Apple Macbook RSS Issue Resolved and Replaced With Immediate Successor

The entire industry of technology journalists have completely not wasted any time in quickly and loudly posting Apple's proposed solution to the Random Shutdown Syndrome (RSS) problem experienced by many Macbook owners and users like myself that surfaced this summer .  You would not know that there was a problem based upon the recent overwhelming and overkill coverage until the solution was announced before the problem was publicly mentioned supposedly after all.

Upon reading a headline that was soon repeated in many forms stating that an official solution was on the table on October 26, 2006, I promptly downloaded Macbook SMC Firmware Update 1.1 when I returned home from work and I have not experienced RSS since.

But the problem has been promptly replaced with the fact that the power supply cable seems to no longer charge the battery at all.  There is a light on the power supply cable that turns yellow when the battery is being charged and turns green when the battery is fully charged.

Now the light remains green as long as it is connected to my Macbook while the battery's strength continues to nosedive and crash.  Right now I am not showing any battery strength at all after trying to recalibrate the battery today.  When I unplugged the cable earlier this evening, the computer immediately turned off.  I am still plugged in and expect the computer to go blank upon disconnecting the power supply cable.

So now I have gone from experiencing random shutdowns to a further reduced pleasure experience of a more reliable and predictable shutdown.  Ugh:(

I found a widget that provides a measurement for battery strength as a percentage.  It is not reading any battery strength at the present time.

At first, these dots would be very difficult to connect.  But with a few mental notes and careful observations, it is beginning to become easier to recognize when a problem or proposal leaves or receives a solution and when the next problem suddenly appears.  It is as if I am waiting for public mass transit like MARTA and CCT here in metro Atlanta.

Apple did a wonderful job in at least offering the SMC Firmware Update, but right now it is seeming as if the problem or series of failures have not gone far enough.

One recently read article mentioned the reduction in battery power and another article mentioned that Apple has basically refused to state what was causing the problem and as a consequence on the same battlefront, the class action suit that was gaining strength as a late summer hurricane has not really subsided.

No one should get me wrong.  The Macbook or Blackbook is a race, show, and work horse all built into one very neat package.  But to lose the mobility and portability that a notebook/laptop computer was designed to offer does make me wonder if I would again buy a Macbook knowing what I know today.

I would have rather paid more or less money for stability (on a PC laptop maybe, I now wonder if I jest) at this point and I originally thought I did.  It seems like a wave rushed over the world this past summer and many Macbook owners hit the same wall and fell like dominoes through no effort of our own.  We only purchased a supposedly great product upon its initial release.  I know that I will not repeat computer ownership as an early adopter any more for the price paid literally and figuratively this time around.

Ironically, I even started to wonder why it was beginning to appear that only certain power sockets would allow the battery to be charged while other sockets would not until finally noticing that none of our power sockets currently will allow the power supply light to turn yellow while charging the battery.  This thought was occurring right after the firmware update was installed.

I am willing to eat my words if I am proven wrong or discover that I was mistaken but until the problem is no longer downplayed or superficially ignored, lingering questions are building in number and volume.

I thought that I had my Mac back.  Now I feel like a kid whose candy was taken away by a bully and/or adult and replaced with a chocolate laxative:(