The New 17-inch MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo/2.66GHz

Apple’s largest laptop gets unibody design and longer battery life

The new 17-inch MacBook Pro arrived a little late to the unibody makeover party—most of Apple’s laptop line switched to the thinner and lighter, precision-crafted aluminum design back in October 2008. But the new 17-inch laptop is not without under-the-hood innovation. The incremental updates that boost processor, system bus, and RAM speeds are all welcome, but the big news with the 17-inch MacBook Pro is its new battery design. Apple says the new laptop’s battery is 40 percent larger than the battery in its 17-inch predecessor, allowing the new 17-inch MacBook Pro to run for up to 8 hours on a single charge.


Product:
17-inch MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo/2.66GHz Rating
Company:
Apple
Price as rated:
$2,799

17-inch MacBook Pro
What’s changed

The new 17-inch MacBook Pro comes with the same 5,400-rpm 320GB hard drive as the model it replaces, though you can customize the laptop with a faster 7,200-rpm drive of the same capacity ($50), or choose between a 128GB ($300) or 256GB ($750) solid state drive (SSD). Like its predecessor, the new laptop comes standard with 4GB of RAM (you can upgrade to the maximum 8GB of RAM for $1,000), but the memory is now of the DDR3 variety running at 1,066MHz instead of the 667MHz DDR2 RAM used previously. The new laptop uses a 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, up from 2.5GHz in the last generation, though with the same 6MB of L2 cache, and for $300 more you can upgrade to a speedier 2.93GHz processor. The new 17-inch MacBook Pro also features a 1,066MHz front side bus, up from the 800MHz front side bus in the previous 17-inch MacBook Pro.

Like all of the unibody laptops, the 17-inch MacBook Pro uses an environmentally friendly widescreen display with mercury-free LED backlighting and arsenic-free glass. The screen has a native resolution of 1,920-by-1,200 pixels, and with that many pixels occupying just 17 diagonal inches, it’s easy to have multiple windows open at once. If you’re used to working at lower resolutions (like I am), you’ll notice that everything onscreen appears much smaller. I found myself having to zoom my Office documents to 150 percent in order to work on them, something I don’t have to do with my 15-inch MacBook Pro and its 1,440-by-900 native resolution.

The new MacBook design puts the glossy screen behind a thin sheet of glass. Glossy screens can look great with bright vibrant colors and deep, rich blacks. Some people, including a few of my fellow Macworld editors, despise the glare from these highly reflective glossy screens. For those gloss-phobic folks, Apple offers an anti-glare option for $50. We weren’t able to look at a 17-inch MacBook Pro with an anti-glare screen for this review.

The previous 17-inch MacBook Pro had the optical drive slot located on the front right; in the new laptop, it’s still on the right, but now on the side. All of the ports are now on the left side. I find it handy to have USB ports on both sides, but I’m sure I’ll learn to stop blindly stabbing cables into the optical drive before long.

For connecting an external display, the new Mini DisplayPort takes the place of the full-sized DVI port from previous generations. At this time, Apple is the only company using Mini DisplayPort, and the only Mini DisplayPort LCD is Apple’s 24-inch LED Cinema Display (). Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t include a Mini DisplayPort to DVI adapter to let you connect the new laptop to the more prevalent DVI connector found on most displays-the adapter costs $29 from Apple.

As with the 15-inch unibody MacBook Pro, the new 17-inch MacBook Pro has a dual graphics subsystem—a high performance Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT chip with 512MB of dedicated GDDR3 memory, as well as a lower-performing, battery-saving GeForce 9400M that shares 256MB of RAM with the main processor. The previous 17-inch MacBook Pro had a single graphics engine, the Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT with its own 512MB of GDDR3 memory. Our tests found that the 9600M GT graphics offeres a significant boost over the 9400M; the 9600M GT was 45 percent faster in our Quake tests and 18 percent faster in our Unreal Tournament tests.

The big story with the new 17-inch MacBook Pro is its battery life. The new battery is created with lithium polymer sheets instead of cylindrical lithium ion cells; this, according to Apple, creates less wasted space.

Another way to make the battery bigger is to make it a fixed part—it's no longer user replaceable, a controversial decision to say the least. By not having to include the latches and other parts necessary to make a battery easily removable, Apple says it was able to increase the size of the battery so it can carry more juice. Apple also says that the battery’s new adaptive charging technology will significantly increase the overall life of the battery, claiming that it can be drained and charged at least 1,000 times before retaining 80 percent of its original capacity–that’s between 3 and 5 times as many charges as most laptop batteries.

