# Mac folks, some help please.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-folks-some-help-please/716819
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [April 4, 2015, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-folks-some-help-please/716819 "2015-04-04T19:24:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@harmonicamoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harmonicamoon)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2015, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-folks-some-help-please/716819/1 "2015-04-04T19:24:42Z")
My five year old MacBook has an Apple symbol in four pieces on startup. After a white screen appears.
I couldn’t contact Apple support communities. It’s okay because you folks are smarter.
How bad is it?
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### Author:  [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2015, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-folks-some-help-please/716819/2 "2015-04-04T22:03:32Z")
Sounds like a bad video chip to me. Some of these machines had an extended recall- it might b worth checking Apple’s site to see if your serial number is one of them.
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### Author:  [@D18](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D18)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2015, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-folks-some-help-please/716819/3 "2015-04-06T13:17:45Z")
Don’t know if you’ve resolved this, but [here is the info on the extended program](https://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro-videoissues/) that **beowulff** mentioned. I was able to take advantage of it on two machines!
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### Author:  [@harmonicamoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harmonicamoon)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2015, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-folks-some-help-please/716819/4 "2015-04-06T15:16:29Z")
Thank you very much troops. It appears that it may be that. Apple wanted me to supply the purchase date, which I don’t have. There is an authorized store in Merida, Yucatan. I have written them.
Some more details. After a few minutes of the spinning beach ball, I checked the activity monitor. It said Firefox not responding. I did a force quit on Firefox. After 30 minutes of the beach ball, i pushed the round silver button.
I hope it is not serious. I am having severe computer withdrawals.
Thank you for your help.
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### Author:  [@D18](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D18)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2015, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-folks-some-help-please/716819/5 "2015-04-06T15:30:12Z")
Huh. All I had to do was give them the serial number number. Regarding Firefox, I was having severe performance problems. On the Mac, I mean. Then one day when I opened Firefox I got a notice on the bottom of the window that said “We noticed Firefox took a long term me to open. Click here for solutions.” I clicked, they recommended I reinstall Firefox, which I did. Much better performance - not just with Firefox but the whole system. So much so, I almost started a thread to find out if this was possible. Anyway, you might want to delete/reinstall Firefox. YMMV of course. And I might be imagining things.
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### Author:  [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2015, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-folks-some-help-please/716819/6 "2015-04-07T11:29:01Z")
> [@D18](#):
>
> Huh. All I had to do was give them the serial number number. Regarding Firefox, I was having severe performance problems. On the Mac, I mean. Then one day when I opened Firefox I got a notice on the bottom of the window that said “We noticed Firefox took a long term me to open. Click here for solutions.” I clicked, they recommended I reinstall Firefox, which I did. Much better performance - not just with Firefox but the whole system. So much so, I almost started a thread to find out if this was possible. Anyway, you might want to delete/reinstall Firefox. YMMV of course. And I might be imagining things.
thanks.
glad you are getting your machine working.
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### Author:  [@harmonicamoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harmonicamoon)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2015, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-folks-some-help-please/716819/7 "2015-04-09T00:53:51Z")
Just got back from the Apple service center. It was the video card. They will replace it for free!
Mil gracias Beowulff and D18! Before posting, I was considering a new MacBook.
You folks are the greatest! Thank you for taking the time to reply.
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### Author:  [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2015, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-folks-some-help-please/716819/8 "2015-04-09T02:06:26Z")
> [@harmonicamoon](#):
>
> Just got back from the Apple service center. It was the video card. They will replace it for free!
>
> Mil gracias Beowulff and D18! Before posting, I was considering a new MacBook.
>
> You folks are the greatest! Thank you for taking the time to reply.
That’s about the best news you can get for an otherwise expensive problem…
Glad you got it sorted out!
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### Author:  [@D18](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D18)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2015, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-folks-some-help-please/716819/9 "2015-04-09T02:44:35Z")
Awesome! It’s amazing how widespread the problem was. The so-called genius at the main store in Toronto said they were getting 5 or so a day!