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Ask HN: Any resource on how to repair MacBook logic board?

29 points by jklein11 ↗ HN
My macbook won't turn on and I am afraid that it is a logic board issue. In other times I think I would be shopping for a new laptop but I am thinking that with the quarantine I have some time to try and fix it myself. I am watching some videos on how to debug the circuit board issues[1] and I am wondering if anyone has any personal experience doing this. Any resources you could share in how to get started would be greatly appreciated!

1. https://boards.rossmanngroup.com/Boardrepairsbymodel

36 comments

[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 104 ms ] thread
geuis
Can’t offer any resources on home repair, but I’ve used Rossman’s service before with good results.
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ZenPsycho
i would have thought miniaturisation would make this basically impossible without thousands of dollars of specialist equipment. I’ve never known a mac repair shop to do anything other than replace the whole bosrd. the thing is smaller than a raspberry pi.

spend enough time on hacker news and you’ve seen many srticles complaining specifically about how unrepairable macs are. especially newer ones, that cryptographically brick themselves if they detect tampering.

jdboyd
That is what people said, and yet still repair techniques are devised. The cryptographic storage is not tamper proof and thus is all the more reason to repair a board at least well enough to recover your data.
ZenPsycho
Well obviously nothing is impossible, but this sorta work is about as close to literally rocket surgery as you can get. Software: difficult, hardware: difficult, thousands of dollars of specialist equipment, and the steady hands of a surgeon. There's a difference between possible and "possible".

also there's a difference between devising a technique for a model, and doing a repair on this specific device. To get to a working technique you probably need to brick a lot of machines.

larossmann
>I’ve never known a mac repair shop to do anything other than replace the whole bosrd.

I'm definitely firing my marketing guy...

raihansaputra
Any chance you know any repair place with great board repair capability around South East Asia? My MBA 2011 is alive without battery, screens and everything work fine. But the previous repair shop jumped something in a weird way and my backlight doesn't come on with battery plugged in. It's been sitting still for 4 years..
jklein11
The hacker news community never ceases to amaze me!

I've been binge-watching your youtube channel. Any chance you could give me a few pointers in how to start to debug this thing?

neonhat
You're being a bad customer. This isn't how it works. When it breaks, you take it to the Apple Store and pay your dues. Apple will not succeed if people like you try to game the system.
ericabiz
I run independent repair shops for a living, and we do board-level repair.

In general, when training techs I tell them to start with the easiest possible solution and work up from there. Since MacBooks are so heavily-integrated (so much is on the logic board), it’s the last place I look.

First order of MacBook repair when it won’t turn on: Start with a SMC reset. It usually doesn’t fix the problem, but occasionally it does. (If it does, I don’t charge the customer.)

Second step: Try a known-good battery. It is more commonly a battery issue than a logic board issue.

Third: Inspect the board for signs of water damage.

With PC laptops (and in general, laptops that are easier to repair), there are more steps here. But with MacBooks, this is about it.

We fix MacBook logic boards, but I would also recommend Tim Herrman over at https://www.tcrscircuit.repair/ for logic board repair. He has a YouTube channel where he talks a lot about MacBook logic board repair as well, and he’s been on Louis Rossman’s channel a few times too.

jklein11
Thanks for your response!

Unfortunately, I can't find my pentalobe screwdriver to open the case so I had to order one. It should be here on Tuesdsay. I can't try a different battery or check for water damage until then.

To add a little more context, this is a 13 in Early 2015 Macbook Pro (A1502.) My laptop was working until the battery died earlier today. I plugged it in and pressed the power button and I still just get black screen(I don't even hear any fans starting or anything like that.) The charging indicator is orange which makes me think that the battery is functional. When I do a SMC restart the indicator changes from orange to green for a few seconds and then turns back to orange. I have tried plugging the laptop into a monitor to rule out an issue with the screen, but still no signal on the monitor. Are there any other diagnostic tests you can recommend until I can open the laptop up?

throwlaplace
>When I do a SMC restart the indicator changes from orange to green for a few seconds and then turns back to orange.

you're battery is probably dead. below i said i fixed the screen on my mbp that's true but before that i swapped my battery and that's exactly the behavior i saw (staying orange, green->orange after SMC).

i used the idea from this video to replace the battery (after ordering on ebay - make sure you get the right one!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fupkPz55tUo

i used a shoe lace (because it was strong enough).

raihansaputra
Agree with this. You can rule out battery circuity related faults by trying to boot with the battery disconnected and the charger connected. Be patient; it will take a minute to boot and emit the chime sound.
jklein11
I just tried this and still doesn't boot. What is interesting is that the fan will start spinning, also the haptic feedback on the trackpad is still working.
jasonv
Maybe you can shed some light on this: I recently took my older (7 years) MacBook Air in to Apple to get a new battery. They charged me $129. It’s a great laptop, was happy to do it.

