Broken 2011 MBP... is buying one for baking worth it?

[brdeveloper]

Hello,

I found an interesting offer of a broken 15" MBP for just $200,00. It doesn't come with RAM and HDD, but will come with battery and charger. I think it's a good opportunity for testing the baking experiment. In the worst case, I think I can recover the investment by selling parts separately.

What do you think? If everything works as expected, I'll use it for running day-long computing experiments and also as a HTPC. Nothing that requires high reliability.

 

[8CoreWhore]

Sounds very risky..

 

[l.a.rossmann]

Baking is bull ****, reflowing is bull ****, reballing is bull ****.

The chip is dead. You can fix it by replacing it, or you can bring it back to life by heating the dead chip up for a day, or a week, or a month.

Buy it if you want to, just understand that the chip is dead so that you make an informed decision. If you're reading silly myths started on forums by armchair experts who don't work in the real world about how the problem is the solder joints and not in the chip, you will be severely disappointed when baking lasts you two days into GPU accelerated decoding of high definition video.

Truly, I have killed reballed chips playing 360p youtube videos on display.

 

[Potatochobit]

the computer is already missing the hard drive and RAM

IF the 2011 is dead most likely it is the logic board or GPU
those are the only 'valuable' parts that people want

dont even bother with this unless you have a 2nd one to combine parts with

also, using a mac as a HTPC is stupid.

 

[cjmillsnun]

also, using a mac as a HTPC is stupid.

Many, many people, including myself will disagree with you on this.

I used a Mac as a HTPC for the past 5 years now.

 

[JoelTheSuperior]

Many, many people, including myself will disagree with you on this.

I used a Mac as a HTPC for the past 5 years now.

Whilst I don't agree with his comment I suspect he means in the sense that it's more cost effective to get a cheap PC and just run XBMC on it.

Personally I'm not a fan of that route but to each his own I suppose.

 

[Potatochobit]

MAC OSX does not natively support AC3 NOR BLURAY
your HTPC is already terrible

you can steal or pirate AC3 or other audio codecs or choose to pay for them, no matter your solution it is a compromise or inferior.
There are not exactly "great" video playing software choices on MAC, most have been full of bugs.

using a LAPTOP as an HTPC is stupid
it does not exactly hold alot of hard drives

and using a MAC as an HTPC is stupid, especially since you can build one with PC parts for MUCH cheaper unless you already own the parts, then whatever floats your boat

not trying to be mean here, just being realistic
selling off your old mac parts is probably a better investment

 

[cjmillsnun]

MAC OSX does not natively support AC3 NOR BLURAY
your HTPC is already terrible

you can steal or pirate AC3 or other audio codecs or choose to pay for them, no matter your solution it is a compromise or inferior.
There are not exactly "great" video playing software choices on MAC, most have been full of bugs.

using a LAPTOP as an HTPC is stupid
it does not exactly hold alot of hard drives

and using a MAC as an HTPC is stupid, especially since you can build one with PC parts for MUCH cheaper unless you already own the parts, then whatever floats your boat

not trying to be mean here, just being realistic
selling off your old mac parts is probably a better investment

Oh it's the Blu Ray argument. Whatever.