Some of Apple’s newest MacBook Pros with upgraded 500 GB 7200 RPM hard drives might have an issue. Owners are reporting odd beeping and clicking noises along with performance issues. MacMedics techs have now also seen the issue in our lab first hand.

The buzz on the Internet seems to point an issue that may be caused by an issue between Apple’s on-board anti-shock system and some kind of incompatibility issue with Seagate’s G-Force protection system that it includes with these drives.

A representative from Apple has now acknowledged the issue, and they are working on a resolution.

For users that are just handling standard computing tasks, it appears that this is not an issue as it appears to only be affecting folks doing high intensity read and writes on the hard drive. This seems pretty limited to pro audio or video work.

A quick scan of the various articles on this issue seem to point to the fact that this is only limited to 7200 RPM drives, as there appear to be no reports of problems with 5400 RPM hard drives.

You might recall all of the MacBook Pro battery buzz from a few years ago. Our pictures of “bloated” and “swollen” batteries were ALL over the Internet. We still get tons of web hits on the original post about the problem. Here’s some of the coverage our pictures from 2006 generated:

http://www.macobserver.com/
http://arstechnica.com/
http://www.macintouch.com/

On Friday one of our techs brought in his bloated MacBook Pro 17” battery in for us to look at. He noticed his MacBook Pro 17″ was not sitting correctly on the table, so he checked it and sure enough his battery was rapidly expanding due to failure.

See pictures of his battery below:

Keep an eye open for this kind of stuff, as it could turn into a serious issue. One symptom to watch for is a battery that is overly hot. If it’s too hot for you hold your hand on, then it might have an issue. If you are storing your laptop or you are going out of town (and not taking your laptop with you), it’s not a bad idea to just remove your battery from the unit and also unplug your PowerBook, iBook, or MacBook from the wall.

In the original case that you can read about here, our client Bill Sammon, now Vice President of News for Fox News Channel noticed his MacBook Pro trackpad clicker button had stopped working. It took our Macintosh Certified Technicians about one second to see that his battery had “swelled” up and was pressing up on the underside of of the trackpad assembly.

MacMedics is pleased to announce that we are now performing all iPhone (first & second generation) and iPod touch repairs.

MacMedics will repair your 3G iPhone’s digitizer (the glass on the front of the unit) for $89.95.

Update 9/4/09: MacMedics is now also offering iPhone 3G S glass/digitizer repairs. Same deal as below for $99.95. MacMedics Facebook Fans get $10 off these prices (for a limited time).

Here’s what our service includes:

1. Same day service. Drop it off in the morning, and pick it up in the afternoon!

3. If send us your broken or sick iPhone to us, we’ll repair it return your iPhone via FedEx Overnight shipping for just $10. If needed, we can arrange to send you a pre-paid FedEx label as a PDF via e-mail, and you can securely pack and ship your phone to us for $10 extra ($20 round trip). If you live or work near our shop in Millersville, MD (5 minutes from BWI airport) you can drop it off in the morning and in most cases pick it up in the afternoon.

Having your iPhone repaired locally makes good sense, as you don’t have to worry about shipping it to the West Coast (or who knows where!) or when you’ll get your iPhone back. All MacMedics iPod & iPhone repairs are performed only in our Millersville, MD office. Of course, if you’re a MacMedics client or just someone that wants to ensure that your iPhone is being handled by a reputable Mac service firm, we are happy to accept iPhones that are mailed into our repair center. If you’d like us to e-mail you a FedEx label, just get in touch, and we’ll send one right over. We are going to be shooting for same day turn around for all iPhone glass repairs. You can drop your iPhone off in the morning, and we will likely have it done later that same day.

Apple iPhone 3G with cracked/shattered glass (digitizer)

Don’t forget that MacMedics also fixes all other types of iPods (including) the 4th gen Nano. We also specialize in difficult Macintosh repairs, like LCD replacements, MacBook and MacBook Pro hard drive upgrades (to 1 TB), liquid spill rescues, Mac & iPod data recovery, and logic board repairs at very competitive prices. All MacMedics hardware repairs are backed by our “no-hassle” 1-year MacMedics warranty. The Apple Store and most other service providers only offer a 90-day warranty.

As always, no appointments are necessary for all iPods, iPhone, and Macintosh repairs. Just walk in to speak to any of our expert Mac techs.

A number of MacMedics clients have asked if the Apple warranty or AppleCare will cover a broken iPhone screen. Sadly, no the Apple warranty is null and void if you drop the phone and break the digitizer or LCD. Same holds true for iPhones that have water damage. There are detectors inside the phone and at both the top (headphone jack) and the bottom (dock connector) that will turn pink to indicate when water has been present (from the factory, they are white in color).

