White Macbook 13" will not power up

[murray484]

Hello,

The other day my friend gave me his old macbook saying that it was broken and would only turn on sometimes. I have had this computer for 2 days and it has never turned on yet. He kept the hard drive so the machine does not currently have one. He also could not find the Mac OSX install CD, so I don't have one either. The battery is fully charged (the lights on the bottom of it are all on) and the light on the adapter is green. When I push the power button, nothing happens. No lights, no noise, nothing. I called apple and they told me that without a hard drive, the only way to test it would be to boot off of the Mac OSX disk by holding "c" when the computer is booting. The problem is, 1, I don't have a disk, and 2, how am i supposed to hold the c key while the computer is booting if it will not turn on?

I have tried everything it says on the apple website and have tried it with different ram, with and a usb hard drive plugged in.

Please help me,
Thanks

 

[NewMacbookPlz]

How about you get the HD from him and then retry?

Buy a cheap HD and the $29 Snow Leopard upgrade disk and try that as well? (Yes, you can clean install with the $29 disk, you'll just be breaking the EULA) Get the HDD from somewhere like Fry's Electronics, then just return it when you're done. They're return policy is very liberal, at least the stores around here.

 

[RedTomato]

It's probably dead. Try holding down the c button anyway when booting and see if you can hear it searching for the DVD. Or put in any old DVD and see if you can hear it trying to read that.

Get or borrow a cheap laptop hdd and put it in, and see if there are any signs of life - does the screen flicker or change colour, any beeps?

 

[Eidorian]

I'm a bigger fan of using Option to boot off of optical media on a questionable machine. Making it to the boot loader is a start.

 

[Loco2929]

Also not turning on

Hi,
I just had a similar problem to Murray 484 and cant get around it with the posted recommendations.

I replaced the 80 GB HDD of my MacBook with a 320GB Momentus SATA 7200 RPM drive. I had the battery out for awhile because the black rubber tracks came unglued and had to re-glue them before I could put the new drive in.

Now the computer wont start when the power button is pushed - Same as Murray484 - BUT my new drive is in. I also can't boot off the Mac OS DVD either as it wont go into the slot because there is no power.

Any suggestions?

 

[RedTomato]

Do you get any sounds at all? Is the charger light orange or green?

Sometimes a completely dead computer is due to bad RAM. Try reseating the RAM chips or taking one out or putting the Apple original RAM back in.

 

[murray484]

Do you get any sounds at all? Is the charger light orange or green?

Sometimes a completely dead computer is due to bad RAM. Try reseating the RAM chips or taking one out or putting the Apple original RAM back in.

No, I don't hear any fans or the drive or anything. The light on the charger is green. I have reseated the ram, and tried puttung in a stick of other ram. I am pretty sure the 2gb of ram that is in it is original.

Thanks for all of your help

 

[Loco2929]

White MacBook will not power up

I don't get any sounds either - the Chargers light is GReen and I have all 5 green lights on the battery. My RAM is not original, but it was working fine before I swapped the HDD.

 

[NewMacbookPlz]

I don't get any sounds either - the Chargers light is GReen and I have all 5 green lights on the battery. My RAM is not original, but it was working fine before I swapped the HDD.

Sounds like you should try putting the factory HD and/or RAM back in and see what happens then...

 

[murray484]

Hello,
I plugged it in again last night, and instead of the light on the adapter being green, it was orange. Also, on the battery four of the lights are on all the time, and the 5th is flashing. What does this mean?

 

[andalusia]

Hello,
I plugged it in again last night, and instead of the light on the adapter being green, it was orange. Also, on the battery four of the lights are on all the time, and the 5th is flashing. What does this mean?

It means the battery lost some power and is recharging.

 

[ozdonut]

Same problem here...

Same problem here... Finally solved my problem .. It was a broken keyboard cable.

A while ago I took the Macbook apart and must have broken the stupid little plug on the end of the cable.

Managed to turn the Macbook on by shorting the two power connector pins and proved that everything works OK with an external keyboard.

Now I'm just waiting for a replacement keyboard and top case to arrive I have ordered.

