Salvage a 2006 MacBook?

[MissCat]

Hello everyone,

I just found a 2006 MacBook, ready to be thrown away.
It is in very bad shape: the plastic is really scratched, the top case has cracks everywhere and they hastily removed the hard drive, so all the screws from step 5 to step 10 of the ifixit guide (even the ones not circled) are missing. The battery is completely dead.
The only good points are the screen that looks good and the power adapter is new.

When I connect the power adapter, it is orange for a few seconds then green, but nothing happens when I press the power button.
I disassembled and cleaned it but nothing happens: no sound, the fans don't spin. I checked the voltage on the motherboard and it is correct, so it's not a Magsafe connector problem.

I believe the motherboard is dead, and I found used one (but working) on ebay for $25, do you think it's worth it?
Also is it possible for a MacBook to power on without a hard disk, or is there some combination keys that I can try?

Thanks.

 

[thedeske]

Sounds like you need to spend a little just to investigate. Motherboard and drive?
Or, motherboard and some external that will boot. In the end, will you recover anything if you spend money and decide it's not worth it? Will you use the device if you make it work, and what for.

If the spirit of the "Fix" is strong, by all means go. Nothing better than recovering
a dead device. Had a few moments with a good friend the other night. He was dismantling a dropped Makita flashlight (powered by the 3 volt batteries used in the cordless tools) and the spirit of the moment was fun, but it was fruitless.

Still, there are victories to be had

Good Luck

 

[speedbumpnv]

Depends on what you want to use it for. A working 2006 MacBook goes for $100-$200 on ebay. You will spend more than that gathering parts (new logic board, decent hard drive/SSD, more memory, new battery, etc...) They are also older Core Duo machines. They are limited in their support at this point.

There is definitely a sense of joy in being able to revive something so old and broken. It just depends on if thats what you are after. If you are after a usable machine, there are probably better used Macs you can get that are working already. If you want to resell it, you'll probably lose money on the endeavor.

The MacBook can power on without a drive, but it will stop at the gray screen with a little folder on it meaning it can't find a bootable disk. If you have a bootable USB drive or some other external drive, you can plug it in, power on with the <Option> key pressed and select the external drive as the boot drive when it comes up. Same goes for if you have a bootable OSX DVD.

If the fan doesn't spin up and the DVD drive doesn't cycle when you try the power button, then the logic board is prolly toast.

 

[MissCat]

If the fan doesn't spin up and the DVD drive doesn't cycle when you try the power button, then the logic board is prolly toast.

No I don't heard anything from the DVD drive.

To be honest I'm not really into Mac and I just bought a new laptop. So other than for the sake of saving things, I won't have any use for it if changing the motherboard works.
Thanks for your answers, if I'm able to find a cheap working motherboard I will try to save it - and post an update

 

[ApolloBoy]

Thanks for your answers, if I'm able to find a cheap working motherboard I will try to save it - and post an update

Have fun, those A1181s are a real PITA to disassemble (and this is coming from someone who's worked on theirs several times over the years)...