What happened to Apple quality control?

[hkrabye@tiscali.no]

I have struggled for eight months with a G4 2x1,25 MDD Windtunnel Mac that was so noisy that I had to drill a hole into another room and place the machine there. The sound outputs had RTF noise (strong ripple noice), and I couldn't use it for creating my music. The power supply was exhanged, then the motherboard, then I installed the Apple PSupply/Fan fix kit - nothing helped. Apple finally accepted to take the machine back...

...and here I am sitting with a brand new G4 2x1,42 G (FW800) machine ready to take up my work and keep the deadlines. And what do you think happens? The screen is grey, and the G4 is not willing to start properly. The tone is there, and the drives seem to start - but nothing happens on the screen (my 22" Cinema display). I called AppleCare and followed many instructions about resetting the pram, starting from the system CD etc. etc. Nothing helped! The response I got was: "Contact your dealer and get a new machine"!

What happened you your quality control??? I also bought a new Powerbook 17" this summer, only to discover that the powercord was not working like it should. and the fan is moving strangely, and... only the right speaker is working. The 17" has been to repair, and it seemed to work fine when I got it back... for one day! Now, only the right speaker is working.

And also, their support is not working (here in Norway) like I expect, and the www.apple.no webstore never responds to e-mails, don't call back when they promise to do - it seems to me that they have no interest in selling Mac's! I had to spend more than two hours in the phone to be able to buy the PB17" and an iPod and eMac to my daughter this summer. I had to call the web shop ten times (!) in order to get the stuff I had ordered. What happened to Apple?

Frankly, I am considering quitting buying expensive not-working-Mac's! I have owned 13 Mac models during the years, and I have spent more than 250.000 NOK on these machines, not to mention all the software etc.

Sorry, but I am very disappointed user. I can not recommend a Mac to my friends and collegues.

Helge Krabye

e-mail: hkrabye@tiscali.no

[hkrabye@tiscali.no]

I posted this to the Apple Forum, and after an hour the posting was removed by Apple. I guess a part of their strategy is to hide the truth about their bad quality control?

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Helge Krabye1,

Your post titled "I am so disappointed!" has been removed from Apple Discussions. Posts including (but not limited to) any of the following are not appropriate:

* Discussions of Apple policies and procedures (including pricing and repair policies)
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* Posts that are only complaints
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Please see the Overview section at http://discussions.info.apple.com/WebX/help for more information on the purpose of the Apple discussion forums, as well as the terms and conditions for posting on Apple Discussions.  Each Discussion user is required to agree to these terms before gaining posting privileges. You reserve the right to not post on Apple Discussions should you disagree with these terms.

Sometimes you have comments or concerns for which there is no technical response. If you need the kind of help that a troubleshooting expert can't provide, you can call Apple's Customer Relations group.    

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Helge

[Gary S]

hkrabye@tiscali.no,

It sounds like you feel frustrated. You got a few bum machines and you have a right to feel frustrated or anyway else for that matter. You want to vent you can vent here.

I don't know if Quality control has decreased over the years.......I must say I miss the days of free 1-800-APPLE or whatever it was but the wind tunnels were pretty nasty.

Now I always wait and buy a 2nd or 3rd generation of a model.  

Sorry to hear of your troubles in Norway.

[Spartacus]

Sorry, to hear about your troubles, Helge.
I've so far had good experiences with Apple's customer support, although I find the recent pricing for telephone support way too expensive.


Gary.
The noise problems of the G4s were only on the 6th revision of the G4 line. So waiting doesn't always help.

[rosa3035]

I, too, have had a bad experience with a refurbished Emac purchased from Apple store online.
Was hospitalized when the unit was delivered. Did not get  to set up the Mac for about a month after delivery.
This unit did not have a modem, which was not disclosed before buying.
Listed all features that it had, but none that it did not have.
Had to buy external USB modem.
After several weeks, went with cable service.
Several more weeks purchased Apple Care.
Another week had to call tech service for help.
They had local Apple Tech pick up the unit at my home
They replaced the logic board and hard drive, returned unit, would not start up,
Techie called his office, then Apple, then took unit back to shop.
Returned it after the weekend, and so far it is OK.