There are also a number of 3G iPhone “glass” parts for sale on eBay and the Internet. They usually sell for about $20 or so. This part IS the glass for the front of the iPhone. The only problem is that there is no practical way to separate the working digitizer from the broken iPhone glass. The part we use is the glass with the digitizer already attached. This is really the best way to do this repair. Also, as a side note, all iPhones are very difficult to open without causing damage and the iPhone’s cables, screws, and parts inside the iPhone are TINY. We’ve already seen a number of phones that people have tried to fix on their own with unhappy results. Even if you can find the right part, that’s not counterfeit, or has flaws in the glass, you’re only going to save about $40 by doing the repair yourself. Bring it to us and let us take care of it for you. Don’t take my word for it, read this posting from Jay Garmon from TechRepublic. He did his own repair, and said he’d not do it again.

There’s a flurry of people all over the Internet offering iPhone and iPod repair services. We hear about them all the time, and we often have to “re-fix” items that have ALREADY been repaired once. We only use the parts we’d use for ourselves in our own repairs. We also are not afraid to spend an extra few dollars to get a iPod battery that’s actually pretty decent. Many of our iPod repairs include a free battery and all include free ground return shipping. Don’t get the run around from a guy that has to do his REAL job first, then work on your iPhone at night to make extra money. This IS what we do, and we love it! We’re also a REAL Mac repair shop, so come visit our Apple Certified technicians and we’ll help you figure out the best way to to get your Mac. iPhone, or iPod fixed for you.

Here's what the shop floor at MacMedics looks like.

About MacMedics:

Since 1989, MacMedics has offered its clients award-winning Apple sales, support and consulting to business, education and residential customers. The company offers a broad range of services including desktop computer set-up, maintenance and administration, system and network administration, consulting and technology planning, Internet service and hardware set-up and troubleshooting, onsite and in-store training, emergency response and preventative maintenance. MacMedics provides Apple Authorized sales and service to over 8500 clients from their three offices in Baltimore, Washington, and Philadelphia.

MacMedics is the oldest and largest Apple Authorized Value Added Reseller and Apple Authorized Service Provider in the Mid-Maryland area. Our headquarters in Millersville, MD is home to our award-winning Mac service center.

MacMedics’ Millersville, Maryland Apple Service Center is 5 minutes south of Baltimore-Washington International airport (BWI) and 1/10 of a mile from I-97. We are only 10 miles from Ft. Meade/NSA and just 1 mile from Severna Park and about 5 miles from Arnold.

Coming from the Apple Store in Annapolis, MD? http://tinyurl.com/cgzt4a

Coming from the Apple Store in Towson, MD? http://tinyurl.com/cbevvm

Coming from the Apple Store in Columbia, MD? http://tinyurl.com/cbftyl

Here’s an iPhone that we fixed recently. The damage is pretty bad, so look away:

After we replaced the glass and the LCD you can’t tell that this iPhone ever had a problem.

It’s hard to always know what damages an iPod Video or iPhone LCD screen. We’re constantly amazed at the patterns that are created as LCD gets destroyed. Since most of the iPods we work on are mailed in to us, we often don’t get the story behind a damaged iPod. We’ll ask our clients that drop off iPods for service in our shop in Millersville, and frequently they have no idea what happened. Spontaneous LCD combustion? Too hot in the car, too rough in the backpack, shot with an imaginary bullet? LCD screens in the pattern of a devil.

This one is our latest. Is is flower? an entrance to a worm hole, or just an excellent example of fractal patterns on a broken LCD? Check it out for yourself!

See large size picture here.

Get your iPod Video LCD repaired for $89 including a new LCD, labor, a free replacement battery, and return shipping via FedEx. Use this coupon “10-off-repair” when paying via Google checkout.

Just send your iPod to us using this form and we’ll get it fixed up for you.

We’ve commented on the Internet based myth regarding the iPod “click of death” several times before. According to Internet lore, you can “whack” your iPod on the edge of a table or desk in order to fix a clicking hard drive problem. We’ve always felt that this was a bad idea, and could result in further damage to the very iPod you were trying to help. Details on this rumor have been few and far between, but we’re happy to say that we’ve finally seen what can happen when you whack your iPod hard on a table.

See the following pictures:

Click of death iPod gets whacked

As you can see the iPod’s hard drive platter has shattered. We were wondering what was up with this iPod, as it failed the shake test when it came into the shop. The iPod’s owner revealed that he had read about “whack-a-mole” iPod fix on-line and wailed away on it.

Why do people think that banging their iPod on a table works? We think it has to do with a loose hard drive cable, dead battery, and maybe a corrupt hard drive. When the iPod is banged around the hard drive cable may get enough movement to re-seat it. Also, based on our very unscientific iPod study, it appears that this seems to be based mostly in the 4th Generation and Photo iPods. Based on the same informal poll it also appears that more clients with Windows formatted iPods find themselves in this situation than Macintosh formatted iPods. If you think you’ve got the click of death with your iPod, send it in to us at ipodmedics.com, and we’ll figure out if it really does or not. It’s free for us to check, and the repair (if it DOES NOT need a new hard drive) is very inexpensive. Also if your unit has a major problem, and you don’t want to invest in a repair, we’ll likely buy your sick iPod from you as well.

