Using EVE Online's certificate system

Having quit my corporation in EVE Online I am now back in Caldari space with my options open. Wondering if I should take time to learn more about armour tanking or gunnery skills I examine my learnt skills and look what I could improve, also checking the market to see what books are available to help me improve. It is all a bit difficult to know just what I should be learning, and indeed what skills are available to be learnt, to improve my current performance. With at least a couple of dozen skill books bought on top of the skills I knew straight out of the capsuleer academy it is now becoming complicated to keep track of each skill's relative benefits and thus what to learn next.

Luckily, there is the new certificate system, with accompanying certificate planner. For someone who cannot run the EVEMon utility the certificate system is immensely useful, with the caveat that it is accurate within itself. The certificate system has a database of skills that are considered, galaxy-wide, to be required for certain proficiencies. Once you have learnt the requisite skills you can claim a certificate that shows your competencies, from the basic level up to elite proficiency. The planner is laid out tidily, showing which skills and other certificates are required to gain the desired certificate.

When investigating whether I could feasibly learn about armour tanking I casually look to see how my skills line up for shield tanking, where I believe I am already competent and thus can diversify safely. Whilst I have basic skills in active and passive shield tanking I am lacking in a few areas to gain the standard certificates in shield tanking, deficiencies that can be rectified with only a few days of training. So rather than trying to learn about armour tanking the certificate system highlights to me that I would probably be better spending the time to learn a bit more about shield tanking, improving my capability and survivability in my Drake's passive shield tank set-up.

It is really quite handy to be shown in clear, graphical format how and where I can focus my training to see practical improvements. As I mentioned before, this relies heavily on the certificate system being accurate. For example, I may need to learn the skill to use rockets to gain the frigate missile control certificate, but if I am never planning to fit rockets to my frigates it seems a bit pointless. On the other hand, maybe I should look in to using rockets for certain tasks or missions and rather than overlook them entirely I could find out the advantages offered by rockets if only because the certificate system forces me to learn about them.

The other danger of the certificate system is that EVE Online could become a glorified skill training simulator. I have a clearly defined path to learning about passive shield tanking, as well as missile control skills, and I can plan what skills to learn and when and claim my certificates to move up in competency levels. The problem is that this can get involved enough—working out what competencies to work on, which skills are required to learn or skill books to buy, when best to schedule the skill training—that I can spend a short session doing nothing else. There is a whole galaxy to explore and blow up, I can be doing so much more than learning skills.

I still like the new certificate system regardless. I have lost count of the times I have logged in to change skills and lost a good half-hour's of training because even though I was on-line when the previous training completed I didn't know what to train next. The certificate system offers me a more focussed training programme than I can build quickly and easily even with my limited experience.

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Tags: certificates, eve online, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

Testing the Death Knight presences

Having reached 70th level with my death knight and gained unholy presence I am keen to find out how the boosted attack speed and reduced global cool-down (GCD) affects my damage-per-second (DPS) output. More specifically, I want to see how the extra speed offered by unholy presence compares to the inherent extra 15% damage of blood presence. Not being particularly hardcore the most scientific and unbiased way I can think of to accomplish a comparison is to head to Ironforge with Gnomesblight, my death knight, to beat up a target dummy.

Being 70th level it seems best to hit a 70th level target dummy. I also start each test from a known and repeatable base, with no buffs, no runic power, and the same equipment. I reset Recount, my damage meter, and start my regular attack rotation standing right next to the dummy, buffing myself with horn of winter as soon as enough runic power becomes available. I don't really need to use horn of winter for this test but its two-minute duration offers a reliable timer that can be used for each test, as well as hopefully being long enough to average out the critical hit chance and any special abilities triggering. I pound on the dummy in blood presence and unholy presence, resetting myself and the damage meter after each attempt.

