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1 Cannot boot, tries to turn on when power is connected
Ok so I got this late 2006 MacBook off of ebay, the girl who sold it said the motherboard was probably toast (before you ask: from time to time I enjoy buying cheap broken electronics and trying to fix them). I came back home and noticed the MagSafe connector was full of dust and decided to take it apart and clean it, while at it I also replaced the thermal paste and made sure all the connections were good. I proceeded to put it back together and then tried to connect the power supply; a few seconds after plugging the MagSafe in the MacBook now tries to switch itself on (I can hear the disk spinning and it even loads a CD!) the screen will turn on for a slit second and at the same time the fan will try to spin, then nothing, the HDD keeps spinning and the optical drive keeps loading CDs (it then proceeds to eject them after like 30s) until I unplug the power. While this happens there is no picture on screen, not even shining a bright light at it and the MagSafe light is dim green. I do want to point out that the poor thing tries to turn itself on on its own, I don't even need to press the power button!
EDIT: last 4 digits of the S/N are: NWGK
It is this model: http://everymac.com/systems/apple/macboo...
Thanks in advance for any help :)
Update
I just wanted to let you know that the "new" used logic board that I got for 30.50 euros, shipping included, from ebay (it was a steal!) arrived today and works fine! The MacBook is now back to working order and I'm installing Snow Leopard (plus all my apps) at this very moment :)
In the end the total cost of this Mac was 130.50 euros, not bad!
I'm also considering dropping a few more bucks and buying a new battery, as the original one is dying, this would bring the cost in the 170s range, but that's still quite good.
-Francesco
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4 commentaires
Can you supply the last four digits of your serial number so we can correctly identify your system.
par Dan
Ok, I spent some time diagnosing the logic board and tracked the problem down to a bad battery charging IC. The rest of the board looks more or less ok. Now, replacing the IC would be pretty hard and I would have no guarantee of it actually working afterwards. I may though have found a used Logic Board for a very reasonable price, problem is: my MacBook is a 2.1 2007 model and has a 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo and the new board would have a 2.00GHz core duo. Now, aside from the obvious fact that I would loose Lion compatibility and be forced to only use 2GB of RAM, will the board be compatible with my Mac? I checked the connectors and they all look the same, including the two thermal sensor connectors on the side of the CPU! Any help is much apreciated :)
par Francesco
If the boards look the same it can't hurt to give it a try. I think you'll find your HD with Lion will still work afterwards! The installer application checks for compatibility as the OS is already on it should work. There is an issue with running 64bit apps that use extended memory with some chips so you still could find some apps will crash here.
par Dan
Wow! What a steal, a working MacBook for even 170€. Happy it all worked out. If you find this answer solved your problem, please rate (vote it up).
par Dan