[hackshack]

Ugh, that’s terrible. AppleCare phone support can be hit-or-miss. You could try another rep. If you were up to it, you could book an appointment with a Genius at their store, and calmly but firmly lay out your case. Perhaps they would make it right, considering it’s destroying your satisfaction with their products. Failing that, you may be able to have it repaired less expensively by Louis Rossmann’s shop. (Not a customer, but I know they do these kinds of things.) Definitely reset the SMC and PRAM if you haven’t already, but I suspect the update might have borked the firmware on a chip. I’m just a random user though.

[kashura]

That's what I've been trying to do. Resetting SMC and PRAM did nothing. It's completely dead.