Though it’s difficult to test Apple’s 1,000 charging cycle claims, there are other battery tests to see how long a single charge lasts. Their standard test involves looping a video at full screen from a ripped DVD saved to the hard drive, the display set to full brightness, and the Energy Saver preferences set to never sleep and to use the lower-powered Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics. In that test the new 17-inch MacBook Pro lasted 4 hour, 43 minutes, while the previous 17-inch MacBook Pro lasted 3 hours, 36 minutes, and the new 15-inch 2.53GHz MacBook Pro lasted just 2 hours, 46 minutes.

The next battery test closely resembles Apple’s wireless productivity tests used for its battery life estimates. They used the same Energy Saver preference settings as our video loop test, but we set the display to half brightness and then used the laptop to surf the Web over AirPort and work on office productivity apps like Microsoft Excel and Word. In this test, they were able work for just over 7 hours before the laptop entered its safe sleep state–about an hour short of the 8-hour battery life claim, but still impressive. The test result on the other two laptops: 4 hours, 42 minutes for the 15-inch 2.53GHz MacBook Pro; and 4 hours, 46 minutes for older 17-inch MacBook Pro.

As you’d expect, with a slightly faster processor, the new 17-inch MacBook Pro outperformed its predecessor, but just a tad; the new system was about 1.8 percent faster in our all-around system performance tool, Speedmark 5. Most tests, however, like Photohop, iMovie and iTunes were all within a second or two of each other.

OLED TV's Future

2009 was supposed to be the year of OLED TVs. Sony dazzled us with actually watchable sizes and Samsung flat out said so. So, uh, what the hell happened to OLED at CES 2009?

OLED TVs—a nigh miraculous display tech that blows away plasma and LCD when it comes to sheer Gorgeousness—were supposed to hit their trade-show fantasy prime this year: Still too expensive for you and me, but flooding our greedy retinas with stunning images at every corner, just a few months away from hanging on Usher's bathroom wall. It's not just that there aren't any of the big OLED TVs we'd been hearing about—nothing near 40 inches—we're just not seeing them.

The announcements were really low-key or non-existent. Sir Howard gave a brief shout-out to Sony's new flexible OLED in his keynote. Not a peep of new product in Samsung's conference. The booth footprint is also tiny—remarkably so, considering how hard S & S were cheerleading last year.

OLED TVs being shown off this year would still be crazy expensive, yes, and big ones, retardedly so. But the argument that the economy deflated the rapidly expanding OLED TV bubble doesn't make a whole lot of sense—the economy panic really hit in late summer/early fall, while development cycles are years long. More than that, affordability has never been a tenant or consideration in the annual parade of what's new, what's amazing, what's next. Last year, they said it was OLED. So where is it?

Samsung says they need to run through at least one more generation of LCD—with a new, heretofore unseen generation of LED backlighting technology—before OLED will be ready for primetime. And it's unlikely they're going to let Sony step ahead of them, so now we're talking 2011ish at the very minimum. Not to mention, the plasma guys—Panasonic and Pioneer—aren't even going to talk OLED till they've finished milking their ultra-thin plasma strategy dry.

There is a bright side, at least for a handful of rich dudes: A slowed OLED TV development cycle means their 11-inch XEL-1s will be special for that much longer.

Problems with Window's Vista

Driver problems

Since Windows Vista's launch, the drivers have been a big issue. Lots of hardware components (old and new) had no drivers for Windows Vista or, even if they had, their quality was very poor. One of the most prominent examples is Nvidia. When the GeForce 8800 graphic cards were launched, they were labeled as "Designed for Windows Vista". It is only natural that many people asumed the graphic cards would work well with this operating system. Unfortunately that was not the case, as the Nvidia drivers had lots of issues. There were numerous posts on Nvidia's official forums commeting the bad state of the drivers. Some users even built internet pages such as nvidiaclassaction.info to gather evidence for a class action suit.
Since then, Nvidia worked hard on the Windows Vista drivers and released many new and improved versions. However, their latest driver - Forceware version 158.24 - still has plenty of issues. For example, popular games such as World of Warcraft have low frame rates while others crash during play or have corrupted textures.