After about a dozen rounds in each presence I think I have enough data for my limited and amateur testing. During optimal runs I am getting about 800 DPS in unholy presence and 830 DPS in blood presence, with runs both above and below each of those figures. The extra 15% damage that blood presences gives the death knight is enough to counter the 15% increased attack speed and 0.5 second reduced GCD, but blood presence only out-damages unholy by around 5%.

The speed of unholy presence allows for quicker reapplication of diseases should they miss, as well as a much faster rotation that delivers all of my powerful strikes more rapidly. The problem with using all my runes so quickly is that during my test I am often left waiting for runes to recharge or rune power to build up, which slows down the DPS. The Butchery talent builds up two runic power every five seconds, which is not quick enough in unholy presence to have built up enough runic power to use the spells that require it before all runes have been burnt through with brutal haste.

In blood presence, on the other hand, there is often too much to do. It is not just that the Butchery talent has enough time to build up runic power, but an efficient spell rotation that uses all the runes—icy touch, plague strike, blood strike, blood strike, obliterate—takes long enough with the normal GCD that the runes become available immediately at the end of the rotation. The rotation can be started again without delay or the built-up runic power can be used for a talent-gained frost strike, adding some redundancy to the rotation.

Both presences therefore have a weakness. The fast unholy presence can leave me waiting for resources to recharge to power spells and the powerful blood presence taunts me with too many resources for them to be used with maximum efficiently. But it must be acknowledged that hitting a target dummy is a theoretical test only and practical use of the powers offers a different experience. For example, runic strike, which needs an attack to be parried or dodged, will not be triggered from attacking an immobile target dummy but can be used against an active mob for extra DPS and to use some of the accumulated runic power. This is particularly applicable when in blood presence, as runic strike is activated as part of a normal weapon strike, not as part of the GCD, so can utilise runic power without altering the spell rotation.

The Butchery talent also boosts runic power after a kill that bestows honour or experience points. During PvE that talent will see the death knight with residual, if decaying, runic power outside of combat for a short period of time, or at the very least give the death knight enough runic power to rebuff with horn of winter between fights.

Most importantly, mobs die in solo PvE far more quickly than the two minutes duration I used on the test. The two minute test is good to find a theoretical base DPS value but doesn't mirror actual combat reliably. Repeating the test against mobs in Netherstorm, in both blood presence and unholy presence and using a method as repeatable as possible, the mobs are killed too quickly to give a fair report. Abilities triggering and critical hits are too variable, even when fighting more than one mob at a time or chain-pulling mobs.

Essentially, then, there is little practical difference in DPS between blood presence and unholy presence during solo PvE. However, I should elaborate a little on what I perceive as the use of each presence. Frost presence, with its increased armour and threat generation and unmentioned until now, is unarguably for tanking. The speed of unholy presence allows for all powers to be blasted through in short, quick bursts of extreme damage that, along with the movement speed boost, makes it obviously ideal for PvP. I would also say that unholy presence is good for solo PvE. Even though blood presence does a little more damage the reduced GCD makes combat apparently if not actually quicker and when coupled with the increased movement speed questing feels faster and more fluid.

Never the less, blood presence remains useful in one aspect, that of group DPS. When in an instance with a tank and healer the longer duration combats that are typical when fighting elite mobs are ideal for the extra DPS offered by blood presence, with its abundance of resources and thus options.

One last note: my testing revealed, and a search has verified, that the horn of winter ability doesn't share the reduced GCD of unholy presence. As it can be, and probably ought only to be, used out of combat it is not a major problem, but it can cause a GCD 'stutter' when refreshed during combat.

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Tags: death knight, gnomesblight, mmorpg, world of warcraft

Coming home to Caldari

Having quit my corporation in EVE Online I leave myself in Minmatar space with several PvP-fitted ships, a mission-running Drake battlecruiser and a salvaging Cormorant, and plenty of recovered modules. My next step is uncertain, so I ponder my options.

