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Macbook Pro Logic Board Costs too much !

I

iWonder

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 2, 2007
22
0
Working one evening, my macbook pro 15" suddenly gained diagonal pixel lines and grew extremely hot, everything froze and in a day I had the news that the logic board needs to be replaced and it costs exactly same as a mac mini and I don't think spending 90% of the resale value of a product to fix it is a bright Idea. Especially after I heard that it has only 3 months warranty. Is there any suggestions ? or workarounds ? like some other company board ?

Macbook Pro 15" 2.13 GHz, 3GB (Upgraded from 1GB) RAM, Late 2006 Model.
 
The problem is the Logic Board is really just a composite of the entire computer - all chipsets, motherboard and CPU build in one part. This is not uncommon for laptops, but it does tend to make it expensive to replace.

Unfortunately, this is not likely to change.
 
tofagerl said:
The problem is the Logic Board is really just a composite of the entire computer - all chipsets, motherboard and CPU build in one part. This is not uncommon for laptops, but it does tend to make it expensive to replace.

Unfortunately, this is not likely to change.
Click to expand...

Can't they fix the actual problem than replacing the whole unit with all those working parts ?
Or is there any cheaper alternative for it ?
 
iWonder said:
Can't they fix the actual problem than replacing the whole unit with all those working parts ?
Or is there any cheaper alternative for it ?
Click to expand...

When everything is soldered onto the logic board, just replacing the whole thing *is* the cheaper solution.

A laptop isn't a tower-form computer. They're not designed to have parts swapped in and out.
 
RexTraverse said:
When everything is soldered onto the logic board, just replacing the whole thing *is* the cheaper solution.

A laptop isn't a tower-form computer. They're not designed to have parts swapped in and out.
Click to expand...

That was the case even back in the early 2000s. You no longer did diagnostics on the motherboard (which came before logic board) because the boards only cost $ 100 or so and it was cheaper to junk the board rather than pay a technician to troubleshoot the board.

Nowdays they use lots of surface mount stuff, and it's not practical to remove components and repair them.
 
old-wiz said:
That was the case even back in the early 2000s. You no longer did diagnostics on the motherboard (which came before logic board) because the boards only cost $ 100 or so and it was cheaper to junk the board rather than pay a technician to troubleshoot the board.

Nowdays they use lots of surface mount stuff, and it's not practical to remove components and repair them.
Click to expand...

First of all, the "logic board" on the MBP is the equivalent of a "motherboard" on whatever other computer you want to talk about.

Second, they were using SMT components in the early 2000s just as they are now. SMT makes boards very cheap to produce, but the difficulty of replacement scales with the number of components on the board as well as the number of pins of the component to be replaced. Something like the GPU can have hundreds of pins, which makes it extremely difficult to repair by hand and very expensive to reprogram a machine to remove that one component and replace it.
 
tofagerl said:
The problem is the Logic Board is really just a composite of the entire computer - all chipsets, motherboard and CPU build in one part. This is not uncommon for laptops, but it does tend to make it expensive to replace.

Unfortunately, this is not likely to change.
Click to expand...

I wish it would.
It's really gets annoying that you can't upgrade your graphics card and devastating when it goes out because it's integrated into the mobo.
It's getting old. It's ***** retarded.
 
Apple Genius said:
I wish it would.
It's really gets annoying that you can't upgrade your graphics card and devastating when it goes out because it's integrated into the mobo.
It's getting old. It's ***** retarded.
Click to expand...

I'm sure if you'd like to propose a way to have nice thin laptops with good thermal management while still having a bunch of slots to stick things in, the computer industry will be happy to hear about it.

I would think given that the laptop has existed for 20 years now, that if this were economically feasible or useful it would have already been done.

I use an HD4870 by expresscard expansion, so it's possible to add a better second graphics card already. kills the portability of the machine though.
 
On some laptops you can change the CPU, and on some you can change the GPU like some Alienwares. But for this be allowed the machines are bigger and thicker hence why your MB Pro has them directly soldered on, so it can be a compact machine.
 
Logic board = whole computer, so its no surprise that the cost of the logic board is nearly the the cost of a new computer. Seems kind of logical especially since with laptops everything is soldered onto the logic board.
 
maflynn said:
Logic board = whole computer, so its no surprise that the cost of the logic board is nearly the the cost of a new computer. Seems kind of logical especially since with laptops everything is soldered onto the logic board.
Click to expand...

Processor cost: 300usd (is this OEM pricing?), rest of components on board: 50-60usd. Total logic board cost around 400usd. Tops. Labour ~100dollars for replacing the board.

As others have said, fault-finding and replacing a BGA chip is probably more expensive.
 
apple wanted $2k to change the logic board in my 2007 17" MBP. sold the comp for $300 instead as spare parts and bought a new one :mad:
 
this would be covered under the 3 year recall,

even though you could be over 3 years, call apple customer relations and press it, there very likely to replace it.

dont waste your time talking to genius's and "specialists" , just call and ask for customer relations.

good luck.
 
Your cheapest bet is to buy a used motherboard off of eBay and replacing it yourself. Any other purchasing route you go will likely be a used or refurbished board given the age of the computer. The cost of using a technician would drive the price beyond the laptops value, the board is quite labor intensive to remove.

Personally I would buy a like used model off eBay and transfer my data or swap hard drives (dependent on which is a better HD). Then sell off my busted MBP on eBay, they fetch incredibly inflated prices. This is usually the overall cheapest option for these models when the board needs replacement.

MacModMachine said:
this would be covered under the 3 year recall,

even though you could be over 3 years, call apple customer relations and press it, there very likely to replace it.

dont waste your time talking to genius's and "specialists" , just call and ask for customer relations.

good luck.
Click to expand...

I thought the recall only covered nVidia GPU's. The late 2006 used an ATI Radeon X1600
 
velocityg4 said:
Your cheapest bet is to buy a used motherboard off of eBay and replacing it yourself. Any other purchasing route you go will likely be a used or refurbished board given the age of the computer. The cost of using a technician would drive the price beyond the laptops value, the board is quite labor intensive to remove.

Personally I would buy a like used model off eBay and transfer my data or swap hard drives (dependent on which is a better HD). Then sell off my busted MBP on eBay, they fetch incredibly inflated prices. This is usually the overall cheapest option for these models when the board needs replacement.



I thought the recall only covered nVidia GPU's. The late 2006 used an ATI Radeon X1600
Click to expand...

uh....there i got again not reading the whole post....

thanks :p
 
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