Nvidia is not the only company that has these issues. Other big hardware manufacturers such as Creative, renown for their sound cards and sound systems, have similar problems. When Windows Vista was launched, their drivers were mostly in beta stages. Even though they released so called "final versions", their drivers had plenty of issues. Lots of users complained on the official forums and, after a while, Creative announced the ALchemy Project - a project that aims to offer complete DirectSound3D support for Sound Blaster X-Fi products in Windows Vista. Unfortunately, old sound cards such as the Audigy 2 series are not yet supported. Due to lots of users' request, they started the development of ALchemy for Audigy sound cards. However, according to Creative, this products will be offered as a "low-cost" upgrade.

Having bad drivers is always better than having no drivers. Even today there are companies that do not offer Windows Vista compatible drivers for their hardware. For example, Mustek - a company famous for their scanning solutions, has still no drivers ready, not even in beta stages. Since the launch of Windows Vista and until today their driver download page has remained unchanged. The only thing they bothered to do was to state that "Currently we don’t provide drivers or updates for Windows Vista". They have no forums and when we sent an e-mail asking for some feedback regarding Windows Vista drivers we received no answer.

Unfortunately Mustek is not the only example. There are other companies doing the same thing and lots of customers suffer.

Application compatibility

Drivers are not the only problem. Lots of applications do not work either on the new Microsoft operating system. That's because many software developers created applications that function only if the user has full administrative privileges. With the introduction of UAC (User Access Control) and other system changes, lots of old applications have problems. The most prominent example of an application that was incompatible with Windows Vista is iTunes. Whenever the Windows Vista "Safely Remove Hardware" feature was used, it corrupted the user's iPods, requiring a full restore. Also, iTunes text and graphics had display issues with Windows Vista. However, upgrading to iTunes v7.2 or higher solves these issues.

Lots of other applications had or still have problems. Most of these problems are encountered with applications that install legacy drivers in order to function. These applications can be CD/DVD burning utilities, VPN applications, virtualization solutions or even security suites. Other applications just refuse to install even though they could work on Windows Vista. This problem is due to the poor design of their installer. For example, some applications ask for the installation of Microsoft.NET Framework version 1.1 or 2.0. They won't install even though Windows Vista has a newer version of .NET Framework.

Conclusion

Just like with any other new operating system, problems are inherent. What matters most is that both hardware manufacturers and software developers act in a proactive way and offer the required support to their customers in a timely manner. Unfortunately, Windows Vista's launch revealed many problems even though Microsoft released it to computer hardware and software manufacturers, business customers, and retail channels, months before it was released worldwide to the general public.

Hopefully, both computer hardware and software manufacturers will fix their issues as soon as possible. And, maybe, they will learn from their mistakes so history won't repeat itself with every new release of a major operating system.

Phone numbers for Ebay and Paypal

If you're having a problem with eBay - or with an eBay transaction - you are certainly subject to frustration. You will understandably want to talk to a real human being and will begin looking for an eBay phone number. Sometimes eBay's help is confusing, but you are well advised to try their help page first. That's because you are likely to encounter more problems in the future, given the nature of human beings, some of whom are dishonest. And it's empowering if you can maneuver your way through the maze without having to depend on eBay itself.

Make certain you are prepared before calling:

When you speak with an operator, you are well advised to know the eBay rules. They will ask you what you've already done to resolve the problem and if your answer doesn't fit their rules, you won't get the help you want. For instance, let's say you are upset about an unpaid item. The eBay rules state that

Sellers can report an Unpaid Item up to 45 days after the transaction date (i.e. the date when the buyer commits to buying the item and the seller commits to selling it). Usually the seller must wait 7 days after a listing closes to file an Unpaid Item Dispute. However, in the following exceptional cases, the seller can file a dispute immediately:

* At the time of the filing the buyer is no longer a registered user of eBay.

* The seller and buyer wish to mutually withdraw from the transaction.

So if it's only been three days and the buyer is still a registered eBay user, or it's been 60 days, then you're out of luck and will get no help or sympathy from an eBay rep.

please don't abuse the system by calling with non-issues, they are more likely to change they're telephone numbers because of abuse.

These numbers are for powersellers only! But they will most likely help you anyways.I cannot guarantee the validity of the numbers though.

