New boards do not eliminate the sound but lessen it as much as possible...

Jul 31, 2006 02:20 GMT  ·  By

Apple's transition to Intel architecture has no precedent in the computer industry, and as such, it can be said that the transition has so far been ideal, but that is not to say there have not been issues down the line. While the desktops have had no issues, the portables proved to be a more difficult challenge due to the restricted space.

Still, Apple has officially recognized both the discoloring issues and now the whine problem and is providing replacements for those users that need them. Apple has gotten a lot of heat on these two issues, but the company's response was exemplary. The MacBook discoloration issues were acknowledged and fixes were made available within weeks of the problem being reported. The whine took much longer, mainly because the whine was such a variable problem, with some users reporting not being able to use the machine while others not noticing it until someone else pointed it out to them.

Apple is now providing logic board replacements for the whining MacBooks with the expected time for repair being ten days after the machine has arrived at an Apple certified repair center.

While those who have a particularly whiny machine will say that it is high time, it is important to remember that the whine is not a standardized problem and it does not impact the functionality of the machine in any way. Basically Apple's stance on this is that while this is not a real problem, and the MacBook functionality is not affected, it will offer replacement logic boards to those users who are bothered by the noise. The noise is considered part of the normal operation of the machine and the new boards will not make it go away entirely, but they are designed to lessen it as much as possible.