DIY Repairs

A little something I’ve been working on this weekend. Bonus points for anyone who can correctly guess what is being repaired on this machine.

Keyboard?

Something to do with the power button or speakers?

@Erwin had it in one. An entire cup of coffee through the keyboard. Replacing the keyboard and keyboard backlight assembly. Seriously awful repair, I make a point of doing this as infrequently as possible.

Chances are I’ll sell this one on. I’m almost tempted to keep it for the workshop because it did clean up extremely well, but I already have a machine out there and more than enough around the house as it is.

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What model is it and how much do you sell them for? :slight_smile:

@Oldmacs - MacBook Pro (15-inch Early 2011) and MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2011) respectively. I have someone that knows the market better than I do handle the sale, so when it comes to price the answer is realistically whatever I can get for them.

Started venturing into circuit level repairs on Mac logic boards. Successfully replaced the V-sync connector on a 27-inch iMac Backlight Board, and the HDD SATA connector on a MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2010) Logic Board. Tonight I went somewhat deeper, troubleshooting a MacBook Pro (17-inch Mid 2009) board that wouldn’t start. Only 0.3v on the PM_SLP_S4_L line. Replaced the poly-tant capacitor at position C7771 with a poly-film capacitor scavenged from another board. Now reading 1.12v and the machine powers on.

However it doesn’t complete POST, so it appears this logic board has another issue. Could be something simple but the machine will ultimately need to come apart again for further assessment. A little crushed, would have been nice to round out the weekend with a successful repair.

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@iMic
Now that’s the kind of repairs I expect from a computer repair shop…

Of course, it’s not something that anyone much seems to do any more… It’s all just closed systems and disposal of everything…

In my line of work we always replace components, never repair, and it does feel like something is lost there. It does make machine repair easier, and when performing repairs in volume I would always prefer to exchange components and call it done, but there’s still some fun and a sense of achievement to be had in replacing a 60c component and returning a $800+ board to service, often even better than before.

I decided to learn board soldering earlier this year because some of my own machines started to fail, and the cost of even one Logic Board replacement at Apple was over a thousand dollars. I knew from experience that a 60c component would return these boards to service, and so it made more sense to spend a couple of hundred on some decent soldering tools and some scrap boards to strip components from. So far I’ve repaired three machines - two Logic Boards and a Backlight Board - and all it set me back is $200-ish and some Saturday nights. Now I have another four or five machines queued up for repairs, some my own, some from friends, and those soldering tools have more than paid for themselves.

Anyway, some excellent news. The MacBook Pro 17" board repair was a success after all. All it needed was some additional time for the cleaning solvents to evaporate off. She survived the surgery.

Been running stable for the last five hours now. Some initial quirks with battery charging and system parameters like screen brightness being out of whack, but a couple of restarts later and they seem to have come good.

Already decided that this machine won’t be sold - this one’s mine! :smile:

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Is this what causes the display to black out intermittently? I’ve got one one my shelf that does that… would you be interested in being paid to repair? :slight_smile:

Yes, I presume (?!) that when Apple receive the faulty components back, some poor sod is sitting there repairing them for re-use?!

Interesting :slight_smile:

@iMic Do you do repairs on the side? If so, how much would you charge to repair a 2008 Macbook Aluminium? The screen’s backlight was intermittent, then I snapped a connector for the screen to the logic board when trying to troubleshoot :open_mouth:

@jaysee Unfortunately it isn’t the cause - I broke this backlight board by mistake. I have seen this issue occur with quite a few 27-inch iMacs though and hope to probe around further for the root cause once I can get my hands on one nearby for testing. The last one I worked on was fixed with an LCD replacement, so I believe whatever the issue is, it’s in the panel itself rather than an issue on the backlight board. If I figure it out I’ll report back here.

@cosmichobo I do believe so. For service purposes Apple doesn’t manufacture new boards, instead they rework the old ones. In some ways it’s a good thing, repurposing components instead of wasting resources on manufacturing new ones, but it also has its drawbacks with reliability and rework quality sometimes, as owners of 2011 MacBook Pros have recently discovered when their GPUs fail a second and sometimes third time.

