My trusty MacBook Pro, after several years of faithful service, has started exhibiting signs of flaky behavior over the last couple of months. If I put it to sleep for my ride home, there’s a 50% chance it will have woken up and be cooking itself inside my computer bag. This happened when I was running 10.4 and has only gotten worse when I upgraded to 10.5, so I know it’s not software-related. I’ve reset the power management unit several times, but that doesn’t seem to make a difference.

Running Photoshop, Windows XP under Parallels, Mail, FTP, and three or four other essential applications concurrently makes the processor get hot to the point where I have the cooling fans on maximum. I’d guess several years of this have begun to fry some of the innards, making things flakier over time. Plus, I’m continually bashing my head against the 2GB RAM ceiling in this model.

Now I’m getting a single horizontal line across the screen about 1/3 of the way from the top, which is small enough to almost be invisible but large enough to be really annoying. When this line appeared in the past (always after the sleep-waking incidents) it would go away on its own after several minutes, but I’ve had a permanent line for 24 hours, which has me worried.

This is actually the second display for this particular laptop; I had the first one replaced under warranty only months after I got the unit. It’s well outside the warranty and Applecare coverage at this point, so I’m on my own. Some initial research prices a replacement at around $800, which is about $200 less than a new MacBook. I’m not afraid of doing the surgery myself, but for that kind of cash, I’d rather just buy something new.

I get the feeling this is a symptom of greater problems down the line.
So, new MacBook Pros (I don’t think I could trade down to a consumer-level MacBook) start at $1700 for a 15″ and go all the way up to $2400 for a 17″, which is considerably less than what they were 3 years ago. Refurbs are $200-400 less than list, and I have no hesitation buying last years’ model to save some cash, but right now is not a good time, considering we’re saving up for a baby-hauling vehicle. I can make do with what I’ve got by running an external monitor and just living with the problem, but I’m depressed that I can’t stretch the lifespan of this machine out another year or two.

Update: It seems to come and go. I though it might be because I was jamming the laptop in a bag with a bunch of other items, but carrying it separately had no effect. After several hours of sleep, the line goes away sometimes, and sometimes not.