I have thought about broadening my skills, teaching myself more gunnery skills as well as learning better how to run an armour tank. Thus one option is to stay where I am, with my current ships and proximity to some familiar low-sec zones in case I feel adventurous, as well as all the loot I've accumulated. As the modules are recovered from gun-equipped armour-tanks it will come in handy if I choose to learn those skills myself. I will still need to build up faction reputation in this region with level one agents for now, but I wouldn't want to run anything above a level one mission with my current gunnery skills anyway.

The other option is to head home to Caldari space. I will need to sell all the salvaged modules, rather than leaving it sitting in a hangar gathering dust, and work out whether it is worth hauling more than the Drake back with me. If I head home I will be able to pick up mission-running where I left off, with some high-quality level three agents in more familiar areas. My mind is made up when I realise that moving back to Caldari space doesn't preclude learning gunnery or armour-tanking skills. My main issue is with selling everything and moving again, after having done so to come down here for the corporation.

It turns out that selling all my loot is not that difficult, even with some of it being potentially quite useful or expensive. I can just buy it again when I can use it and in the meantime have some useful and more flexible ISK. I decide only to take the Drake back with me, along with some useful shield-tanking modules and some missiles. I have a Cormorant I left back at my previous base, as I appear to be reluctant to strip and sell ships second-hand, and frigates are too cheap to bother with hauling them back-and-forth.

It takes a while to make the many jumps but here I am, back in The Forge. I even pop back to Jita to pick up a couple of modules for the salvaging Cormorant, modules I learnt about since leaving the region a few months ago, making it an equivalent fit of the salvager I left behind. Despite being 'home' I am still a little unsettled and need to force a direction on myself. Do I go straight back to level three mission running, try my hand at production, or learn a different method of tanking and attacking?

What I need to do is get back in to some action. It has been too long since I have caused explosions bigger than a small moon. I need to stir my passion for space exploration and combat again. I poke around my contact list and find an agent who remembers me and hints that he could throw some work my way. I work out the logistics of getting the Drake and Cormorant the half-dozen systems away and set the wheels in motion.

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Tags: cormorant, drake, eve online, jita, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, the forge

Gnomesblight's unholy presence

It's not just a neat skeletal flying mount that I get at 70th level but also the unholy presence, completing the triumvirate of presences available to the death knight. With blood presence offering greater damage and a small amount of healing, frost presence increasing armour and threat generation for tanking, I am curious to see what unholy presence offers. Consuming an unholy rune puts me in to unholy presence and I feel swifter. My attack speed is 15% quicker, as is my movement. If that weren't beneficial enough the global cool-down (GCD) is decreased by half a second. That may not sound like much but it is a huge change from the normal one-and-a-half seconds.

My initial impressions of unholy presence are completely positive, with the decrease of the GCD being the most apparent change, although the movement speed increase is noticeable and pleasing too. The only problem with the change to the GCD is that the efficient spell rotation I worked out had the runes becoming available again at the end of the rotation but with the reduced GCD the rotation ends more quickly, before the runes have recharged. This can be mitigated easily enough by inserting a use or two of spells that require runic power as part of the rotation, it simply means finding what I need to and can do and adjusting my rotation a little.

Whether I deal more damage in unholy presence with the reduced GCD versus the increased damage inherent in blood presence remains to be tested. I will practice on a target dummy to investigate further.

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Tags: death knight, gnomesblight, mmorpg, world of warcraft

Jewelcrafting makes for disappointing adventures

I know that Gnomesblight, my death knight, is ready for Northrend, having got her mining and blacksmithing both above 350 and trained to grand master level. Sapphire, my protection warrior, should also be ready for Northrend, having been 70th level for longer than 'Blighty and already been in to an instance on an unsuccessful run through the Nexus. Sapphire's enchanting skill is over 350 and trained to grand master level, but her jewelcrafting skill languishes at the 335 level. Having to train my jewelcrafting doesn't so much tie Sapphire to Outlands as it does Gnomesblight, because the latter is the miner. Either way, having a skill below 350 prevents full commitment to Northrend adventuring.