[krissel]

Helge, welcome to TS.  I can sympathize with the frustration and anger you must feel. I think most people have had problems of that sort with some company, maybe not Apple, but still we can understand how you must feel.

Where are you exactly in the attempt to get the machine/monitor working? Can you explain the connections you have and can you tell us precisely what happens when you try to boot up? You said nothing happened when you tried to start via the CD. What do you mean by nothing? It chimed? CD spins? Anything on screen? Is the screen gray or black? Have you tried other cables? Reset the PRAM battery or even installed a new one? Pressed the CUDA button on the motherboard? Reset RAM chips?

We'd like to possibly help out if you could tell us more in detail. Don't know if we can solve the problem but let us give it a try. There are other forums as well that might be of assistance. At least the Mac community is generally a willing group and wants other users to succeed.

...and since my ancestors came from Norway, I'd especially like to see you succeed as well...

[hkrabye@tiscali.no]

QUOTE(krissel @ Sep 4 2003, 8:41 PM)

Where are you exactly in the attempt to get the machine/monitor working? Can you explain the connections you have and can you tell us precisely what happens when you try to boot up? You said nothing happened when you tried to start via the CD. What do you mean by nothing? It chimed? CD spins? Anything on screen? Is the screen gray or black? Have you tried other cables? Reset the PRAM battery or even installed a new one? Pressed the CUDA button on the motherboard? Reset RAM chips?

krissel,

I have tried all the solutions that the Apple Support technician suggested on the phone, with no result. Every time I start the G4, the start up sound is present, and it seems that the fans and hard drives are speeding up. I have connected a 22" Cinema Display (which has worked perfectly on my previous G4 MDD 2x1,25 G Mac). When the new G4 starts, the display lamp becomes green, and the screen becomes light grey - and it stays like that forever. I have startet by resetting the pram, and also by doing the total reset in the main frame window (the black text on my grey screen showed up, so it proves that the connection to the display is ok, right?). I tried to start by using the System CD that came with the G4, but exactly the same thing happens - the start up sound, the fans speeding up... and nothing more. I tried to remove both 512 RAM's and only use one of them when starting the machine. No change. - This is all the the Apple tech suggested, and he told me to bring the machine to the reseller and ask for a new one. I will do that tomorrow and see what they will do. I am afraid it means another week or two of waiting, which actually ruins an important project for me!

Thanks for your help, so far. Good to stay in touch with anchestors

Helge

[krissel]

I guess the black text you saw was the message that you have to restart the Mac, yes? Not much help is it?  

Aside from pressing the CUDA button it sounds like you did most of the usual troubleshooting actions. There is the slight possibility of the CD drive not working properly or the cable loose. The only other thing I could think of is to remove the PRAM battery, unplug the machine and leave it overnight. Some people say only a half hour is necessary but it can reset the NVRAM and PRAM in a way that doing it by keyboard can't. I have had to remove the battery, disconnect the power supply, wait a half hour, reconnect power supply, replace battery, press CUDA and reassemble. This routine was the only way to bring back a seemingly dead Mac. It did work.

Well, at this point you at least have the OK to take it to a service place. Try to impress upon them that you are losing business for each day you don't have the Mac. If you're lucky they might be sympathetic to your situation and expedite your repair. Well, one can hope anyway.
 

Please let us know what happens.  

[hkrabye@tiscali.no]

I got the G4 back today, and the reason behind the start up error was... well, I never thought about it, but the technician who prepared the machine should have done so. He put one of the internal hard drives from my previous G4 into the new machine, and he put it in the wrong place! So, when the new Mac tried to boot, it did not find the correct hard drive. A different technician changed the order of the drives, and now everything seems to work

Helge

[Paddy]

Welcome to TS, Helge. Aha - glad it was something simple! What no doubt happened is that the jumpers on the drives were both set to "master". Since one of the drives was moved, and if it was the only drive it would have been set to "master" and the existing drive was no doubt set to "master" since it was the only drive when the Mac shipped, it is easy to guess what happened. What is a bit disturbing is that the tech didn't start the machine up after the drives were installed, or he/she would have immediately recognized the problem!

