Hello All!
My friend owns a late 2008 aluminum macbook that's having startup problems.
This issue started about 4 mo ago when the laptop was exposed to a few drops of rain & failed to turn on. About a month went by and in that time the macbook would start to boot; you could hear the drive start to spin, it would chime, the screen would turn on and then it would shut down again. Without pressing the power button again, it would manually try to fire itself up, going through the clicks, the chimes, and the screen lighting up before inevitably powering down again. It would occasionally power up to a functioning state, but would randomly shut down again without warning.
He took it to a repair shop at that point, and the tech said it was a software issue and repaired it quickly. He also managed to sell my friend on an array of upgrades; he added more RAM and upgraded the HDD. For about 2 mo the computer has had no issues. 2 days ago I updated him to ML and while the computer was plugged in, the dog tripped over the power cord and the computer took a tumble. It only fell about 2 feet and was totally fine immediately after the impact.
Yesterday morning the startup woes began again. I've tried resetting the PRAM and SMC, and these things worked for getting the computer up and running, but it shuts down randomly with no warning. I did notice that the left corner of the computer, opposite the battery, is getting exceptionally hot during boot up, not alarmingly so but hotter than you would expect a computer that isn't yet booted up to be.
I'm really stumped guys. With so many factors to consider it really is a crap shoot. Any suggestions?
My friend owns a late 2008 aluminum macbook that's having startup problems.
This issue started about 4 mo ago when the laptop was exposed to a few drops of rain & failed to turn on. About a month went by and in that time the macbook would start to boot; you could hear the drive start to spin, it would chime, the screen would turn on and then it would shut down again. Without pressing the power button again, it would manually try to fire itself up, going through the clicks, the chimes, and the screen lighting up before inevitably powering down again. It would occasionally power up to a functioning state, but would randomly shut down again without warning.
He took it to a repair shop at that point, and the tech said it was a software issue and repaired it quickly. He also managed to sell my friend on an array of upgrades; he added more RAM and upgraded the HDD. For about 2 mo the computer has had no issues. 2 days ago I updated him to ML and while the computer was plugged in, the dog tripped over the power cord and the computer took a tumble. It only fell about 2 feet and was totally fine immediately after the impact.
Yesterday morning the startup woes began again. I've tried resetting the PRAM and SMC, and these things worked for getting the computer up and running, but it shuts down randomly with no warning. I did notice that the left corner of the computer, opposite the battery, is getting exceptionally hot during boot up, not alarmingly so but hotter than you would expect a computer that isn't yet booted up to be.
I'm really stumped guys. With so many factors to consider it really is a crap shoot. Any suggestions?
