From an email I sent to sjobs@apple.com:

Hi Steve,

Just to vent my frustration, a quick note to you. Sixteen days ago, I took a deep breath and paid 2600 dollars for a new 15'' Macbook PRO. Since I come from the PC world, I spent the better part of two weeks getting acquainted with this type of hardware. This weekend, I did something that I had been wondering about for days... 'how do I switch between the installed graphical processors?'. It transpired that I had to go to the "Energy Saver" control panel and make a selection there. Funny thing is, I had never seen this option in this particular Control Panel, or anywhere else. I then checked the hardware of my Mac and lo and behold... only the 9400M chip was listed, no 9600 to be seen.

Obviously, I went back to the Apple store. Since I'm two days late in noticing this hardware failure, I don't qualify for the 'DOA policy'. Instead, Apple Technical Service offered me to repair the motherboard. This could take 'a week or so'. Or more.. Since my laptop is my workstation, I'm now scrambling for a replacement desktop at our school. I have this feeling I've been let down. I believed in what your products stand for and paid handsomely for the privilege. It now appears I was sold a faulty product and I'm treated poorly. It certainly feels that way.

Thanks for listening.

regards,
Erik Coolen,
The Netherlands

I use a 37inch 1080p for my main computer display. So, it's native resolution is 1920x1080. I use this resolution for everything. I just picked up a i7 920, and Asus P6T motherboard. I want fast gaming, even with farcry/crysis. Just don't want to go overkill. What do you guys think? 4870x2, or plain 4870. Thanks!

pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/12/vietnamunlock.JPG" width="610" height="406" style="display:block;" /You might think you're some kind of l337 h4x0r because you used software to unlock your iPhone. Big deal! You've got nothing on the Vietnamese hackers that'll unlock your iPhone for you the hard way./p blockquote pFirst, a technician opened up the phone and stripped it to the motherboard. In his skillful hands, the device seemed much easier to dismantle than I expected./p pThe technician then extracted the baseband chip, the component that controls the connection between the phone and the mobile network, from the motherboard. (This is a painstaking task as the chip is strongly glued to the phone's motherboard. A mistake during this process could brick the phone completely.)/p pOnce the chip was extracted, it was Tuan Anh's turn. He used a chip reader to read information into a file. He then used a Hex editor to remove the locking data from the file, and after that, the chip got reprogrammed with the newly altered file. Now it was no longer programmed to work with only a specific provider./p pThe chip then got reassembled into the motherboard, another painstaking process./p pAs a last step, the technician put the phone back together, and it looked like nothing had been done to it./p /blockquote pAll this for a mere $80! Call me crazy, but watching someone do this to my phone would be infinitely more satisfying than simply downloading a program to crack it. You'd feel like your phone really earned its unlocking. [a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10107580-1.html?part=rsstag=feedsubj=Crave"Crave/a via a href="http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/12/01/unlocking-an-iphone.html"Boing Boing Gadgets/a]/p br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=324dae208cf9f14f1de2bd3ca75e73c1p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=324dae208cf9f14f1de2bd3ca75e73c1p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=324dae208cf9f14f1de2bd3ca75e73c1" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=dVMTfbY7"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=WfqpRjcW"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=jUrwfHeQ"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=jUrwfHeQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=bKc7k8XD"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=bKc7k8XD" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~4/NF_8PflglvQ" height="1" width="1"/

Over on Boing Boing Gadgets, our John links to a fantastic Crave piece about master Vietnamese phone-unlockers, virtuosos of desoldering who manage the painstaking business of unlocking your iPhone so that you can which network you run it on. First, a technician opened up the phone and stripped it to the motherboard. In his skillful hands, the device seemed much easier to dismantle than I expected. The technician then extracted the baseband chip, the component that controls the connection between the phone and the mobile network, from the motherboard. (This is a painstaking task as the chip is strongly glued to the phone's motherboard. A mistake during this process could brick the phone completely.) Once the chip was extracted, it was Tuan Anh's turn. He used a chip reader to read information into a file. He then used a Hex editor to remove the locking data from the file, and after that, the chip got reprogrammed with the newly altered file. Now it was no longer programmed to work with only a specific provider. The chip then got reassembled into the motherboard, another painstaking process. As a last step, the technician put the phone back together, and it looked like nothing had been done to it. Unlocking an iPhone 3G the Vietnamese way Discuss this on Boing Boing Gadgets...br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/ht.php?t=camp;i=dbb205cb9e2d96de83a36ff37c2469f3amp;p=1"img style="border:0;" src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/ht.php?t=vamp;i=dbb205cb9e2d96de83a36ff37c2469f3amp;p=1" border="0" //a

