Macbook Inferno

3am last night. I woke up to my girlfriend screaming (yelling "Matty!") and the dog barking. She fell asleep on the couch in the back lounge of our house. I jumped out of bed and raced out thinking that maybe somebody had come through the back door or something.

As I was running I saw a fire. At first I thought that the lamp had fallen and set fire to the curtain. As I got closer I realised it was my mac book .... burning! I picked it up and blew on it and swung it around to put the flames out. The book shelf it was sitting on was burnt and there were a couple of magazines that were on fire too. I quickly put those out and calmed down.

First point to make - check regularly that your smoke alarm works - ours didn't go off.
Second point (and this is the scary one) - we were damn lucky not to have a house burnt to the ground. I have been out for most of the weekend and this night was the only night I had it charging.

What actually happened?
I have noticed for the past 3 weeks the battery life has been poor. I was only getting an hour to an hour and a half from it (compared to over 3 hours).
I also notice the battery symbol had an X showing a couple of times but a restart would sort that out.
One last thing I noticed over the last few days was when the battery was fully charged and on the power, it would flicker between 99% and 100% constantly. Nothing would fix this and I was planning on getting it looked at very soon.

So, Saturday afternoon I watched a tv show (from a ripped dvd) on the macbook. The battery goes down to 21%. I close all programs and shut the lid. It was in sleep mode - the light was pulsing. I usually plug it in for a charge but I didn't this time and head out for the weekend (damn lucky as I would have come home to rubble).
Sunday night, I come home and open the lid. It doesn't wake. I plug the power in and it fires up but showing 0% on the battery symbol.
I surf the net using safari for 30 minutes and the battery is charging up as usual.
I close all programs and shut the lid. Again, I always make sure it's in sleep mode before putting it down. I set it on the book shelf and leave it to charge.

And we are back at the 3am incident. My girlfriend said she heard it hissing like a steam valve, then smoke started pouring out of it and a couple of seconds later, a very large flash fire started. I'm sure you have read about these and seen the dell video. This is what happened to my macbook.

The battery is swollen and burnt so it's definitely the battery that exploded and caught fire. The macbook is melted on the bottom and severely charred (along with my bookshelves, books, magazines and the wall). The space bar is melted as is the track pad. The screen has been damaged a little too.

I have pictures if someone wants me to email them for hosting.

I bought it at the end of June last year so it's still under 12 month warranty.
Strange thing is, there was no symptoms like excessive heat or deformation of the battery or anything like that at all.
I also checked quite a while ago to see if my battery was one of the recall units. It was not.

Can anyone recommend an efficient service centre in Melbourne who will be able to replace it quickly? I have a lot of work to finish by the end of March.
I am also hoping they can recover some data from the hard drive.

From Mactalk.com.au Forum

RIP Luke William Krawchyk

I miss you dude..

1/14/91 - 3/8/07

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Apple to make disk-free laptop

Philipp Gollner in San Francisco
MARCH 09, 2007
APPLE may sell zippy notebook computers without hard disks later this year, an analyst said.

The devices would use the same type of fast memory as music players and digital cameras, driving down prices of hard-disk drives.

The maker of the popular iPod music player and Macintosh computers hopes to introduce so-called flash memory in small computers known as sub-notebooks in the second half of 2007, Shaw Wu, an analyst at American Technology Research said.

A shift to flash memory in place of much slower hard-disk drives would eliminate one headache for consumers: lengthy start-up times when turning on computers.

Apple already uses flash memory in its iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle music players. Flash memory is lighter, uses less power and takes up less space than hard-disk drives.

Mr Wu, who was among the first analysts to forecast the unveiling of Apple's iPhone music player/phone earlier this year, cited unnamed industry sources as the basis for his report.

"The time is right for the flash makers to make a move" as flash memory prices decline, Mr Wu said. "Apple, from what we understand, is pretty much ready. The ball is in the flash vendors' court."