It is also more complicated than that. With jewelcrafting being a Burning Crusade profession it was tailored for the Outlands. Whilst it may have looked like it got preferential treatment during the Burning Crusade period, with factions seemingly offering jewelcrafting designs everywhere, this is now causing the profession to be something of a chore to improve. With my skill sitting at 335 I find that I have few options left to increase my jewelcrafting skill.

I could make some adamantite jewellery but this requires mercurial adamantite, which is in short, expensive supply and needs me to destroy plenty of adamantite ore to get its residual dust. I also need a mercurial stone, which will cost more than a little gold to buy. The other option is to cut gems. The problem with cutting gems is that the only patterns available for my skill level are only available from faction vendors, and these require a certain level of reputation before they can be bought.

For example, my best option in gem cutting is to get a Consortium pattern that requires me to be honoured with the faction. As the speed of levelling after the 3.02 patch was greatly increased, and I wasn't entirely thinking of my jewelcrafting needs but having fun, I skipped past Consortium areas and have no faction reputation with them at all. This leaves me in a bit of a bind. I either need Gnomesblight to mine in the Outlands to get adamantite or I need Sapphire to run quests in Outlands to gain Consortium reputation. I am ready to leave the Outlands and concentrate on the new continent but I don't want my characters to get too involved in Northrend if one of my professions will be left behind.

My choice is to run quests in Netherstorm for the Consortium and quickly raise my reputation so that I can buy the pattern that will let me train as a grand master jewelcrafter. And so I begin. The quests are quite easy for someone with more than a smattering of early-Northrend equipment, putting me at least at the mid-range epic Outlands raider, and I blast through several of them. The problem is that the quests are no longer an end in themselves, an adventure to be completed or explored, but a means to the end of reputation gain.

Paying little attention to the details of the quests leads to one of the most disappointing moments I have experienced in an MMORPG. Whilst killing ten rats—well, twelve raptors—Sapphire hits 71st level. I had only been a few bubs away from levelling after the Northrend dash and Nexus encroachment and the dozen or so Consortium quests completed got me close enough to the next level that killing a few mobs pushed me over. But I wasn't aiming to level! My focus is on my reputation bar and gaining 71st level was a by-product of this instead of a primary target. As it is, seeing the flash of lights surrounding Sapphire and hearing the 'fwoom' of gaining a level is as plain as charging the next enemy. How anticlimactic.

Even after completing all the quests the Stormspire and surrounding area wants to give me I am left significantly short of being honoured with the Consortium, although now friendly. Luckily, a guild alchemist appears who has the skills to make a mercurial stone, returning the option of making adamantite jewellery. This path will need Gnomesblight to mine an awful lot of additional adamantite ore but it will probably be quicker than gaining another few thousand reputation points by questing, particularly now that flying has made mining easier. The jewellery can also be disenchanted and those materials sold or used for enchanting, rather than the cut gems that have been surpassed in quality by Northrend jewelcrafters and so will unlikely be sold for profit.

I'll get my jewelcrafting to the grand master level eventually.

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Tags: gnomesblight, jewelcrafting, mmorpg, outlands, professions, sapphire, world of warcraft

Flying for easier mining

Gnomesblight, my death knight, hit 70th level and bought a flying mount. It is a little ostentatious to buy a flying mount immediately at 70th level when it cannot be used in Northrend until cold weather flying can be learnt at additional cost, particularly when I am questing exclusively in Northrend, but Sapphire still needs help levelling up jewelcrafting. To advance Sapphire's jewelcrafting skills I need to get her some adamantite bars, which means I need to go mining.

