I’ve never been afraid to get under the hood and swap out RAM, replace a hard drive or optical drive, but removing the logic board from an expensive laptop (at least when it was bought), was a little beyond my comfort zone. Figuring I had nothing to lose if I messed up the logic board I found some helpful videos on YouTube that showed how to disassemble my MBP and remove the logic board. Here’s his link: ) So I did and he was right-there’s a bunch of crazy gamers out there resurrecting dead graphics cards, Xboxes and logic boards.
(Update: when I wrote this, I couldn’t find the contact info for him but just recently found it. He quickly countered my skepticism with a plea to Google the term and that I’d find a plethora of advice on how to do it. I got exactly two calls on it-one by one of the techs at the shop who diagnosed it originally to ask if I’d ruled-out the Nvidia issue (doh!) and the other by a guy who was tempted to buy it to try to fix it, but just didn’t have the time-he asked if I had considered “baking the logic board”. I determined that the time and effort involved in managing that many auctions wasn’t worth it and posted it on Craigslist. I was faced with trying to sell the dead MBP on Craigslist or ebay whole for $600 or try to recover more by dismantling it out and selling the parts on ebay and maybe be able to make up to $800. I also found a resource that I might consider as well if I had to face the issue of replacing the logic board again DT&T Service claims they can replace my model logic board with a refurb for $450. I’ve since gathered the necessary courage (and tools) to do it myself, so I could save the labor charges in the future. Which that meant it would be in the neighborhood of $1000-1200 to replace logic board ($800 logic board + labor)-which is not much less than the $1200-1400 my system in good condition was going for on ebay. Which AppleCare concluded that it would not fall under the Nvidia replacement program. Since the system would not even get past the initial boot phases, there was no way to even diagnose any other problems.
We were hoping that it would fall under the Nvidia Graphics chip issue so that Apple would cover the replacement (note to self: on future MacBook Pro purchases: Get the full three-year AppleCare coverage!).
Tried to insert original system install disk and boot from that, all to no avail.Īfter going through the Apple Support boards, I could not determine a culprit and since there are no Apple Stores closer than the 330 miles to Seattle yet (soon in Spokane I hear), I resorted to taking my system to the only certified Apple Repair shop in Spokane. I tried all the start-up key combinations to start in safe-mode, reset PRAM, start diagnosis-nothing worked. While I could hear the hard drive spin up and the optical drive go through its start-up whirrings, there was no start-up chime and no effort to display anything on screen. After powering it down, I tried to start it back up. After futilely trying to wake it by varying degrees of banging on random keys and quickly pressing the power button I waited several minutes before I committed to powering it down. The next morning I noticed that the glowing power light on the latch release was off and thought it strange and then went to open and wake it and nothing happened. I also needed to get this post up before I forgot most of the details.Īs a little background, I put my MBP (17″ 2.5GHz-early 2008, Model A1261 to be exact for you that are searching) to sleep by closing it up for the night, which I’ve done for the past 2+ years with no problems. Usually the procedures are all inclusive.Well, it’s taken me a little while to get this post up-not to mention the fact that its taken me a long while to get any posts up-but I thought this one was worth it just as an encouragement for anyone else who might be dealing with a fried MacBook Pro logic board that is out of the AppleCare warranty coverage. So the "remove logic board" procedure must be looked at as well.
Since it does not show how to remove the logic board first. For some reason the "remove keyboard" procedure is not a "complete" procedure.
Here are the procedure's from (assuming I got the MBP model correct): This is a pretty big job.since the logic board needs to be removed to get access to the keyboard (this would have been a much easier project if it was a pre-Unibody MBP).but that's the way it goes! If you look at the photo of the keyboard (enlarged view).you can see the power button "dangling" off the upper right corner of the keyboard. Very good point you bought up! Before looking.I thought that it would require a whole new top case as well.but it looks like the keyboard + power button is removable.and purchasable separately.