How most 16" Macbook Pros often kill themselves & why they're unfixable
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN mentions are mostly critical or incidental, using it in discussions of Apple hardware design and repairability rather than recommending it.
What it is
Louis Rossmann explains why many 16-inch MacBook Pros fail and are difficult to repair, focusing on power design on the logic board. He argues the design leads to failures that are hard to fix.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2023 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Critical e44858 · 2023-06 · on “Apple Introduces M2 Ultra”
Louis Rossman gives lots of examples on hist YouTube channel. For example, in one case Apple appears to have cut some corners when designing the power supply for the SSD, so that when it fails it dumps 13 volts into the 2.5 volt SSD which permanently damages it: [this video] In other videos he shows how Apple puts display data lines right next to high-voltage lines instead of separating them with a ground line, which means you’ll fry the board if you get a tiny bit of moisture in that area. So you will notice these cut corners when your device breaks and the repair costs almost as much as the original device.
Critical alex7734 · 2023-06 · on “European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries”
Engineers have become experts in selecting components so that they fail right after the warranty period. Replaceable batteries just means they will make something else weaker instead, preferably something that fries the device once it fails (see [this video] ). It's too dangerous not to, as nowadays phones (or computers in general) don't really need to be upgraded that often to remain useful. No manufacturer wants a repeat of the 1080Ti.
Critical vaylian · 2024-01 · on “Framework: We don't want to have to make a printer, but wow”
If your strategy is working for you then that's great. I do wonder why you need a new computer every 3 years, but I don't know your personal circumstances. The things you do might actually make perfect sense. But for me personally, you lost me at "Macbook": [this video] Then again, life is often about tradeoffs. For me, Framework offers the best tradeoff.
Critical tourmalinetaco · 2025-12 · on “I'm returning my Framework 16”
You forgot: - inadequate cooling - fried NAND chips - screens spontaneously cracking - flexgate (not to be confused with bendgate) And that’s only a subset of the engineering failures with MacBooks. You even bring it up in your post: the only reason they have “dead silence” is because Apple is literally baking your laptop and leaving you to pay the bill. I’ll give Apple that their custom chips are pretty great for power and efficiency, but their actual product design is bad. I mean, who designs a laptop with the fan pointing the wrong way?[0] Or a power bus alongside a data bus?[1] These are literally basic errors that go into production for a company that is far too big for this to be happe