Even though I came up with an efficient mining routine around Zangarmarsh it is now less desirable an option to run laps there, because the level of the zone means that most of the ore is fel iron, even if there is some adamantite ore to be found in the harder-to-reach places. Because fel iron advances neither my blacksmithing nor Sapphire's jewelcrafting any more the relative scarcity of adamantite in Zangarmarsh requires me to mine elsewhere. Taking to the skies allows me to wander over any region in Outlands without encountering any mobs whilst still being able to track mineral veins, hence buying the flying mount. It really is an invaluable purchase in regards of mining, as well as being a good opportunity to fill out my map without danger.

Well, I can map areas almost without danger. Flying over a Horde camp in Blade's Edge Mountains gets me marked and a Horde guard shoots me off my mount from a few hundred feet in the air, the landing doing nothing for my knee joints and leaving my ghost skittering back to find my shattered body. Despite the rare set-back my mapping of Blade's Edge Mountains and Netherstorm allows me to collect sixty pieces of adamantite ore, along with a handful of khorium ore, with almost no difficulty. Mining is again a pleasant pastime.

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Tags: death knight, gnomesblight, mining, mmorpg, professions, world of warcraft

Who is the real monster?

I picked up The Dark Knight on DVD and revisited this action-packed and enthralling super hero adventure, after having seen it twice at the cinema earlier this year. Heath Ledger is simply amazing as The Joker, slipping in to a rôle that he makes complex and engaging with experienced ease. His new depiction of The Joker leaves me with just one question: who is the real monster?

Is it The Joker, with his disfiguring scars and disguising make-up, hiding his true identity and making him more intimidating? Is it the way he turns conventions and expectations on their head to upset and disorientate law enforcement and criminals alike, his only apparent goal being to spread disorder and chaos? Is it the way he pushes anyone and everyone to act against their own morality to show that we are all uncivilised animals under heightened circumstances, or the brutal murders he performs just to make a point or as a means to an end?

Or is it the businessman, in his suit and tie?

Having got Iron Man on DVD for Christmas and seeing Obadiah Stane conspire to kidnap and kill his friend Tony Stark whilst using Stark's company to sell weapons covertly to both sides of a bloody conflict involving his own nation, before attempting to kill as many people as he can who discover and can reveal his plans, leading him to go on a rampage downtown, it turns out that the real monster is in fact the businessman, in his suit and tie.

I honestly didn't see that one coming.

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Tags: dvd, iron man, the dark knight, the joker

Entering Northrend

I am finally ready to enter Northrend. I know it has been over six weeks since the Wrath of the Lich King expansion was released, and indeed installed on my system, but I've been busy. I tried out the new death knight class and not only found the starting area to be engaging and interesting but the class itself is a lot of fun to play. Abandoning my rogue for the death knight turned out not to be that tough a decision to make, even though it put me a few levels behind the rogue as well as halting progress on my 70th level warrior, if only because the rogue was feeding her materials for her enchanting and jewelcrafting profession choices. By taking up mining and blacksmithing on the death knight I could still feed the materials to my warrior, but that was where the real delay lies.

Even though the death knight starts at 55th level, and rapidly gains a few levels in the starting area, the professions chosen start from scratch. I have spent far more time than I would have liked mining, and not enough of that was spent simply levelling up my mining skill. Too much excess mining was required to develop my blacksmithing skill, to the point where I visited Northrend to gain the grand master mining training so that all the extra mining I had to do for the blacksmithing profession would not go to waste. My skill in mining hit 400 before I was able to become a master swordsmith at blacksmithing 330, which shows the discrepancy in gathering versus crafting.

Finally, after even more mining and some crafting of adamantite cleavers and rapiers, I reach a blacksmithing skill of 350, enough to learn the grand master blacksmith training and I am ready to leave Outlands. I had taken time out from mining to enjoy questing and reached 68th level the previous day, which lets me start picking up Northrend quests. The only drawback is that Gnomesblight, my death knight, used all her resources of adamantite to develop blacksmithing and Sapphire, my warrior, now needs adamantite for jewelcrafting, where her skill still languishes at 335. I will need to return to Outlands to mine more adamantite at some point, which I am planning to do once Gnomesblight is at least 70th level and has her flying mount, making for much more convenient mining sessions.

