something else I’m forgetting. Apple took it and had it back to me as good as new 3 days later. About 6 or 7 months later, my battery starting sucking again (apparently I was putting way too many cycles on it), so they replaced it again, even though it was out of warranty.
And that brings me to Wednesday. For some amount of time, I could hear this weird sizzling/hissing/high-pitched squealing coming from somewhere while I was using Kalmiya. At first, I thought it was the light fixture or something, but I eventually realized it was coming from Kalmiya. I isolated the noise to the left side of the keyboard, right where the MagSafe adapter plugs in. Putting the volume all the way up or down did not affect the noise, which led me on a hunch to pull the MagSafe adapter out. The noise stopped. MagSafe back in, the noise returned. A quick trip to Google found that a few others were having the issue, but in the process, I also found out that I was not the only one with the paint pitting on my palmrest, and apparently Apple fixes this problem.
(Not my MacBook Pro, but this picture is of the palmrest’s paint pitting on someone else’s machine.)
So, I decided to test out the Genius Bar at the Apple Store in Lakeside Mall. They were just as helpful as the one in Baton Rouge. The Genius diagnosed that the I/O board needed to be replaced, as well as the palmrest, and documented all of this so when they shipped it off, the technicians would have something to go on.
They said it would take about a week, but that’s also what they’d said the last time they sent Kalmiya off and it took 3 days. This time, it took 2 days, but there was a little problem when I went to pick it up. It seems as though the technicians almost completely ignored the Genius’ diagnosis and recommendation and replaced an internal audio cable, the logic board, and the palmrest. After it had been on for a few minutes, I heard that same annoying noise, but ever since then, I haven’t heard it again, which is kind of bugging me.
So, my palmrest is all sparkly and new, and for the time being, my MagSafe isn’t squealing, so I guess I’m pretty happy, though I wish they’d have replaced that I/O board just in case.
-Philip
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