When they returned it, the had also replaced the main board too for free.

So, aside from the SSD, a new machine.

What would be a typical reason for this?

(I can’t imagine any Dell or Lenovo feeling so solid after 7 years... have had both at various jobs in times past.)

tinus_hn
Perhaps they damaged it while replacing the battery? Tested it afterwards and it failed?
Yetanfou
> I can’t imagine any Dell or Lenovo feeling so solid after 7 years...

I'm using a ~14yo Thinkpad T42p as one of my daily machines (using it to write this post), it feels as solid as when it was new. The battery still holds enough power for about 1.5-2 hours, the (1600x1200) screen still outperforms most newer models due to its relatively high resolution and 4:3 ratio, the keyboard is far better than that on most other machines (especially compared to Macbooks). The only substantial upgrade I made to this machine is that I put in a(n) SSD (through a PATA-SATA adapter since this machine is from before the shift to SATA).

Elv13
https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup

But be warned, repairing a Pentium desktop motherboard and repairing a recent Apple laptop are 2 different leagues. I did repair a lot of capacitors / magic_smoke on old desktop/vintage motherboards. You just need an acceptable soldering iron (with real temperature control, not just any junk), a tabletop EE heatgun (not the ones looking like a hair drier), a solder suction pump, your eyes and your nose.

However for modern laptops, you need a digital oscilloscope, logic analyzer, microscope, large reflow oven, vacuum chamber a dozen screw drivers and 5-15k$ worth of professional tools. Good luck with that. In my case, I can't even get my hands steady enough to do the smaller surface mount jobs. There is some wizards on the net who did it so many time they can do away with half of the tools, but unless you did it 500x time on the same model, you wont.

jdboyd
A number of top apple repair places, like Rossman repair group and iPad rehab, clearly do not use an oscilloscope, logic analyzer, reflow oven, or vacuum chamber on any if the repairs I've seen. You do need a reasonably good soldering iron, hot air tool, multimeter and magnification. The most used tools could probably be assembled in cheaper starter form for $1k, but some repairs would only need a subset of those. And Rossman repair guides will step you through anything that can be done with the smaller art of tools.

I don't know how stay or not your hands are. I've learned that you don't need rock steady hands for most fine hand soldering, but you likely would need them for putting dmm or oscilloscope probes on fine features. I find that good magnification makes it easier to steady my hands.

Nextgrid
A multimeter (even a dollar-store one) a very good starting point to see which components have power and can detect issues like shorts on the board. In most of Louis Rossmann's videos he doesn't go further than multimeter + visual examination of the board to figure out which components are bad (or where to start at least).
Elv13
That's the "there is some wizard in the Internet that did it so many time they can get away with half the tools" part ;). The vacuum chamber is also required only for ipad/iphone/touchbar/apple_watch, not most macbooks.

IMHO, most of these projects end up with "I will totally do this" -> "I am blocked for now, but will come back to this tomorrow" -> "I don't want to lose parts, so I will put the pieces in a plastic bag and 4 ziplocks" -> "I need to move this out to clean my desk" -> "2 years pass" -> "what is that bag, oh, my broken laptop" -> "I will never finish this, there is some room in the trash I need to fill".

/me Looking in from of me and my old ThinkPad W541p stares back at me in pieces. (and yes, I dismantled it yesterday to replace the screen cable and cooling unit. Only to find out the new cooling unit has the wrong connector and fan voltage scaling despite being "a factory part for the W540p")

edit: The last time I did a MBP board was my 2007 Santa Rosa 15". I actually did reflow the GPU with a heat gun, but this was very scary. You move even a tiny bit and kiss the board goodby. I wish I had a reflow oven (I still don't have one big enough). BGA reflows are a nightmare.

larossmann
An oscilloscope is a waste here besides for teaching purposes where a visual representation of what you're trying to get across eases understanding. Logic analyzer is over the top too. It's one of those things where by the time you understand the output of your logic analyzer, you already have enough of a brain to solve the problem without it

I can give someone who doesn't know how to fix a board in an oscilloscope and they will see strange little vibrations show up when they poke the probe in different parts of the board, but then what?

throwlaplace
i just recently (last month) repaired my mbp logic board (screen backlight circuit issue). i had very little experience (have never even taken a circuits class) but i was able to successfully perform the repair (with a little help).

the first step is obviously to get a multimeter (which you probably already have).

the second and thirds steps are to get the boardview and schematics for your logic board

