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Blue_Dawg

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 19, 2005
8
0
I was given a rev A macbook recently that's not working. I was told that the cd drive went bad and the girl who owned it had her boyfriend try to install a new one. After putting the new drive in the machine will not power on at all. I am wondering if it's even possible to fry the logic board simply replacing a cd rom drive. Any thoughts would be great as I would love to be able to resurrect the macbook.
 
Yes, it's possible. Static shocking the board, hooking something up wrong and frying it.

Maybe they just didn't assemble it properly, and there's a connector unplugged.
 
I had hoped it was a simple connection issue but everything looks solid. Had not considered static. Would static affect one specific part or could it be anything?
 
I had hoped it was a simple connection issue but everything looks solid. Had not considered static. Would static affect one specific part or could it be anything?

I was taught, be sure to ground one's self when working on the inside of the computer. I remember back years and years ago, when my buddy and I were kids, we were adding RAM to his tower, and he touched somewhere on the EDO-RAM (the old RAM stick mind you) without being grounded, and when we tried to boot up, it would lock. The only thing that fixed it was removing the RAM, so in that case, a static discharge fried something on the RAM stick. Poor guy, EDO-RAM was freakin' expensive!!

Generally a static shock causes local damage when it affects a computer.
 
Yea, in looking at the breakdown on iFixit they really had to tear down everything to get to the dvd drive which means that at any connections they could have done damage. Bummer, I was really hoping for an easy fix.
 
Yea, in looking at the breakdown on iFixit they really had to tear down everything to get to the dvd drive which means that at any connections they could have done damage. Bummer, I was really hoping for an easy fix.

The dvd drive comes out (easily) after taking the topcase off - no tearing down and only one connector to the optical drive.....

Two screws in the hard drive bay and one down the back - no reason to disturb the logicboard or anything else
 
and yet he somehow managed to break it. Any other ides on what to check would be great. I'm at a total loss. Oh, will the macbook power on with out an HDD? I would think it should, just not boot.
 
and yet he somehow managed to break it. Any other ides on what to check would be great. I'm at a total loss. Oh, will the macbook power on with out an HDD? I would think it should, just not boot.

It should turn of with no HD to a folder with a question mark.
 
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