I've got an interesting situation on my hands. This is version 1,1 of the white Macbook (2006, I believe).
Backstory/experiences so far:
I've been using Macs since 1990, and this is the first one I bought used. Might have been a mistake.
Everything was fine for a few months, until one day the computer was nonresponsive. No chime, no lights, nothing. The charge light on the magnetic power cable would light up and change from orange/green on a full charge, but that was it. The computer behaved as if the battery had simply been removed.
Every time I walked by the laptop after that, I'd try the power button, just to see if it would turn on. A day or two later, it did. The little Macbook ran like nothing had ever been wrong.
A week later, something similar happened. This time, I heard the disk spin up, saw the power light come on, but never got to a chime. Later, an Apple Genius-bar-person would tell me that this means the initial system check failed. After turning it on, it acted like I had put it into hibernate. The only way to turn it off was to force-shutdown or let the battery die.
I sent it in to AppleCare, and they responded by telling me there was significant liquid damage which voided my warranty. Dead computer. I was able to get into the HD through firewire, saving my data.
That was a year ago.
A few weeks ago, I saw an ad for someone who fixes liquid spill apple laptops. He told me that often, the small power nodes (?) on the motherboard short out, even though the board itself is fine. He replaced these, I paid him happily, and two days ago I had my little Macbook back.
I used it like nothing had ever happened. Today, after a few hours of use in the morning, I powered the Macbook down and left the house. Three hours later, I tried to power it up again. Nothing. Totally unresponsive; back to paperweight mode. The battery lights on the bottom were active when it was plugged into AC, I should note.
Lots of bad words later, I went back to my tried-and-true method of pressing the power button every time I walked by the Macbook. Six hours later, it worked again, suddenly powering up as if nothing had happened.
I'm writing this on the Macbook, totally confused, and afraid that it might die on me at any moment again. Does anyone have an idea of what might be causing this? A loose wire inside? Overheating? (the Macbook gets REALLY hot occasionally, sometimes I shut it down just in case).
A few more facts:
-I never spilled anything on it. Could it have been the person who owned the Macbook before I bought it? Something sticky that dried and then re-melted while I was using the computer?
-Fixing these mysterious power (nodes?) fixed the "permanent hibernation/fail to startup" problem, at least temporarily. I have no idea what fixes the "play dead" problem, it just seems to go away after a few hours.
-The computer has never died while it was running. It's always after a perfectly normal (seeming) shutdown that it simply refuses to start back up again.
Any help would be appreciated. I've tried googling around, but I'm not even sure what to search for. On an even sadder note, I spent 2 hours looking at non-Apple PCs today (all I can afford if this one dies), and I really don't want to have to go down that road.
Thanks in advance, and my apologies for asking for help right off the bat.
-K
Backstory/experiences so far:
I've been using Macs since 1990, and this is the first one I bought used. Might have been a mistake.
Everything was fine for a few months, until one day the computer was nonresponsive. No chime, no lights, nothing. The charge light on the magnetic power cable would light up and change from orange/green on a full charge, but that was it. The computer behaved as if the battery had simply been removed.
Every time I walked by the laptop after that, I'd try the power button, just to see if it would turn on. A day or two later, it did. The little Macbook ran like nothing had ever been wrong.
A week later, something similar happened. This time, I heard the disk spin up, saw the power light come on, but never got to a chime. Later, an Apple Genius-bar-person would tell me that this means the initial system check failed. After turning it on, it acted like I had put it into hibernate. The only way to turn it off was to force-shutdown or let the battery die.
I sent it in to AppleCare, and they responded by telling me there was significant liquid damage which voided my warranty. Dead computer. I was able to get into the HD through firewire, saving my data.
That was a year ago.
A few weeks ago, I saw an ad for someone who fixes liquid spill apple laptops. He told me that often, the small power nodes (?) on the motherboard short out, even though the board itself is fine. He replaced these, I paid him happily, and two days ago I had my little Macbook back.
I used it like nothing had ever happened. Today, after a few hours of use in the morning, I powered the Macbook down and left the house. Three hours later, I tried to power it up again. Nothing. Totally unresponsive; back to paperweight mode. The battery lights on the bottom were active when it was plugged into AC, I should note.
Lots of bad words later, I went back to my tried-and-true method of pressing the power button every time I walked by the Macbook. Six hours later, it worked again, suddenly powering up as if nothing had happened.
I'm writing this on the Macbook, totally confused, and afraid that it might die on me at any moment again. Does anyone have an idea of what might be causing this? A loose wire inside? Overheating? (the Macbook gets REALLY hot occasionally, sometimes I shut it down just in case).
A few more facts:
-I never spilled anything on it. Could it have been the person who owned the Macbook before I bought it? Something sticky that dried and then re-melted while I was using the computer?
-Fixing these mysterious power (nodes?) fixed the "permanent hibernation/fail to startup" problem, at least temporarily. I have no idea what fixes the "play dead" problem, it just seems to go away after a few hours.
-The computer has never died while it was running. It's always after a perfectly normal (seeming) shutdown that it simply refuses to start back up again.
Any help would be appreciated. I've tried googling around, but I'm not even sure what to search for. On an even sadder note, I spent 2 hours looking at non-Apple PCs today (all I can afford if this one dies), and I really don't want to have to go down that road.
Thanks in advance, and my apologies for asking for help right off the bat.
-K