So, this is my first post and I apologize for any errors I'm about to commit.
A friend of mine has a mid-2009 13" MacBook Pro (model A1278 running 10.6.8) that he spilled wine on years back, causing it to completely stop booting up. He pretty much figured it was shot and put it away. I got interested in trying to fix it, and have been tinkering with it, and though I've made some minor progress I've recently gotten stuck and was hoping for some advice.
At first, the magsafe would only show a very dim green light and I could only get it to start using the following procedure:
- disconnect the battery and the magsafe adapter
- hold the power button for 10 seconds
- still holding the power button, attach the magsafe adapter
- continue holding the power button for 10 more seconds
- release power button, then press once more and voilá, it boots
Why this worked continues to be a mystery to me, but once I was able to get it running I was able to fix some permission errors and basically get it to stay running as long as it was plugged in.
Figuring the battery was likely ruined, I bought a new one (which, though the dealer said it wasn't OEM, looks exactly like the old one, complete with the "Designed by Apple in California, Assembled in China" line). This didn't immediately solve anything, though. It still would only boot using the procedure above. So I wound up reconnecting the new battery, and while the laptop was shut down I just left the thing plugged in overnight. The next day, the magsafe was glowing a bright green, and the machine would boot up with a simple press of the power button.
So now it boots fine, but doesn't charge the battery and won't run without AC power. Sometimes after a boot, the battery status has a little black X in it and the System Profiler shows no battery installed. Sometimes it shows that a battery is installed with the condition listed as "normal" (albeit with Amperage, Voltage, and Full charge capacity showing zero), but the status says "Not Charging". I've tried resetting the SMC a number of times without any change.
My next thought was that maybe the DC-In board had been damaged, so I replaced that, too. Still no change.
I've also found that if I shut it down, and unplug the magsafe adapter for more than, say, a minute, when I plug the adapter back in it will revert to just glowing very dimly green and not booting up again. If I leave it plugged in for a while, it will again glow bright green and boot easily using the power button.
My fear is that the logic board is damaged, which will pretty much end the troubleshooting as they are pretty expensive to replace, but I was hoping maybe someone might have another idea to try.
The only other symptom is that the 6, Y, H, N, and space bar keys don't work. That's probably unrelated to the battery issue, but I'm not sure of that.
Anyway, thanks in advance for any advice!
John
A friend of mine has a mid-2009 13" MacBook Pro (model A1278 running 10.6.8) that he spilled wine on years back, causing it to completely stop booting up. He pretty much figured it was shot and put it away. I got interested in trying to fix it, and have been tinkering with it, and though I've made some minor progress I've recently gotten stuck and was hoping for some advice.
At first, the magsafe would only show a very dim green light and I could only get it to start using the following procedure:
- disconnect the battery and the magsafe adapter
- hold the power button for 10 seconds
- still holding the power button, attach the magsafe adapter
- continue holding the power button for 10 more seconds
- release power button, then press once more and voilá, it boots
Why this worked continues to be a mystery to me, but once I was able to get it running I was able to fix some permission errors and basically get it to stay running as long as it was plugged in.
Figuring the battery was likely ruined, I bought a new one (which, though the dealer said it wasn't OEM, looks exactly like the old one, complete with the "Designed by Apple in California, Assembled in China" line). This didn't immediately solve anything, though. It still would only boot using the procedure above. So I wound up reconnecting the new battery, and while the laptop was shut down I just left the thing plugged in overnight. The next day, the magsafe was glowing a bright green, and the machine would boot up with a simple press of the power button.
So now it boots fine, but doesn't charge the battery and won't run without AC power. Sometimes after a boot, the battery status has a little black X in it and the System Profiler shows no battery installed. Sometimes it shows that a battery is installed with the condition listed as "normal" (albeit with Amperage, Voltage, and Full charge capacity showing zero), but the status says "Not Charging". I've tried resetting the SMC a number of times without any change.
My next thought was that maybe the DC-In board had been damaged, so I replaced that, too. Still no change.
I've also found that if I shut it down, and unplug the magsafe adapter for more than, say, a minute, when I plug the adapter back in it will revert to just glowing very dimly green and not booting up again. If I leave it plugged in for a while, it will again glow bright green and boot easily using the power button.
My fear is that the logic board is damaged, which will pretty much end the troubleshooting as they are pretty expensive to replace, but I was hoping maybe someone might have another idea to try.
The only other symptom is that the 6, Y, H, N, and space bar keys don't work. That's probably unrelated to the battery issue, but I'm not sure of that.
Anyway, thanks in advance for any advice!
John