Sharing: Apple Store and Apple Care Experience

[Steven Hatfield]

For the past few months my Mac Pro has been having some little  
issues... the video card was flaking out and putting weird lines up on  
the screen in increasing amounts as time went on and the lower  
superdrive bay door wouldn't close cleanly when I would push the tray  
back in.  For the past 2 days I've been really fighting with lockups  
and very bad visual glitches, so today I decided to address the issue  
and get it resolved. I tried reseating the card and even using canned  
air to clean out the machine and video card heat sink... nothing  
worked. Giving that it was obviously something beyond my meager  
capabilities, I created a concierge appointment for 12:30pm and took  
the machine in to the Apple Store at the SouthPark Mall in Charlotte,  
NC.

Since the machine is pretty heavy and the mall is pretty big, I called  
them around 12:20pm and asked them if they could bring down a cart to  
help me get the machine up to the store. A nice young lady arrived a  
few minutes later and like an emergency room nurse took the machine  
away on the cart while I searched for a parking spot. Very nice.

They called my name at 12:35pm and I explained to the genius behind  
the bar what was going on. He told me that the video card issue was  
pretty well known; that some cards were bad and did exactly what I was  
describing.  The drive bay door not closing cleanly was a different  
matter... apparently it is part of the case, and he'd have to replace  
the entire case!

New Mac Pro Case: $580
New ATI X1900 Video card: $400
Labor: $130

Apple Care paying for it all: Priceless.

Now if only I didn't have to do without my machine for a week :-/

Have a fantastic day!
-Steven