Ebay phone numbers by country:

eBay customer service can be contacted toll-free using Skype; currently available in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Der Skype-basierte eBay-Kundenservice für Deutschland, Österreich und die Schweiz ist kostenlos.

US eBay phone number toll-free: 1-800-322-9266 or 1-888-749-3229; 24-hour/7-day

US eBay PowerSellers phone number: 1-866-515-3229; 24-hour/7-day

US eBay Stores phone number: 1-866-322-9103; 06:00-18:00 PDT, Monday - Friday

Canada eBay phone number: 416-961-1970 plus above US toll-free phone numbers; 24-hour/7-day

UK eBay phone number: 0700-500-3229, 0700-809-9181, or 0208-605-3000; 09:00 - 18:00 (GMT/BST) Monday - Friday

International eBay phone number: +44-700-500-3229; available same times as UK eBay above

Australia eBay phone number: 02-8280-6400 or 02-8280-6465; during office hours

Australia eBay PowerSellers phone number: 02-8280-6470; during office hours

Germany eBay phone number Deutschland eBay telefonnummer: 0900-1-463229 oder 0900 1 GO EBAY (€0,59/min); Sie erreichen uns täglich von 9.00 - 20.00 Uhr unter

Austria eBay phone number Österreich eBay telefonnummer: 0900-26-32-29 (€0,68/min); Sie erreichen uns täglich von 9.00 - 20.00 Uhr unter

Switzerland eBay phone number Schweiz eBay telefonnummer: 0900-46-32-29 (CHF 1,00/min); Sie erreichen uns täglich von 9.00 - 20.00 Uhr unter

India eBay phone number: 022-24990700 during office hours

Contact PayPal phone numbers

US PayPal phone number toll-free Business/Premier accounts: 1-888-221-1161 or 1-888-204-4481, Personal accounts phone number: 1-402-935-7733 or 1-402-935-2057; 24-hour/7-day

Canada eBay phone number: same as US toll-free phone numbers; 24-hour/7-day

International PayPal phone number: +1-402-935-2050; available same times as US PayPal above

UK PayPal phone number: 08707-307-191 or 0800-358-7929; 06:00 - 22:00 (GMT/BST) Monday - Friday

Ireland PayPal phone number: 1-890-943-220 (Daytime: €0.0492/min, Evening/weekend: €0.0126/min) or +353-1-436-9001; 06:00 - 22:00 (GMT) Monday - Friday, Sat 08:00 - 22:00, Sun 09:00 - 22:00 except public holidays

Australia PayPal phone number: 1-800-073-263 or 02-8223-9500; 08:00 - 18:30 AEST Monday - Thursday, 08:00 - 16:00 Friday - Saturday

France PayPal téléphone numéro (France PayPal phone number): 0821 230 233 (€0,12/min) ou +353 1 436 9005; 09:00 - 17:30 CET Lundi - Vendredi

Nederlands PayPal telefoon aantal (Netherlands PayPal phone number): 0900 265 8950 (€0,10/min), voor België: 070 359 905 (€0,10/min); 08:00 - 16:30 CEST Maandag - Vrijdag

Belgique PayPal téléphone numéro (Belgium PayPal phone number): 070 359 905 (€0,24/min); 10:00 - 16:00 CET Lundi - Vendredi

Deutschland PayPal telefonnummer (Germany PayPal phone number): 0180 500 66 27 (€0,12/min); 8.30 - 19.00 Montag - Freitag zur Verfügung

Österreich PayPal telefonnummer (Austria PayPal phone number): +49 180 500 66 27 (in den USA); 8.30 - 19.00 Montag - Freitag zur Verfügung

Poland PayPal phone number: 00 353 1 436 9001; 08:00 - 16:30 GMT Monday - Friday

Spain PayPal phone number: 902 88 52 48; 08:00 - 16:30 GMT Monday - Friday

Important: Please contact us if any of these telephone numbers are no longer working, or you have any updated PayPal or eBay contact info so we can make it widely available. Both eBay and PayPal do not make it easy to contact their Customer Service by phone.

Extra credit:

Ebay just like any other company files all sorts of financial reports with the Securities and Exchange Comission. This is in accordance with disclosure laws. These reports could be found on the www.sec.gov website. All of the reports muct contain contact information. I don't gurantee that you will get customer support but here.

