Macbook air dead, trying to fix it

[makskeleton]

Hi !
So my friends sister gave me her old macbook air, the second one (A1304) because it was dead anyway and I like tinkering on computers.
I took on the challenge of at least finding out what's the problem.
So what happens when I try and boot up :
-the display stays black
-the hard drive makes normal hard drive noises
-the fan kicks in at a normal speed
-the external status LED goes on
-the keyboard backlight activates too, although I can't change the brightness
And that's it. The display doesn't do anything, there's no start up tune, nothing

So I opened it up, to see if something seems strange and I was able to isolate the problem, as soon as I start up the computer the CPU and GPU chips get really, really hot (I have a burn on my finger). I then thought I would cool them in a ghetto way to see what I could do, and sure enough, when I put a coolpack in a plastic bag on the chipset the computer actually half worked, I got a white screen and a boot noise, then it just got stuck because it was overheating again.

So... Any idea what the hell is going on ?

PS: Yes, I reset the SMC

 

[ronvgs]

Try to boot from USB

 

[makskeleton]

Try to boot from USB

done it already, nothing working.
I'm pretty certain that the hard drive is fine

 

[x3n0n1c]

done it already, nothing working.
I'm pretty certain that the hard drive is fine

If you have one laying around try pressing a desktop heatsink against the chip. This should do a better job at cooling the chip as it is removing the heat from the chip rather than just trying to fight the heat with cold.

Obviously make sure it cannot short anything out. Covering the base of the heatsink with tape, leaving a patch just big enough for the die will help a lot.

Cheers.

 

[makskeleton]

If you have one laying around try pressing a desktop heatsink against the chip. This should do a better job at cooling the chip as it is removing the heat from the chip rather than just trying to fight the heat with cold.

Obviously make sure it cannot short anything out. Covering the base of the heatsink with tape, leaving a patch just big enough for the die will help a lot.

Cheers.

Thanks for the answer, but that doesn't really do anything for me, I was more asking if there's ANY way to actually fix this. Although I think it's really unprobable.

 

[x3n0n1c]

Thanks for the answer, but that doesn't really do anything for me, I was more asking if there's ANY way to actually fix this. Although I think it's really unprobable.

You mentioned that putting the ice pack on the CPU brought back some functionality to the laptop. I suggest taking this a step further because if you are able to get the machine to actually post, you could run hardware diagnostics in the hope of tracking down an issue, point you in the right direction so to speak.

Good luck.