A steady stream of broken iPods arrive each day at ipodmedics.com. They come in, we fix them, and then send them back to their owners. It’s always nice to get a note back thanking us for just doing our job:

“At first I was a little skeptical about your service. I read the claims, but I was not totally convinced. Was this was the answer I long sought after to repair my beloved iPod? I thought to myself, “Well, what have I got to lose?” I mean, my iPod was already broken. I could only improve from my current situation, so I decided to give it a shot. I shipped my iPod to iPodMedics via USPS first class mail. Within a day it was confirmed that it had indeed arrived at your shop. Soon after, I received the Google Checkout payment request which I quickly paid on-line. It was so easy. DHL delivered it back to me in the next few days. To think that I wasted all that time on the web trying to find anyone who could help me out after Apple refused to even touch it. This was really the best answer to my problem and I am very satisfied with the results. I no longer have a cracked LCD screen. If I need any more service on my iPod then I will return to iPodMedics. Thank You for your help, and I give my best wishes to the company.”

Sincerely,
Thomas S.

We are pleased to announce that Apple Computer has selected MacMedics for a quarterly Commitment To Excellence service award. Only 151 Apple service locations were honored with this award putting MacMedics in the top 5% of all Apple Authorized Service Providers in the US and Canada.

It was our pleasure to help this client out of a bad spot with her MacBook.

“I’m just writing to express my gratitude for your unbelievably efficient and generous service. I called on a Thursday night (after a consult at an Apple store) with a damaged hard drive. I was under extenuating circumstances, as I was leaving the United States the following Monday morning; I dropped the computer Friday at 8:30, and 3 hours later it was ready with a new hard drive and OS for much less than I had been quoted at the Apple store. The service was probably the best I’ve ever experienced in any field… friendly, knowledgeable employees, fantastic prices, insanely fast service, and patient data-recovery explanations and recommendations. I doubt you’ll find better service elsewhere. Thanks a million!”

Meaghan S.
Baltimore, MD

Want to read about some of the other clients we’ve helped recently? See this URL: http://www.macmedics.com/testimonials.htm

Now more than ever it makes good sense to repair your broken iPod rather then replace it. Here at MacMedics and ipodmedics.com we’ve seen a pretty steady stream of folks looking to have their iPods repaired. The iPod is designed to be pretty much a disposable piece of electronics, as Apple has very few decent repair options available. With a newer, larger capacity, sexier models out pretty frequently Apple makes a pretty convincing argument to just buy a new iPod when your iPod starts to give you trouble. I shudder to think how many iPod users give up on a perfectly good iPod, just because it has a very minor problem or just needs a new battery.

Many, many iPods I see have simple issues like hard drive corruption or a bad battery. There are easy and cheap to fix. Even iPods with a serious problem like a dead logic board or hard drive are still worth fixing, as they can be repaired in most cases for less than half the cost of a new iPod. All of our iPod repairs carry a full one year warranty.

With gas prices, and doom and gloom with the stock market, everyone seems to be on money saving kick right now. Consider that it only costs about $2 (via USPS) to ship your iPod to us for a free estimate, it’s a worthwhile investment to find out for sure where your iPod’s situation really is. Since we don’t sell new iPods, we’ve got a pretty good incentive to repair your iPod, while Apple is more interested in seeing you replace it.

So if you’re in what appears to be a repair situation, let us take a look it might be something simple. If it’s not and you don’t want to invest more money into your older iPod, we’ll give you cash on the spot for it.

Send your iPod in for free check out, and if you have an older iPod sitting around, that you have no plans to repair, send that as well and we’ll use it’s cash value to reduce your repair bill. Okay, okay I know some of you already fell in love with a new iPod and have an old one in your kitchen junk drawer (right next to your dead cell phone). We’ll give you cash for your broken or damaged iPod. We buy all models in any condition and we pay top price.

Here’s two pictures of another MacBook sent into MacMedics from Iraq. Our last Iraq MacBook was a big success, as we were able to save the data and replace the hard drive in short order. You can read about that data recovery case here: http://www.macmedics.com/testimonials.htm

Sadly, in this case the hard drive was toast. We could not do anything with it. So I imagine it’s off for a clean room recovery.

I wanted to share these two pictures as it shows how dusty and dirty the environment in Iraq must be. If you look at the MacBook screen, you’ll see what looks like a reflection of the keyboard, it’s not a reflection. It’s super fine Iraq dust. Notice the spot in the middle with the finger print where the dust has been wiped off.