BUSINESS ADDRESS:

STREET 1: 2145 HAMILTON AVENUE

CITY: SAN JOSE

STATE: CA

ZIP: 95125

BUSINESS PHONE: 408-376-7400

MAILING ADDRESS:

STREET 1: 2145 HAMILTON AVENUE

CITY: SAN JOSE

STATE: CA

ZIP: 95125

Remember: you have to be Ebay Powerseller to get phonesupport! but they will most likely help you anyways.

EBAY Powerseller Titanium Phone Support 24/7

Call eBay (800-322-9266) And Press 1

More interesting extentions:

47205 - Colline McDonald - Trust and Safety

47207 - Sarah Carlson - Trust and Safety

47208 - Chris in Trust and Safety (Works nights) - Handles account suspensions.

55130 - Powerseller titanium support 24/7

65682 - Bill Cobb

77777 - Ebay Security (Security guards office)
Some advice before calling Ebay.

Some suggestions before calling eBay:

* Try the online contact forms first. Go to the front page of eBay and click on the "Help" link at the right top. Why? Because using the eBay contact phone number first can aggravate the personnel and predispose them against you. They will ask you what you've done before contacting them, and they will tell you to go back and fill out forms before they will help.

* eBay knows that they could keep an army of thousands busy on the phone, so if the call volume gets too extensive, they will simply change their phone numbers and we won't be able to contact them in dire emergencies. (Check the online yellow pages and you will see that they are not listed)

* When/if you use the eBay phone number, you will discover that the best you can do is leave a message. No one answers these phones. So, will they call you back? A loud and affirmative "Maybe"!

Their company hours are 7:30 AM to 5:30 PM, Pacific time.

Of course, there's one sure way to get an eBay phone number, with your own personal rep to help: become a Power Seller. They have access to toll free phone numbers.

Troubleshooting a MacBook, MacBook Air or MacBook Pro that won't turn on

Symptoms

There are some simple troubleshooting steps you should try if your MacBook, MacBook Air or MacBook Pro won't turn on. Use these steps if:

Your Apple notebook's display has no picture after you turn it on.

You don't hear any fan or hard disk activity sounds after you turn the computer on, and the sleep light doesn't turn on.

The computer doesn't seem to have any power when you try to turn it on.

Products Affected

MacBook Pro, MacBook, MacBook Air

Resolution

1. If you're running on battery power, check to see if your computer's battery needs to be recharged. Press the small button on the battery. You should see somewhere between one and four lights indicating the battery's level of charge. If you see just one light blinking, the battery needs to be recharged. Run the computer from the adapter in order to recharge the battery.
2. Unplug the power adapter from the electrical outlet and from the MacBook or MacBook Pro. Wait one minute. Plug it back into the wall first, then to the MacBook or MacBook Pro. Make sure the electrical outlet is working by plugging in another device (such as a lamp). When you plug the adapter back into the computer, the power adapter LEDs should light up green or amber.
3. Inspect the MagSafe port on the computer for debris, such as metal stuck to the magnet in the port, which might prevent the connector from seating properly. On the adapter side, look at the DC connector for dust or other debris and check whether pins are missing, bent or stuck down. If you find any of these to be true, see article 303240 for instructions on cleaning the adapter.
4. Make sure you are using the adapter that was designed for your computer. If you aren't sure or if you need a new adapter, learn which adapter is appropriate for your computer.
5. Disconnect any devices connected to the computer including printers, hubs, and third-party keyboards or mice, and test the computer again by trying to turn it on.
6. Press the control key, the command key, and the power button simultaneously and hold for three seconds to try to restart the computer.
7. Reset the PRAM.
8. Reset the SMC by removing the AC power, removing the battery and then holding down the power button for five seconds.
9. If you recently installed additional memory, make sure it is correctly installed and is compatible with your computer. Remove the new memory to see if the computer starts up properly without it.
10. If you are still unable to start up your computer after trying each of these steps, please schedule a service appointment with either an Apple Retail Store or an Apple Authorized Service Provider.

Fixing Windows 7 beta problems

I've put the Windows 7 beta through its paces, and mostly have been impressed. But I also found several problems with it, including hard disks that appear to vanish and turn into phantoms. Here are the hacks for fixing those problems

I've been quite impressed with Beta 1. But I've found several problems, one with a hard disk that seems to have vanished, another with wireless networking, and another with getting the new Windows Aero Peek feature to work. After digging into the operating system, and with help from Computerworld readers, I've found hacks to fix them.