div align="center"a href="http://www.thinkgos.com/press-release20081201.php"img vspace="4" hspace="4" border="0" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/12/081201-gos-01.jpg" alt="" //abr / div align="left"Not that we were too impressed with a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/03/gos-2-0-rocket-set-to-debut-at-ces/"gOS/a when we first saw Rocket almost a year ago, but Cloud -- the small footprint, quick boot Linux variant that Good OS introduced today at the Netbook World Summit in Paris -- looks like an altogether different beast. Arriving pre-installed alongside Windows on the new Gigabyte touchscreen netbooks (perhaps some variant of the a href="http://www.engadget.com/tag/M912V/"M912V/a), the new a href="http://www.engadget.com/tag/SplashTop/"SplashTop/a-esque OS uses a web browser as its main interface, with an integrated dock providing such Web 2.0 mainstays as Skype, YouTube and the Google family of apps -- and if this smattering of tools doesn't meet all of your computing needs, you can always boot into your main OS from there. Cloud can be installed as a dual-boot partition on your hard drive or SSD as well as onto a flash chip hardwired onto a motherboard. That's all we have for now, but you can bet we'll be on hand to check it out at CES in January.br //div /divpFiled under: a href="http://www.engadget.com/category/laptops/" rel="tag"Laptops/a/pp style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/01/gos-cloud-instant-on-os-comes-to-gigabyte-touchscreen-netbooks/"gOS "Cloud" instant-on OS comes to Gigabyte touchscreen netbooks/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.engadget.com"Engadget/a on Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:38:00 EST. Please see our a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/"terms for use of feeds/a./ph6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"/h6a href=http://www.thinkgos.com/press-release20081201.phpRead/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/01/gos-cloud-instant-on-os-comes-to-gigabyte-touchscreen-netbooks/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/forward/1387383/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email this/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/01/gos-cloud-instant-on-os-comes-to-gigabyte-touchscreen-netbooks/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/RJ7ea6EMYLrCQQsssyE0iJJiOzI/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/RJ7ea6EMYLrCQQsssyE0iJJiOzI/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?a=Uc5kfXsE"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?i=Uc5kfXsE" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?a=nz7V7UEH"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/engadget?i=nz7V7UEH" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~4/iCtdvVNJoOM" height="1" width="1"/

Not that we were too impressed with gOS when we first saw Rocket almost a year ago, but Cloud -- the small footprint, quick boot Linux variant that Good OS introduced today at the Netbook World Summit in Paris -- looks like an altogether different beast. Arriving pre-installed alongside Windows on the new Gigabyte touchscreen netbooks (perhaps some variant of the M912V), the new SplashTop-esque OS uses a web browser as its main interface, with an integrated dock providing such Web 2.0 mainstays as Skype, YouTube and the Google family of apps -- and if this smattering of tools doesn't meet all of your computing needs, you can always boot into your main OS from there. Cloud can be installed as a dual-boot partition on your hard drive or SSD as well as onto a flash chip hardwired onto a motherboard. That's all we have for now, but you can bet we'll be on hand to check it out at CES in January.

Filed under: Laptops

gOS "Cloud" instant-on OS comes to Gigabyte touchscreen netbooks originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hi, br / I offer the most complete repair to the three red rings of death problem together with top quality workmanship. With almost 250 successful repairs having been completed, don't trust your expensive investment to an inexperienced amateur. br / A No Fix...No Pay policy is offered complete with a 30 day full refund* if the problem returns applies to all repairs. This is a complete X clamp replacement repair and greatly minimizes the design flaw which causes the problem and reduces the likelihood of it's return. The X clamps are removed and the heatsinks are then bolted through the case, not just fastened from under the motherboard like the other replacement repairs you'll find being done around the city. This is a far more desirable and effective method of X clamp removal which controls motherbord flex due to heat and the resultant broken solder connections. I've done many successful repairs for individuals who have been told that their console could not be fixed by other sources. Why is this?....because others are only doing a quick, partial repair operation. br / Additional cooling mods are done to ensure your console operates at lower temperatures and quality Artic Silver 5 thermal paste is used on both the CPU GPU die sets. br / Returning your console to Microsoft (case must not have ever been opened) generally results in a long delay with the problem returning a short time later. Repair to the audio with no video problem (E-74) is also available. Even if you have green lights at present you have the option of having the X clamps replaced to reduce the chance of ever getting the 3RROD error. A 1.0 hour While U Wait repair service is done on all scheduled repairs! br / Additionally a mobile service can be arranged for a nominal travel fee depending on schedule and your location. br / Contact me and get gaming again in no time! br / * Conditions Apply.