@Oldmacs A screen connector? Ouch. I haven’t soldered down a screen connector before and would probably need to source a hot air rework station before I could do that type of repair. I have a couple of boards myself that need new LVDS connectors so this could be on the cards soon.

Is it the cable connector or the connector on the logic board itself? I think I saw a spare logic board for this model in spares recently so I’ll have another look and see if it works.

Yeah its the actual connector on the logic board for the screen cable to plug into - it just snapped right off - I’ve attached a photo of it :stuck_out_tongue:

The other issue with this machine was that the backlight worked sometimes and sometimes not. When I bought the machine it didn’t work at all, then after a week of having it connected to a monitor it came on, then it worked for 2 months and stopped. Before I snapped the connector off the logic board you could see the display if you shone a torch at it… Ever heard of that? Other than that, the machine is in good nick (besides missing the battery)


@iMic - Is this sort of thing pointless to even try fixing? It just occurred to me that the likelihood of Apple actually having the part available is next to zero…

@Oldmacs I wouldn’t say pointless, but certainly very difficult. I would probably sooner change the entire Logic Board at this point, unless you were specifically aiming to keep serial numbers matching and what not. The connector could be replaced relatively easily, but the intermittent loss of backlight would require further troubleshooting.

If I find a spare logic for that machine, I’ll let you know.

Rescued another machine tonight, this time a 2014 13" MacBook Pro Retina. Wouldn’t power on after some liquid entered through the rear vent, checked over the power rails and found PPVRTC_G3H, the main supply line to the real time clock, was reading at 0.18v instead of the required 3.3v. A small filter capacitor at position C1910 was shorted to ground. I didn’t have another replacement capacitor or the microscopic tools needed to install it, so I desoldered the old capacitor and left it out of the circuit. Somehow I think the clock power supply circuit will survive fine without filtering, and the machine powers up and runs beautifully now.

@iMic Thanks! The serial number doesn’t worry me, the only reason I thought a repair would a good idea would be a much lower cost!! I’d just like to restore the machine to working condition as a spare Laptop (my White Macbook is stranded on Lion), so its my newest secondary mac :stuck_out_tongue:

Have you got any idea about the backlight issue? Is it at all common? The backlighting would be LED so no inverter right? I read something about a fuse, but IMHO if a fuse had blown than it wouldn’t be intermittent (it just wouldn’t be there at all), though maybe thats me not understanding these things :stuck_out_tongue:

That Retina Pro looks great! Wish I came across computers like that (and had the awesome ability to do that level of troubleshooting and repairs!!)

@iMic Hey mate. Just wondering - I’ve got an iMac 27-inch that has half the screen duller than the rest. Looking at this video it looks like maybe the problem is some dodgy soldering on the display. Do you reckon that’s something that’s fixable?

Should be fixable. Funnily enough, I was discussing this exact issue with someone earlier today and planned to start experimenting with some dud panels for practice.

Some repairers will solder in six wires to where the connector attaches through the small cutout in the frame that the cable routes through. Extremely fiddly, but it can be done. I’d like to see if it’s possible to disassemble the panel, remove the board and solder the connector back into place properly so it’s a cleaner and more robust repair.

What year/model is the iMac?

This guy’s video seems to be that method.

Turns out I had one iMac with the dull left side, and the other with a flickering backlight. I swapped the panels, and I seem to have one working unit… but with weird vertical lines. I think I pinched a cable when putting it back together. Gonna try replacing that cable now. :slight_smile:

Has anyone baked their iMac video card? My 2009 iMac 27 died yesterday (boots to apple then goes grey and unresponsive) after a few graphic glitches over the last week so I’m guessing the graphics card is dead. Reading around it seems to be the done thing to put the card in a 200 deg C oven for 10 minutes to reflow the solder.

Has anyone here done that before? Anything to look out for when doing so? I’ve replaced the HD and optical drive in this machine so familiar with opening it up and the ifixit teardown is pretty good.

Thanks
Mycle.