Dead MacBook after a year and a half - feeling frustrated

I’m super bummed about this; I’m a small business owner and I’m totally fucked right now.

I bought a MacBook Pro M3 1Tb December 2024 and was super happy with it, running Adobe suite and pro tools like a dream, no issues. The MagSafe stopped working about two months ago (flashing red and no charging) but after searching for solutions and not wanting to take it for repair, just ignored it because I had a good USB dock and could charge through that so wasn’t bothered.

Last week, I got the 26.5 update notification, and decided to get my work to a plateau, and then take a break while it updates. Big mistake.

Immediately on boot up after the update, my USB ports just stopped working entirely. No power, no data. So this obviously meant no charging, and I’m on a short timeline. I unfortunately didn’t get a full
Backup done in time before the battery finally exhausted (had to order a fresh 2tb drive from Amazon so despite shutting it down still died) so I took it to a repair centre.

Authorized service centre said it was the MagSafe and usb ports, no prob not a crazy expensive fix, so they ordered them to be installed. Called them today because it’s been a couple days longer than expected, and they’re saying it didn’t fix it. Same problem is happening as before, won’t boot up flashing orange no luck. So they want to potentially replace the logic board which is a super expensive fix, and even at that they don’t know if that will solve it.

What’s worse is I have really important work files on the computer that can’t be recovered apparently because of how the hard drives are integrated, so that’s just fucking wonderful.

This is super disheartening, cause ten years ago I had basically the same thing happen to my MBP after being a Mac user my whole life (two years old logic board dead, totally fucked), so I went windows for a while. I bought this MBP hoping to come back to this framework but the unreliability and unrepairability is just insane to me. What’s worse is this exact same thing just happened to my friend this week, so I’m wondering what the hell is going on with the M3s or if it’s related to the update.

Sadly I don’t have AppleCare and I checked the card I bought it on and I don’t have an extended warranty. Buying a new MacBook Pro is a huge expense for me right now and I’ve already lost a lot of time in my business as a result of not having that computer which makes it worse. I’m also getting one a thirty hour flight this weekend, now with no fucking laptop for work or otherwise. So disappointed with Apple, might be going back to windows. At least you can fix their shit when it breaks.

Anyways that’s my rant. Open to all suggestions, wild speculations, and expected “should have bought AppleCare” statements.