I own a 2007 Mac Pro .../... I just called AppleCare about it, to see what they had to say, and what could be done. I was put straight through to a manager rather than the regular support staff. Despite the fact that my AppleCare expired six months ago, they set me up a free cooling system replacement without question. Free repairs outside of warranty? Not the regular Apple approach, I assume. Or maybe I'm just being paranoid.
When I asked about the benzene issue, the manager said that the advice coming down from Apple's engineers was to tell customers that it's 'definitely not benzene', and not to worry about it. I asked the rep to email this info to me, but understandably (I guess) he wasn't prepared to do so - in fact, he joked that he'd probably already said too much. I asked him when Apple were likely to go public with such a statement, and he didn't know but assumed that they would soon.
If Apple did not indicate what was the reason of those chemical compounds released in the air when a Mac Pro was running, the spare part to be changed indicate that indeed the thermal paste might be the faulty component. Indeed, all reports indicate that owners of a affected Mac Pro will have the cooling system changed, independently of the warranty period. So if you purchased your computer on March or June 2007, no worries, Apple will take care of it.
So, if you have a stinky Mac Pro, you know what to do, and should be prepared to get your computer sent back for having its heatsink changed. This story proves that when forced to quickly investigate and react, Apple can indeed be responsive and take great care of its Mac users community. Let’s hope we can say that this story is now part of history.