An IDE cable can have two drives on it - one has to be set to "master" and one to "slave" (or both to "cable select" - but this is a less common setup) - in other words, one has to have the address "0" and the other "1". The names master and slave don't mean anything (one is not automatically the primary or startup drive - that part is your choice) - think of them just as addresses. And when two things have the same addresses, the post office (processor) gets confused, and flat out refuses to do anything. The jumpers are little plastic and metal (on the inside) things about 1/4" square and 1/8" thick which fit over two pins on the drive. Usually there are diagrams for the placement of the jumpers printed on the decals on the drives, or failing that, on the manufacturer's web site. Drive installation is extremely simple - but ya gotta get those jumpers in the right place! (Tweezers help, if you have big fingers).

One thing this thread illustrates is the importance of giving all the details - knowing that you had two drives in the G4 and that one of them was from another machine, we might have hit on the jumper issue and saved a trip to the shop. Though, we can hope that perhaps it was a valuable lesson for your technician to check his work before he sends "fixed" things home!!!

[Gregg]

Well, I'm beginning to wonder about Apple quality control myself. My son has sent in his 14" iBook for repairs for the second time in just over a year. It was purchased new, and after the first meltdown (within the first year of ownership) he purchased the extended warranty. Cost is not the issue (yet) but reliability sure is. Now he has to hoof it to computer labs on campus to do some of his course work until his iBook is repaired and returned.

[Gary S]

hkrabye@tiscali.no,

Glad to here you got the G4 settled.

When I bought my G4 933 it had a bad proccessor. I was angry considering it came straight from Apple and
they were supposed to check it out.  I had a new processor put in and it's been working like a charm since.

[Peter]

Helge- Glad you computer is working right now.  I have an eMac that had a screen that stopped working,  found the people at Apple to be fairly helpful, but the service locations that we've used have not had the same level of support.  One place actually tested a computer, found absolutely no problem, an sent it back- of course we had the problem again, so we called him and took it back- it took him 3 visits to relize that the mouse wasn't working right and was causing the problem

Guess it dosen't matter now

   

Peter

[kelly]

Helge. Welcome to the Forum.

Out of hundreds of thousands of machines. It's bound to happen.

The thing is. It's worse on the PC side.

Read an article a few weeks ago that a very large % don't work out of the box.

A large amount like 10 or 15 %.

(Can't believe I didn't Bookmark that article).

Apple has consistently ranked at or near the top in Customer satisfaction.

It always comes down to people though.

And they haven't been perfect for quite some time.

[krissel]

Very glad you have a happy ending, Helge.

When I first got my 9600 it was freezing at 45 or 90 minutes into boot, you could almost time when it would seize up. Once frozen it would refreeze within a minute of restart. Very predictable behavior but occassionally would work for 5 hours straight. This was very upsetting to have with a new computer so I spent nearly a week trying to troubleshoot. I finally gave up and called Apple and told them what the problem was and what I had done to try to fix it, listing all the steps, timing notes, etc.
After I finished talking the techie on the other end asked if I was an Apple Service Provider.

   

After laughing and covincing him I was just a customer he told me to take it to the nearest Apple service. The guy who was assigned my machine spent a few days working on it but was determined to "get it right". He eventually replaced the hard drive, logic board and processor. It would have been easier to just get a new machine but they were out of production at that time. Anyway, that was over 5 years ago and it's still whirring away under my desk.



Helge, in your case though I have a feeling they did more than just put the hard drives in the wrong place. I would think the CD would boot regardless of hard drive problems. They probably had messed up the CD-Rom connection as well.
At least you know to watch them closely if you have to return.

Oh, and remind them that since they screwed up, they OWE YOU one.