According to DigiTimes, AMD will introduce six 45nm AM3 CPUs in February 2009. The list of processors is as follows:

The quad-core Phenom II X4 925 and 910 with 6MB L3 Cache, the quad-core Phenom II X4 810 and 805 with 4MB L3 Cache, and the triple-core Phenom II X3 720 and 710 with 6MB L3 Cache, according to sources at motherboard makers.

Comments

img src="http://www.edge-online.com/files/imagecache/article_homepage_large_144x108/img_43461_rrod.jpg" alt="360 Hardware Update Arrives" title="360 Hardware Update Arrives" class="imagecache imagecache-article_homepage_large_144x108" /br /!--paging_filter--strongNumerous reports have emerged claiming that new shipments of 360 hardware will come with an updated motherboard said to be far less susceptible to RRoD than previous iterations. /strongbr /pa href="http://www.edge-online.com/news/360-hardware-update-arrives"read more/a/p

hey everyone. im new to this forum. i have successfully built a hackintosh in the past using an ASUS P4P800 Deluxe mobo with a 2.8ghz P4 CPU. I gave that mac to my sister and now I need one for myself. I don't want to spend a lot, i know that might be a problem but I great at finding bargains. the only thing i am having a hard time deciding is the motherboard. yes i did search and yes i looked at the 10.5.2 compatibility list on wiki but that doesn't help me narrow stuff down. i really dont wanna patch anything (even tho i know i might need too). i think i am gonna stick with Asus just because i believe they are designed well and i have some experience with them. does anyone have any recommendations for microatx motherboards that are Asus? i was looking at this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131288

its an ASUS P5KPL-CM LGA 775 Intel G31 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

what got me was the bus speed and the price. i pretty much know all the parts im gonna get except maybe the graphics card. i used a ATI radeon 9600xt on my old hackintosh and till this day i still cant get QE/CI enabled. i have given up (if you know a fix please point me the right direction). Anyway, im gonna get a Core2Duo to insure EFI support. Proly a 1 TB hd, dvd burner, 2 gig ram and proly an Nvidia card. i know the mobo is the crucial part of the hackintosh but i would like something cheap and that has as little patching as possible. something that works OOB would be ideal! i plan to run iAtkos on it, never really liked kalyway. anyway, any help would be appreciated.

Hi,

I have a MBP I bought in July '07, and it worked great until recently. Using it one day under normal circumstances, the screen went all fuzzy and the colors were messed up. I turned it off to reboot it, but it never make it passed the gray screen with the spinner and the apple logo. The spinner would stop, then a darker gray bar would come down from the top of the screen, then eventually it would tell me to reboot it.

I took it in to the Apple Store, and the geniuses couldn't figure out what was wrong with it. I was suggesting it was the well documented problem of the 8600GT graphics card being screwed up, but an isolated video test apparently showed that wasn't the problem. They gave up and sent it away for a flat repair fee of $310 to fix anything and everything.

They replace the motherboard, and repair the graphics card, according to my invoice. I get it back today, it worked fine in the Apple Store, I bring it home, and during the first few minutes it crashes twice. It then works fine for an hour or two, but then won't start up just like the old problem a little bit later after a restart. I leave it off for an hour or two then come back and it starts up fine (I'm typing this on it).

I'm not sure what could still be wrong with it, its a brand new motherboard, hard drive is fine (I was always able to boot the hard drive in target mode), and the graphics card has been repaired (although why did it have to be repaired if "that's not the problem"?).

I have a 90 day warranty period on the computer now because of the repair so I want to take advantage of that to get a stable running computer, as I want to keep this thing for another few years. I can't be sure whether this is going to be a recurring problem or if I should worry about it or what. I would take it back to the Apple Store but it probably would behave when they tested it knowing my luck.

Any suggestions?

Also, has anybody heard of somebody getting one of the new MBP as a replacement for an older aluminum one? That would be amazing.

Thanks in advance!

Stuart

P.S. Only upside is that they gave me a new battery with the repair. It was at 19% capacity before!

Hi all

I finally ordered a new MBP and have been reading these forums until it gets here. I have seen the laptop coolers that are basically a laptop stand with fans. Do these actually work?

Are there any laptop coolers that use something more powerful? Like liquid cooling for example? Since the new MBPs are a giant heat sink, this would probably keep it nice and cold. My concern is condensation and it may affect the battery. Also, does aluminum contract under low temperatures?

My current computer has a motherboard which has a heat sink and fan on its northbridge chip. I have noticed that during the winter, it makes noise when it starts up but gradually goes away.

This post is more about curiosity though.
Thanks