A bit of adamantite notwithstanding, both Sapphire and Gnomesblight are ready for Northrend! Gnomesblight goes to Howling Fjord to run through the first few quests there, and to wantonly slaughter some wild turkeys for a pointless achievement. Within a couple of quests I have a new two-handed mace that has over 35% more DPS than the Stoneforged Claymore I spent so long mining and crafting to make for myself. I could be bitter, having only used the Stoneforged Claymore for three levels, but I see it as part of the progression. I was able to craft a weapon I could use that was superior to any I had found and my efforts in being able to achieve that should also ensure I will be able to do so again soon. The main problem with the new weapon is that death knights are not trained to use the two-handed mace by the Lich King or his minions and have to learn the skill later on from a weapon master, meaning that their proficiency starts at zero.

I have to agree with Melmoth that weapon skill is a pointless inclusion that adds nothing to character development and only burdens the player. With my new weapon I can do little more than swing and miss for the first hundred or so uses, and that is pretty tedious with only one swing just under every four seconds. Not wanting to get killed whilst 'learning' how to use a two-handed mace I head back to Stormwind to practice on some convicts in the Stockades. I set auto-attack on and go afk for a while, coming back only to change targets. I have enough armour to survive the attacks and the elite mobs have enough hit points to last the occasional lucky attack whilst being low enough level that I will hit them sooner rather than later, making them good targets. Maybe not as good targets as a target dummy, but at least I get some gold from the time spent. The notion of weapon skill may be well-intentioned but all it is achieving at the moment is preventing me from doing anything meaningful before I've raised my skill enough.

In-between questing and weapon training I find a few nodes of cobalt ore, already conning green to me with my mining skill at 417 gained from mining in the Outlands, and am able to make a couple of bits of cobalt armour for Sapphire. Along with using my small stock of khorium ore to make greater runes of warding my blacksmithing skill is pushed up to 360. A few eternium rods will advance that further quite nicely.

As for Sapphire, I prepare for a guild trip in to the Nexus, to get a winter hat, and start adventuring in the Borean Tundra. The early quests offer some decent equipment upgrades that are probably enough to make running the Nexus possible, if slightly awkward for our healer. However, the instance run ends with no boss kills. I suspect we are a little short of DPS, perhaps through inexperience, because Sapphire, still 70th level and protection specced, is top of the damage meter that is shared with a 75th level hunter. Even so, it was fun to tank in an instance for a guild group again and I had great time in my first Northrend dungeon. Now that I am firmly ensconced in Northrend I look forward to some new and exciting adventures and further expeditions in to dangerous dungeons.

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Tags: blacksmithing, gnomesblight, mining, mmorpg, northrend, professions, sapphire, target dummy, weapon skill, world of warcraft

Leaving the corporation

The corporation I joined in EVE Online has moved to null-sec space, after being accepted in to a suitable alliance. This presents me with logistical as well as technical challenges.

Despite having joined several operations in to low-sec space with the corporation, and gaining a fair amount of experience in how to move around and stay safe in low-sec, I hadn't entered in to any PvP combat. We simply didn't find any viable targets, or get ambushed ourselves, during the operations I was involved in. Making the move to null-sec thus feels a little ambitious for me, particularly as it would almost necessitate flying only in fleets for the extent of my time in New Eden. I suppose I could make use of a jump clone back in high-sec should I wish to hop in to my pod for some quick and indulgent blasting rather than tip-toeing through null-sec, but maybe I should instead acknowledge my continuing desire for solo-friendly activities.

When I was playing solo I felt encouraged to log-on for some quick mission running and blasting of spaceships, as even if I had only a short amount of time to spare it was often enough to run a single mission. After I joined the low-sec, PvP-orientated corporation I felt that my time became theirs as I realised my obligation to the corporation. I logged on when I felt I could dedicate the couple of hours required for operations but otherwise didn't want to be seen hopping in and out of my pod for multiple brief sessions as my time allowed. I don't think this is a fault of the corporation or of the game, more that my own sense of duty made me want to achieve more than I could.