1. boardviewer http://boardviewer.net/

2. boardview and schematics files https://www.apple-schematic.se/board-ids/

the boardview shows you all of the traces on the board and the schematics match components with labels on the boardview (resistor/capacitor values and IC numbers).

once you have these things you can try to debug your issue. i did this buy watching a lot of louis's videos and googling (my issue happened to be common but yours might be as well). i narrowed my problem down to the brightness step-up circuit by finding a ground fault where the shouldn't have been one. i then ordered replacement capacitors from https://www.mouser.com/ (guessing that the dielectric probably broke down on one of them) for all the caps on the circuit an the fuse (values for which i found in the schematics).

the hardest part was actually desoldering/soldering existing caps because they're surface mount (as almost all of the components of modern logic boards are). for this you need a "hot air rework station" - quite an expensive tool. luckily i'm still in school and found someone in my ECE department that not only had one but was pretty handy with it. he did the desoldering and then i did the soldering. when the screen lit up both of us were pretty shocked the operation had worked :) anyway i can't give much more advice than this because i got pretty lucky! but there are forums where you can ask questions and people do discuss these things (louis also has a discord https://discord.gg/kPTwD3 where you can get more real time advice from various people). good luck!

jklein11
This is awesome! Thanks for the motivation story!

I am out of school for a few years so I don't think I'll be able to get access to an ECE department. Any idea what the model is?

throwlaplace
> Any idea what the model is?

the model of what? the heat gun? no i do not sorry.

>I am out of school for a few years so I don't think I'll be able to get access to an ECE department.

you'd be surprised the luck you can have just emailed people and asking for help (that's basically what i did anyway even though i'm a student).

Yetanfou
I've been using an Aoyue 968+ [1] combined hot air/soldering station for a number of years now to repair equipment (phones, monitors, laptops, whatever happens to break down). The thing costs around €170 in Europe, I got mine for $125 straight from China (through Taobao) about 3 years ago. There are plenty of other choices on the market but this is the one I have experience with.

[1] https://www.aoyue.eu/aoyue-soldering-hotair-rework-desolderi...

lathiat
It can sometimes be a much simpler issue. For example twice a connector came off on my 2012 MacBook Pro that meant it wouldn’t power on. Both times Apple reseated it for me for free. Although sadly Apple stores aren’t open right now.

With regards to board repair though that certainly happens quite a bit and if you wanted to understand that better I’d suggest watching Louis rossmans videos on YouTube.

irjustin
Can you give some context as to why you believe it's a logic board issue? And things you've tried to get it running again?

As others have mentioned, macbook logic boards are basically the hardest out there in the consumer world. Was it a spill? spark? Localized? which part is damaged?

jklein11
I guess I am just jumping to conclusions but this article seems to describe the behavior I am seeing[1]. Here is some more context:

This is a 13 in Early 2015 Macbook Pro (A1502.) My laptop was working until the battery died earlier today(so this didn't happen immediately after a spill but I also have not been the most careful when it comes to this laptop). I plugged it in and pressed the power button and I still just get black screen(I don't even hear any fans starting or anything like that.) The charging indicator is orange which makes me think that the battery is functional. When I do a SMC restart the indicator changes from orange to green for a few seconds and then turns back to orange. I have tried plugging the laptop into a monitor to rule out an issue with the screen, but still no signal on the monitor. Are there any other diagnostic tests you can recommend until I can open the laptop up?

1.https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/385224/Won't+turn+on+but....

irjustin
Agreed it's not very promising.

Tried any of the other boot modes (safe mode[0])? Startup disk selector[1]? recovery mode[2]?

[0] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262 [1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202796 [2] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314

jklein11
Unfortunately, I don't even get to the point where I can pick which disk to boot from. When I hit the power button nothing happens.
irjustin
Yeah figured it was like that.

At this point, I can only recommend waiting until apple stores reopen to get a proper diagnostic done.

Best of luck.

Nextgrid
90% of issues that would prevent it from powering on would be on the logic board - it's not like a MacBook has many discrete parts anyway, it's mostly one board plus a big battery.
jamespetercook
I recently repaired the logic board on my 2013 MacBook Air by baking it in the oven to reflow the solder. I thought I was being trolled when I first came across the advice on a forum but it worked! However the fix only lasted around 2 weeks before the issue came back and the laptop wouldn’t turn on anymore. Now I’m probably going to buy a second hand logic board off eBay and swap it out, they look to be selling for around £100
tmaly
I have a 2013 MBP that just dies randomly. I am curious if there was ever an issue. It seems Apple never disclosed anything on this model.

I took it to Apple twice and they could not figure out the problem.