Micahel’s new Macbook had a very unusual flaw. Whenever it was connected to his home network, it would take out his modem. Unfortunately, it didn’t take the whole Apple Store’s network down, so he wasn’t able to replicate the problem for the Geniuses. After five trips and a variety of repairs, Apple finally gave up…and gave him a brand new MacBook.

He writes:

I bought a MacBook Pro from Apple back in June of this year. It was my first non PC laptop but I own 5 other apple products already that work completely fine.

To keep it short, it never worked properly from day one. I had weird issues with it from internet functioning to graphics issues. The real issue though is whenever I would connect to the internet via wi-fi it would immediately wipe out my modem. As long as I kept the Wi-Fi button off on the macbook though, all other devices worked fine. If you turned it back on though, nothing worked (no PS3, no iPhones, no iPads).

I took it to the genius bar on 5 separate occasions (today being 5). They admitted they could not figure it out and watched my videos of it happening inside my house. They had tried to replace several parts and the same thing.

So today they gave me a brand new Macbook with a brand new one year warranty. For nothing. I don’t know their policies but I was really appreciative and just wanted to pass along.

The reason why this happened has to do with the weird nature of the computer’s problems. Apple wanted the computer back so their engineers could study it, and giving Michael a new one was a fair trade. Still, they could have given him a clearance or refurbished unit of the same age instead of one that’s almost six months newer. Maybe the technology will become part of their new iDisrupt system for parents who think their kids have been online too much today.

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