2010 uniMBP - battery not charging, hard drive not seen = logic board issue?

[Omega Mac]

I'm looking at repairing an old MacBook pro (dosdude patcher should give it new life), but it got nuked during a previous update (which I ran by mistake!). I think it was High Sierra, so it's been sitting on a shelf, for too long.

During the update I thought the SSD died, maybe it did too but for other reason, so I gotta go back and check that drive again, but I am sure I did and it was unreadable may have posted here both it at the time, but now I've put a new SSD in it, it's not seeing it (it could see when connected to USS in a ext. housing), so the new SSD iss connected internally with clean install of HS, it's not appearing in disk utility nor the battery is not charging! That was a replacement battery so not as old as original model. Still some years old but strange for it not to be charging up.

So what I thought was originally a failed SSD HD now looks to be more a wider HW failure, methinks logic board!?

I can't run diagnostics to check it or how do you run diagnostics from internet recovery, this would be great help!!!

Holding down "D" has brought me into internet recovery and not apple diagnostics. I assume that's at firmware/rom level and not dependant on a HD or OS to be installed.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Fguerouate]

So the ssd is fine since you ran it from an external housing, but both the ssd and the battery are not showing up at all? I'm gonna say its the logic board. And yes, internet recovery is not dependent on an HD or an OS.

 

[Omega Mac]

So the ssd is fine since you ran it from an external housing, but both the ssd and the battery are not showing up at all? I'm gonna say its the logic board. And yes, internet recovery is not dependent on an HD or an OS.

Yep, the SSD was all fine and seen when connected via USB.

Confirmation bias and all, but yea I do think it's the logic board as per my OP.

I can't complain. The 2010 MBP worked like a trojan since 2010 and I picked it up at a bargain price used!

May cut further loses and source a decent used 2012+ MBP, it would be nice to have retina screen - now I gotta find a use for the SSD!

 

[Fguerouate]

Yep, the SSD was all fine and seen when connected via USB.

Confirmation bias and all, but yea I do think it's the logic board as per my OP.

I can't complain. The 2010 MBP worked like a trojan since 2010 and I picked it up at a bargain price used!

May cut further loses and source a decent used 2012+ MBP, it would be nice to have retina screen - now I gotta find a use for the SSD!

I would find a dual graphics 15 inch retina mbp. They can be found for very cheap, and they're still quite powerful. My 2013 top configuration is more powerful(according to geek bench)than a 2017 13 inch base model.

 

[Omega Mac]

I would find a dual graphics 15 inch retina mbp. They can be found for very cheap, and they're still quite powerful. My 2013 top configuration is more powerful(according to geek bench)than a 2017 13 inch base model.

Thank you very much for that tip.

By chance do you know what the typical apple number for model is?

I’ll cruise over to everymac.com and figure it out if it’s not obvious. Thanks again. Always good to know the wheat from the chaff.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Charging and HDD may be unrelated issues, or one component could be at the root of both problems. No point making assumptions.

The HD flex cable, rather than logic board, could be at the root of the HD issue - it's a known weak spot in this model. Battery could just be a bad battery.

If you're able to boot from an external drive System Report will tell you what you need to know about the battery (About This Mac > System Report > Power). If you can only boot to Internet Recovery you'll need to open Terminal and run system_profiler.

 

[Omega Mac]

Charging and HDD may be unrelated issues, or one component could be at the root of both problems. No point making assumptions.

The HD flex cable, rather than logic board, could be at the root of the HD issue - it's a known weak spot in this model. Battery could just be a bad battery.

If you're able to boot from an external drive System Report will tell you what you need to know about the battery (About This Mac > System Report > Power). If you can only boot to Internet Recovery you'll need to open Terminal and run system_profiler.

Super advice. Thanks.

I have a disk maker boot drive on USB I'll segway in that way. I tried to get to Apple diagnostics per instructions but couldn't, keep going to internet recovery - since I'd never used it before as I've never had any problem on 8+ macs, I wasn't sure the best path.

I will follow this advice. Thank you very much.