That would mean my Macs would always be in warranty, and I’d have some protection against accidental damage too without a claim on my home insurance (though AppleCare+ does exclude ‘catastrophic’ damage, so seems to be geared to covering repair but not replacement).
#Buy external keyboard for macbook pro upgrade#
If I wait until they’re old enough that no widespread issues have emerged, that ought to reduce the risk of failure, and would also mean reduced financial exposure as the replacement cost might potentially be lower than the cost of repair.įinally, the radical plan: boost my upgrade cycle from 4-5 years to 3 years, and to buy AppleCare+.
Third, I could stick to buying older Macs, once they have a proven track record. But I include it as it might be a viable option for some. I like macOS, I love the ecosystem and I write about this stuff for a living. Second, some suggested a switch to a Windows laptop. Then again, so did a first one. The keyboard is covered by the quality program for a further year, so I wouldn’t have financial exposure for that but a second failure seems much more likely, so I would still face the hassle involved in being without the machine while it’s repaired. A second logic board failure seems unlikely. I considered the four options I’d have once the logic board is replaced.įirst, hang onto it, and take the risk of further failures. This was a purely academic exercise, of course: none of the logic board components are serviceable, so Apple just replaces the entire board. The failure, then, was in the integrated GPU. With that unchecked, the crashes didn’t happen even when woken or restarted on battery power. I tested this by going into System Preferences > Energy and unchecking Automatic Graphics Switching.
#Buy external keyboard for macbook pro pro#
In the evening, running on power but using the built-in display, with no pro apps running, it would be using the integrated GPU.Īnd running on battery, it would, by default, be using the integrated GPU. In my work environment, connected to power and external monitor, and with Photoshop running, it would be using the dedicated GPU. The sole variable that would explain that was the integrated GPU.
It did so when on battery power and then started doing so when on power but without an external monitor. I noticed that the machine never shutdown when running on power and connected to an external monitor. I did, incidentally, manage to deduce exactly what the logic board fault was…