It hasn't helped that Wrath of the Lich King was released for World of Warcraft, opening up a heroic class in the Death Knight, which I am thoroughly enjoying, as well as ten more levels to advance and a new continent to explore. It also hasn't helped that I've been ill recently, which has prevented me from spending prolonged periods at the computer, and then having my computer develop a fault that I have been dealing with. And that's not the end of the technical problems.

A member of the corporation kindly set up a Ventrilo voice-comms server, replacing the voice-comms built-in to the EVE Online client. The problem is that Ventrilo doesn't work too kindly with Mac computers, requiring a certain codec to be enabled and, potentially, tweaks to be made for the software to work adequately. As the server is a volunteer effort it wasn't made Mac-friendly and so I could no longer participate in the voice-comms necessary for low-sec operations. On top of that, the null-sec alliance uses Teamspeak and the unofficial Mac client is not supported on Leopard yet, so I am shut out of voice-comms completely.

Admittedly, even though there are obvious technical difficulties that cannot be overcome some of the issues are of my own making, like feeling unprepared for null-sec. As the corporation MD said, you can only prepare for null-sec by living there, and I'm sure he's correct. Never the less, I still think I have experience to gain before I dive head-first in to PvP life, such as ship recognition and familiarity with systems and modules. I will also need to become more comfortable with being a part of a larger fleet instead of being a lone gun.

In the mean time, I am hoping that I will once again find the desire to spend more time as a space cadet, running missions, exploring systems and finding interesting skills to learn. I can investigate the certificate system more thoroughly and aim to gain more relevant skills, as well as develop broader proficiencies outside of missiles and shield tanking. There are new ships to fly, strange new lifeforms to destroy, and nifty technology to overheat.

My time in the corporation was enjoyable, with plenty of good experiences and fun conversations had during operations and missions. I am grateful for the wisdom they imparted to me and hopeful that they won't blow me up should our paths coincidentally cross in the future.

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Tags: corporation, eve online, penny ibramovic

Broken computer

My desktop machine suffered from a failure, most likely the video card overheating. I take the machine in to the local authorised service centre and leave it to be diagnosed and fixed. When I call to get a report I am told that the problem was reproduced on my machine but when they booted from an external drive the problem disappeared. A live chat they conducted with Apple led them to resolve the issue as a software problem.

It sounds like a curious software problem, but I am told that software now controls all the sensors so it isn't impossible. I am also told that software repairs are not covered by my warranty, but that's not too much of a problem because I can install an OS easily enough. I bring the machine home.

I boot the computer holding down 'T' so that it powers-up in target disk mode, making its internal drive just a firewire device. Daisy-chaining my notebook to the desktop and then to an external drive I am able to back up all my data without hassle using SuperDuper!, after which I reinstall the operating system. The only problem is that after a completely fresh installation of the OS, including formatting the hard drive, the GPU fan is still spinning at high speed, even just after boot sitting on an empty desktop screen. This is not right.

I call Apple and they are baffled by what is causing the problem. My frustrations continue when I am told that software repairs are covered under warranty, making it seem that I was lied to by the service centre. On top of that, Apple don't know why the service centre didn't run further hardware tests rather than apparently concluding quickly that the problem was software related. My machine should be fixed by now but it is still broken. Instead of having a chance of getting my desktop computer fixed before the Christmas holidays it has to go to another service centre and I definitely won't have a working machine when I have a week off from work.

My notebook is running World of Warcraft quite capably, but it is not a comfortable set-up for playing games. It's good that I bought the notebook because I have a computer that does anything I need to do, which is certainly better than having to do without a computer completely for the next week or so. But I'm not happy about the service I've received so far for a warranty repair. In fact, I'm getting quite angry overall.

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Tags: apple, computers