Mid 2009 13" MBP water spill victim. Need some help

caldy315 · Feb 20, 2015

My buddy's macbook pro that he spilled water on the magsafe charge port. He said he spilled probably close to a glass of water, on the charger port which had the charger plugged in. He said it immediately shut off. He didn't start it after that and brought it in to BB. They said it was toast. I wanted to take it apart and look based on what I've read here, sometimes there is a way to save it.

Here are some pictures. I've checked the charger and it seems to not output power. I looked up the pin diagram on the charger and tried to see if the two sets of pins powered. They didn't show anything on multimeter, but my sisters charger did. I wanted to clean it up with isopropyl alcohol before trying to power it up. This is the right stuff to clean up corrosion with right?

What are some next diagnosing steps? Was thinking of replacing the charging port on the computer

kevingill · Feb 21, 2015

IPA is the answer!

Yes, clean the board with IPA and a brush. Make sure it's dry before you try to switch back on. If there are any components that look like they're blown then you may have trouble.
But, give it a go. You may just save your Macbook.

caldy315 · Feb 21, 2015

kevingill said:
Yes, clean the board with IPA and a brush. Make sure it's dry before you try to switch back on. If there are any components that look like they're blown then you may have trouble.
But, give it a go. You may just save your Macbook.

Got logic board and everything out there was a lot of copper oxidation and such, but the Isopropyl alcohol cleaned it right up. Letting it dry and going to reinstall. It seems with the IPA it leaves a small film or residue after it dries. I've wiped a bit of it off the board. Is this fine to leave on there?

Here are some pictures. Really hoping this thing fires up. Otherwise, what does a person replace first, the magsafe board or the trackpad? I was reading the those two things are the first things to fail before the board. Any way to test them out?

Pictures of progress

TheIguana · Feb 21, 2015

Not trying to be a downer, but that board looks like it has seen much better days. I'm betting the film you are seeing is coming from the dust, as it is likely getting redeposited as it evaporates away.

fega72 · Feb 21, 2015

caldy315 said:
Got logic board and everything out there was a lot of copper oxidation and such, but the Isopropyl alcohol cleaned it right up. Letting it dry and going to reinstall. It seems with the IPA it leaves a small film or residue after it dries. I've wiped a bit of it off the board. Is this fine to leave on there?

The ultrasonic cleaner is your "friend" in this case.

duervo · Feb 21, 2015

That board looks nasty. also, there looks like there's something else that was spilled on it besides just water in the past. Something brownish/orange-ish is dried up along the edge of the bottom cover. Something tells me this isn't the first liquid spill this system has seen.

The alcohol is better than nothing, but the only way to be certain that it's really clean is with an ultrasonic bath in some distilled water. Those machines start at around a couple hundred bucks and go up from there depending on the size. Probably not something you'd be willing to invest in if it's just this single system you're cleaning.

It needs at least another cleaning with the alcohol, possibly more.

At any rate, once it's cleaned up, put it back together. Maybe you'll get lucky and it'll just work (I doubt it though. Probably need a new DC-In or logic board.)

caldy315 · Feb 21, 2015

duervo said:
That board looks nasty. also, there looks like there's something else that was spilled on it besides just water in the past. Something brownish/orange-ish is dried up along the edge of the bottom cover. Something tells me this isn't the first liquid spill this system has seen.

The alcohol is better than nothing, but the only way to be certain that it's really clean is with an ultrasonic bath in some distilled water. Those machines start at around a couple hundred bucks and go up from there depending on the size. Probably not something you'd be willing to invest in if it's just this single system you're cleaning.

It needs at least another cleaning with the alcohol, possibly more.

At any rate, once it's cleaned up, put it back together. Maybe you'll get lucky and it'll just work (I doubt it though. Probably need a new DC-In or logic board.)