Stupid clumsy mistake.

BTW: Found the info on powering up the Macbook here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/652086/

 

[murray484]

It Works!!!

I tried the shorting the connector on the keyboard and it turned on. Turns out, my friend spilled pop on the keyboard which must have messed it up. Now all I have to do is buy a new keyboard.

Thanks so much

 

[murray484]

Same problem here... Finally solved my problem .. It was a broken keyboard cable.

A while ago I took the Macbook apart and must have broken the stupid little plug on the end of the cable.

Managed to turn the Macbook on by shorting the two power connector pins and proved that everything works OK with an external keyboard.

Now I'm just waiting for a replacement keyboard and top case to arrive I have ordered.

Stupid clumsy mistake.

BTW: Found the info on powering up the Macbook here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/652086/

Where did you buy your keyboard and how much was it? All of the ones on ebay are used and overpriced.

Thanks again

 

[ozdonut]

New Macbook Keybaord

I'm in Australia and managed to buy one from macfixit (www.macfixit.com.au)

Cost me a total of A$85 inc postage & GST

I thought that was pretty reasonable to revive a macbook which I screwed up myself!

Keyboard arrived after 3 days and all is working now... What a relief!

I'm guessing that if I had taken the Macbook into a service centre, it probably would have cost around $200-$300 ($80 + Labour)

Not sure where you are, but I found this:

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Apple/9227885/

BTW. A friend's Macbook is doing exactly the same as mine, only difference is he hasn't screwed it up himself and it is under warranty still....

 

[murray484]

Hello,
I ordered a brand new macbook keyboard off of ebay for about $66 Canadian. I have no idea when it will arrive.

I have a couple more questions. For the hard drive, will any 2.5" SATA hard drive work? I can get a 160GB one for about $70.

For the operating system, will any OSX cd work, or does it have to be from a white macbook (Can it be from an iMac?). I can most likely get one from my school if that is the case.

Thanks so much for all of your help.

 

[ozdonut]

Hard Drive

HI,

Glad to hear you managed to order a keyboard at a reasonable price...

As for Hard drive, I have upgraded quite a few in the past.
Any Sata HDD will work as far as I can tell - As long as it fits in the slot!

I have successfully upgraded a number of machines with 160G, 250G, 320G and my own with a 500G.

I have tended to use the Western Digital drives since they are quite a good price (500G costs me around A$140)

I re-installed OSX on my Macbook with my Leopard Retail disc, so you don't have to use the one which came with the machine originally AFAIK

- When Upgrading the HDD I generally use Carbon Copy Cloner to copy the original Drive onto the new one. The new drive then just boots happily (And you have a 'backup' just in case things screw up....

 

[murray484]

HI,

Glad to hear you managed to order a keyboard at a reasonable price...

As for Hard drive, I have upgraded quite a few in the past.
Any Sata HDD will work as far as I can tell - As long as it fits in the slot!

I have successfully upgraded a number of machines with 160G, 250G, 320G and my own with a 500G.

I have tended to use the Western Digital drives since they are quite a good price (500G costs me around A$140)

I re-installed OSX on my Macbook with my Leopard Retail disc, so you don't have to use the one which came with the machine originally AFAIK

- When Upgrading the HDD I generally use Carbon Copy Cloner to copy the original Drive onto the new one. The new drive then just boots happily (And you have a 'backup' just in case things screw up....

Thanks again for all of your help,

I kind of want to avoid having to buy a leopard cd, so I was hoping that I could use a cd that came with an imac because I can borrow one from my school for free. Could this work?

Thanks again

 

[KielderWolf]

Thanks again for all of your help,

I kind of want to avoid having to buy a leopard cd, so I was hoping that I could use a cd that came with an imac because I can borrow one from my school for free. Could this work?

Thanks again

No this would not work. The grey OS discs are only loaded with the drivers for that specific family of computers. An iMac install disc will only work on that specific generation of iMac, and so on.

Snow Leopard costs $30/£25/30€ and you can run a clean install from the disc, although this is a direct violation of the EULA, as it is marketed as an upgrade not an install disc.