Trouble with charging/magSafe board on 2009 mbp

[micco]

Hi Everyone,

I'm new to the mac scene but have tons of exp with computers.
I purchased a broken mbp to play around with and am slowly getting it back to life.
One thing i noticed is it doesn't run off AC power. When i plug it in the light on the power port is a faint green, then the lights battery indicator show, and the OS shows it's plugged in, but "not charging". I also unplugged the battery and it won't even respond then plugged in.

I'm wondering since it was damaged, if somehow the magSafe board is damaged. It would be nice if someone with an electrical background to tell me what to test for, or look for to help diagno the issue.

Any information would be appreciated.
Thanks!

 

[Tarpon65]

You can not run the macs without the battery in them. You could possibly have a bad charger as they have a history of going bad. I have had to replace mine 4 times in around 3 years, but fortunately Apple has exchanged them two of the times, even though the laptop was out of warranty. You could take the laptop to the local genius store and they can run a test to tell if your charging port is damaged. They did this test before giving me the new charger a couple of weeks ago. Took 5 minutes. Good luck in getting it up and working.

 

[alust2013]

You can not run the macs without the battery in them. You could possibly have a bad charger as they have a history of going bad. I have had to replace mine 4 times in around 3 years, but fortunately Apple has exchanged them two of the times, even though the laptop was out of warranty. You could take the laptop to the local genius store and they can run a test to tell if your charging port is damaged. They did this test before giving me the new charger a couple of weeks ago. Took 5 minutes. Good luck in getting it up and working.

You actually can run it without the battery, it's just not recommended. It is a good idea to take it to the apple store though.

 

[Tarpon65]

You actually can run it without the battery, it's just not recommended. It is a good idea to take it to the apple store though.

I sure as heck thought I had tried before and it didn't work, as well as reading that it wouldn't, but I apologize for the bad info.

 

[micco]

thanks for the info guys.
Although another issue is the backlight on the mbp doesn't work. I'm not sure if they run any software diagnostics, but they won't be able to see anything...lol.

Maybe before i take it down there i'll try and see if my current ac adaptor will work on a friends mbp.