Apple spokeswoman Lynn Fox said the company would not comment "on rumour and speculation."

A transition to flash memory for computers could put pressure on makers of traditional hard-disk drives including Seagate Technology, the largest US hard-disk drive maker, Mr Wu said.

Apple, known as a technology innovator, would be among the first personal computer makers to use flash memory for storing data in computers, a step that some chip memory makers, including Micron Technology, have said is inevitable as prices for flash decline and storage capacity increases.

Flash memory chips have solid state circuitry that uses no moving parts, making them less vulnerable to damage than hard-disk drives. Prices of flash memory have been declining rapidly but are still higher than those for hard-disk drives, Wu said, meaning early flash-based computers would be more expensive.

Apple would use a miniature version of its Mac OS X operating system in the flash-based subnotebook computers, Mr Wu said, again citing unnamed sources. The computers could be introduced in the second half of this year, he said.


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Local Zune early adopters warned to wait

Asher Moses Sydney Morning Herald
March 7, 2007
Microsoft has strongly advised Australians to avoid buying its Zune music player from local retailers.

The software giant is yet to announce plans to distribute the device in Australia, but that did not stop one Australian retailer from obtaining stock.

Mwave.com.au, an online store based in Sydney, sells the Zune for $389. It appears to be the first and only retailer in Australia to stock the player, although some second-hand units have been sold through eBay.

An Mwave spokesman said "about 100 units" had been sold since it began stocking the Zune in late December last year.

But a Microsoft spokeswoman urged: "We highly recommend that Australians do not purchase a Zune from this retailer at this time.

"It's very flattering that Australian retailers are showing this level of interest in the Zune range. However ... any Zune product purchased in Australia right now wouldn't be supported technically, which includes a local online music store, accessory support and integration with local artists."

The Mwave spokesman said the retailer had yet to receive a formal complaint from Microsoft, so its Zune sales would continue unabated.

The retailer has been advertising its exclusive Zune stock heavily in the technology media. The latest issue of PC User magazine includes a full-page ad from Mwave, about a third of which is taken up by Zune promotions.

Microsoft's spokeswoman would not say whether Microsoft would take any action to prevent the sales from continuing.

Mwave said it had obtained the stock from its parent company in the US, and reassured customers that, although Microsoft would not provide a local warranty, it would provide refunds for faulty units "no questions asked".

Zune has had a relatively lukewarm reception since its November 2006 launch in the US, leading some to question whether it would be released in Australia at all.

It is presently the 15th bestselling MP3 player on Amazon.com, behind an army of iPod variants and players from SanDisk and Creative.

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Digital music downloads shouldn’t be considered “public performances” and therefore no additional royalties should be paid, the Digital Media Association (DiMA*) advises to federal court counter to claims “by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP**) that digital music downloads are “public performances” and should, therefore, be subject to a public performance license and royalty”. (DiMa)

“ASCAP’s assertion in federal court that digital distributions of music and video are also public performances confounds legal, business and technological reality,” said Jonathan Potter, DiMA’s Executive Director. “For a decade ASCAP and BMI have successfully preyed on less-confident or underfinanced companies that were willing to pay double-dip royalties. Now, however, we are confident that a judge will finally end this travesty… ASCAP and BMI claim that a download or even its “transmission” to a consumer – even if the media file is never opened and made audible or visually perceptible to the recipient – is a “public performance” that justifies an additional license and royalty. “This sophistry is based in fear – that ASCAP and BMI will have no service to offer publishers and songwriters if direct-to-consumer distribution substantially eliminates subscription or advertiser-based performance media,” stated Potter.

Back in 2005 ASCAP had asked the court to set reasonable royalties “for online music performances made by AOL, Yahoo! and RealNetworks” and is now pushing for what DiMa’s Director calls double-dipping. The trial will begin this May. If ASCAP wins the prices of legal downloads will rise as the online vendors will have to pay additional fee for every download as a public performance as well.

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