I'm seeing on the boards what appears to be general hardware issue

From time to time you may see long threads on Discussions about certain apparent "defects", and wonder what if anything Apple might be doing about them. Your best bet if you think you have one of these problems is first see if your machine is under AppleCare. Use the search field on http://www.apple.com/support/ showing find out your support coverage to find out your remaining support period. If your machine is still under a year old, hardware support is available if the issue is obviously hardware. If you have a PowerPC Mac and it came with restore disks that include a hardware test, you can use these instructions to find out if the machine has a hardware issue:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86287

An Intel Mac can use these instructions:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303081

If you find you have a hardware issue based on the hardware test, call AppleCare:

http://www.apple.com/contact/phone_contacts.html

If you are out of AppleCare, first check if one of these exchange programs applies to you:

http://www.apple.com/support/exchange_repair/

Also note, if you purchased with a credit card often warranties are extended by credit card companies. Check with yours if you purchased your machine with one.

It is still a good idea to call them to let them know how widespread a problem may be even if the exchange program is not available.