Will not power on - mag safe ok

dpw-ct said:

All of a sudden my macbook will not start

My magsafe lights green but when I depress the power button nothing happens tried SMC reset to no avail. Can this be a bad battery, or would it boot by A/C even with bad batter. Any suggestions.

White 2009 A1342 macbook Duo

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Have you tried removing the battery and restarting without it? (you can usually get the tri-screws out with a small flat screw driver).

dpw-ct said:

No I will, but curious why would that make a difference.

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I removed the battery, still nothing. With battery removed the magsafe is green but still nothing happens when I press the power button.

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Just a suggestion. Doesn't hurt to eliminate all possibilities.

dpw-ct said:

I removed the battery, still nothing. With battery removed the magsafe is green but still nothing happens when I press the power button.

Any ideas for next step - I have heard about jump start but not sure if it's a good idea nor do I know exactly how to do it.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YC1Y94eE5w

Totally safe and a good way to make sure it's not a keyboard or power button failure. Just make sure you take your time and don't prod around at any old part.

Other things you can try are removing ram sticks and trying one at a time, remove the hard drive and then try. Make sure the fan isn't blocked, ensure all of the connectors are firmly on the logic board etc.

Really need to go through a process of elimination.

dpw-ct said:

Wow jump start worked, after jump start I connected keyboard ribbon and the keyboard is working. Performing a back up now, happy it started but not sure what to do now re: diagnosing and fixing the problem

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So if you power it off completely can you start it as normal now?

dpw-ct said:

I jumped it, reset nvram/pram, performed disk repair and permission repair, but still cannot start after shutdown without jump starting (restart works fine) .

Also, Right side of internal Keyboard does not work ("6YHN" and to the right, P and return work) either-

Running mavericks and cannot figure out how to run hardware diagnostics - is it possible to download that to a flash drive?

Any suggestions?

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Sounds like your top case ribbon cable isn't seated correctly. Mine came slightly loose a while back and I lost use of the left shift key and nothing else. They are really temperamental with very low tolerance for error.

They also don't give you much room for manoeuvre to get it in as it's pretty short and non-flexible, I had to take my logic board out and angle it towards the cable just to get it seated correctly before carefully screwing it back in along with everything else.

I'd suggest you try reseating that cable again a few times to see if you can remedy it. It's likely to only be a top case issue and nothing else and I'm not sure AHT would tell you much.

Apparently AHT is still available in Mavericks but I've never gotten it to work. Maybe if you use Disk Maker X to make a bootable Mavericks USB you can get it to run from there. http://liondiskmaker.com

dpw-ct said:

Tried to reseat it a few times Still same problem. External keyboard works.
Is the power button (not working) controlled by the same ribbon cable?

Does it make sense to try to get a replacement keyboard or can it be logic board issue

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Don't quote me but I believe they're all on the same cable. The keyboard and top case are all one unit. I looked into buying a replacement for mine when I thought the keyboard was broken and the only way to replace it is to buy a whole new top case.

I could be wrong though. If you pop the logic board out you should be able to identify the cable that comes from the power button and follow it back if it is indeed separate but I think it's too much of a coincidence that both the keyboard and the power button aren't working.

dpw-ct said:

Tried to reseat it a few times Still same problem. External keyboard works.
Is the power button (not working) controlled by the same ribbon cable?

Does it make sense to try to get a replacement keyboard or can it be logic board issue

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Yeah power button and keyboard are on the same ribbon !

Best bet (cost-wise) is to find a used macbook and scavenge the entire topcase/keyboard or just the ribbon cable. Careful though, that cable is quite fragile - as you've probably already discovered.

Alternatively, the topcase/keyboard can be found via various online retailers still for ~$120