Ya it's not in the best of shape. It was just sitting and he took best buy's word that it was toast. I wanted to see how hard it was to get the logic board and so since he wasn't doing anything with it anyhow, I figured I could try and revive it.

The DC-in board is the little board that the charger plugs into right?

duervo · Feb 21, 2015

Yes, it's the little tiny board that screws seperately onto the chassis that has the MagSafe port on it. It gets plugged into the logic board.

caldy315 · Feb 21, 2015

duervo said:
Yes, it's the little tiny board that screws seperately onto the chassis that has the MagSafe port on it. It gets plugged into the logic board.

Here is where I stand after a bit of testing.
Luckily my sister has her 13" MBP with her so I can verify what a good working one is.

- Charger is dead or appears to be. On both the good and the bad the charger lit is dim. Her charger is bright green or orange on hers, dim on the bad MBP

- Checked voltage on the DC-in board on both. On hers the good one it went 0, 16V, 3-5V, 16V, 0. On the bad it was 0, 17, 17, 17, 0. Don't know if that was fine or not. The middle pin seems to be different, forgot what that drives.

- Swapped batteries. I know his (bad) has been sitting for months and likely doesn't have a charge. Figured I would swap in a battery that was very close to fully charged and see if it would power up. That didn't change a thing. To me, that rules out a DC-in board.

Any other steps I can take, or are there components on the logic board that can be replaced and how to diagnose those? I guess if I was really wanting to know I could swap hers (good) for his (bad) and see if that changes anything. That would end the speculation right there. Don't really want to ruin the good one though.

TheIguana · Feb 22, 2015

I don't know if you have found it, but there is a great thread on this forum started by Dadioh detailing circuit diagrams, expected voltages, and common components that may go. Would be a good place to look through especially if you want to troubleshoot what voltages you should be seeing.

You will probably want to start with this post: DC Board In Voltages

For the MagSafe adapter, the pin out is listed on iFixIt's site with the expected voltages: iFixIt MagSafe Adapter Troubleshooting

caldy315 said:
Here is where I stand after a bit of testing.
Luckily my sister has her 13" MBP with her so I can verify what a good working one is.

- Charger is dead or appears to be. On both the good and the bad the charger lit is dim. Her charger is bright green or orange on hers, dim on the bad MBP

- Checked voltage on the DC-in board on both. On hers the good one it went 0, 16V, 3-5V, 16V, 0. On the bad it was 0, 17, 17, 17, 0. Don't know if that was fine or not. The middle pin seems to be different, forgot what that drives.

- Swapped batteries. I know his (bad) has been sitting for months and likely doesn't have a charge. Figured I would swap in a battery that was very close to fully charged and see if it would power up. That didn't change a thing. To me, that rules out a DC-in board.

Any other steps I can take, or are there components on the logic board that can be replaced and how to diagnose those? I guess if I was really wanting to know I could swap hers (good) for his (bad) and see if that changes anything. That would end the speculation right there. Don't really want to ruin the good one though.

caldy315 · Feb 22, 2015

TheIguana said:
I don't know if you have found it, but there is a great thread on this forum started by Dadioh detailing circuit diagrams, expected voltages, and common components that may go. Would be a good place to look through especially if you want to troubleshoot what voltages you should be seeing.

Yes thank you! I've been reading in that, in which I found out that there is a spot on the logic board to measure to see if you board has even a chance of living. I've checked that and it's good yet. So there is hope.

You will probably want to start with this post: DC Board In Voltages
I've read this post too. I've checked the DC-in board values with it plugged into the logic board. I've compared it with my sisters and the middle pin seems to be the difference, but from what I've read so far, that's not the issue.

For the MagSafe adapter, the pin out is listed on iFixIt's site with the expected voltages: iFixIt MagSafe Adapter Troubleshooting

Looked at the voltages there and compared to what I have. Mine look within range of what they have. Everything from the DC-in board side, seems to be A-ok.

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Mid 2009 13" MBP water spill victim. Need some help

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