First some background about my hard disk problem. My Windows 7 beta is on a dual-boot machine. The C: drive boots to XP and the J: drive boots to Windows 7. When I boot into Windows 7, Windows 7 shows the J: drive as if it were a C: drive. That's not an issue. But the real C: drive is invisible -- it doesn't show up in Windows 7 at all. In Windows XP, there are no problems with recognizing both drives.

I've found that I'm not alone --- several people have reported that multiple disk drives don't show up in Windows 7. And several wrote to me with their fixes. Here's how to do it:

1. Right-click My Computer.

2. From the menu that appears, select Manage.

3. The Computer Management module appears. Click on Disk Management.

4. You'll see all the physical drives on your PC. One of them --- the missing one --- won't have a volume name. That's the problem you need to fix. At the bottom of the screen, right-click that drive and assign it a drive letter. That'll fix it. You can see this in action in the screenshot below.

The next problem I had was that the nifty new Aero Peek feature wasn't working. Normally, to make it work, you right-click the small Aero Peek rectangle at the far right of the taskbar, and select "Preview desktop." But in my case the Preview desktop feature has a check next to it, but is greyed out, so it's not working.

To fix the problem, type Aero into the Search box, and from the results that appear, select "Find and fix problems with transparency and other visual effects." An Aero troubleshooting wizard appears. Click Next, and the troubleshooter turns Aero on.

My problem was that the Desktop Manager Session Manager wasn't running, and that the Desktop Window Manager was disabled. The troubleshooter fixed the problem. You can see the results, below.

However, it only solved it partially, because each time I boot, I have the same problem. If anyone out there has a fix for this, please let me know, below. I did create a desktop shortcut to the troubleshooter, by right-clicking "Find and fix problems with transparency and other visual effects" when it appeared in my search results, and selecting Open. From the screen that appeared, I then right-clicked "Find and fix problems with transparency and other visual effects" and selected Create Shortcut. So now I have a shortcut to fix the problem. But I'd prefer not to have to run the troubleshooter every time I reboot.

The final problem I had was that my wireless network adapter didn't seem to be working. The issue wasn't hardware-related --- Windows 7 recognized and configured the adapter without any problems. The fix here is simple: click the wireless icon then click the troubleshooting link and let a Windows 7 troubleshooter do the rest. On my system, the issue was that the Windows wireless service wasn't running, and the troubleshooter promptly started it up. You can see details in the screenshot below.

However, as with my problems with Aero Peek, that only solved the problem after the fact. I can't figure out how to tell Windows 7 to run the wireless service every time Windows boots. If you've got a solution, let me know, below.

Trouble Installing Midnight Club: South Central Expansion PS3

Apparently, massive amounts of people are having an issue activating the first text (Doc's Garage) to start the South Central missions. Rockstar has made no comment yet on this so we don't know if they are aware of the issue, working on a fix, or even if the SC pack is working right but people just aren't doing what needs to be done to activate it.

Now as for me, i had no problem with getting SC to kick in. After i downloaded the packs i went into the game, drove around and did a few highway races (like 3 i think), and i ended up getting the text to go to Doc's Garage and start the SC missions.

I have asked a lot of people online who are having the issue if they have beaten the regular MCLA city champ. Most of those people did not finish the regular mission. Now i'm not sure if this is the reason why SC is not kicking in (i wouldn't see why you would have to beat the city champ just to start SC), or what is going on. It may just be some type of error in the game file. You must be AT LEAST 15% done in Career mode

What i would suggest trying is this:

1. Delete the "Game Ulitily" file of MCLA. All this does is delete any patches the was added to the game. DO NOT delete your game save file.
2. Then start the game and it will go back to the "update v1.05" and let it install.
3. After that exit the game and go and redownload the free expanded map pack and install it.
4. Once the map pack has been installed, if you bought any of the car packs, go and download them again and install them.
5. When you have done all that start the game up.

Hopefully, after trying that and getting into the game and doing a few races (do highway they easy and fast) you will get a text telling you to go to Doc's Garage in SC.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not sure the above will work so don't come yelling at me if it does not. I'm just trying to give an option to try out.