One year old tomorrow and very unwell MBP

Question

Hi
I have had many problems with my MBP- it's officially 1 year old tomorrow and doesn't seem to be happy about it!
I have so far had the following replaced:
Logic board
Fan
Outer side casing
Keyboard
2 x batteries ( first swelled up 2nd just died)
My optical drive has stopped uploading audio discs- currently in communication with applecare on that one- They insisted I re instal l OSX- which I've done, do a hardware test- also done and I'm still having the problems. 1 issue- hoping they take it in soon and replace it!!
MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-857 - this is the drive I have and I know from other posts it has known issues!
Anyway now there seems to be a problem with the sound on my MBP
It started my making a strange crackling noise on opening some programs-
Now the sound in general ( Itunes, web pages, alerts) is distorted and echos.
Any ideas what could be causing this?
Am getting seriously frustrated as I love my MBP but it's just problem after problem.
Oh before you ask- yes I have bought applecare- was frightened not to with all my recent problems!
Do I just have a bad MBP ? week 9 I think
Thanks
E

Answer 1

The optical media standards are very much astray in this world. Some drives are very sensitive to the quality of the media you put in them. Some will get off balance if you use many sticky labels on disks, or a sticky label could get in on the drive and cause havoc. If you write on the disk label side, it could interfere with the ability of the disk to be read. If you have a brand new retail operating system disk, or a regular purchased (not rented, not preowned) commercial movie DVD, that is the correct region for your country that wont' play, then that's a good indication there is a hardware problem if this issue occurs immediately after an erase and install, and no peripherals are attached to the MacBook Pro. Start adding peripherals, software, or anything else that is third party, or new documents that could present data corruption issues, and you might be talking simply a data corruption issue with the driver, the mounting software, or something else on the machine. A vanilla machine is the only one you can tell with any certainty there is a hardware issue, short of some hardware test registering that issue. So backup your data at least twice, and erase and install, and see if the issues with the drive persist.
As for the sound issues, those might be fixed with a reset of the PRAM, or
changing the audio midi settings of the Audio Midi Setup application. That's covered in these two articles:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300832
We can't question Apple's policy here. Read the Terms of Use on the right, especially this passage:
"2. Submissions
Search or browse for existing answers before you ask a question. Someone else may have asked your question — it may save you some time.
Stay on topic. Apple's discussion forums are here to help people use Apple products and technologies more effectively. Unless otherwise noted, don't add Submissions about nontechnical topics, including:
That Apple rumor you saw on another website.
Discussions of Apple policies or procedures.
Speculations/rumors about unannounced products.
The status of your 1973 MG Midget restoration."
Basically my recommendation is to use process of elimination to make absolutely sure there is nothing software that could be causing the issue.