help with MacBook corrosion please..

My white 13" macbook suddenly stopped working about a month and a half ago and i have no idea why. I have never spilled anything in it before and it's always worked great since i got it around May last year. I was using it in my cousin's dorm before we went out but when i got back it wasn't working. I tried charging it and turning on and i tried every troubleshooting technique i could find but NOTHING worked. So i sent it in to apple and they said that i would have to pay ~$750 dollars to repair it because they think that i spilled something in it and they said they severe corrosion. So they said it was out of warranty because i spilled something in it (which I'm certain i did not) and i would have to pay. I don't have $750 to spend on laptop repairs at the moment but i do need my laptop for school. So i told them i would not pay and they sent it back to me. Knowing that i didn't spill anything, i went ahead and opened up the macbook to see what they were talking about and couldn't find a thing wrong with it. No corrosion or anything else. I took some pictures and i was hoping someone could take a look and see if they see anything unusual. They're a little blurry.














Please let me know if you see anything wrong or any way that I can get my macbook working again. Any help is appreciated

I can't see anything wrong from here, but you've definitely voided the warranty now, spill or no spill. Is there another repair place near you that deals with Macs? Get a second opinion?

I see some discoloration to the left of the CPU cooling fan but it's hard to tell if there is corrosion without examining it more closely. Apparently an Apple technician examined it and said there is.

Has someone used your machine when you weren't around? Unless you kept it locked away while you were not in your dorm and let no one else use it, you really don't know for sure that something wasn't spilled on it.

In any event, your warranty is void and you don't have many choices. Any authorized Apple repair is going to charge you a heap of money to get it back in working condition. Unless you can do the repairs yourself, you might think about maybe buying a refurbished machine at a discount from Apple or even purchasing an inexpensive PC laptop to temporarily use for school.

Sorry I can't offer you a more pleasant response.

Regards.

You can tell there was nothing spilled though because the bottom of the keyboard is flawless. There's absolutely no evidence that anything was spilled through the keys

I agree with chscag, (now that you opened the computer you have voided your warranty anyhow), but in my opinion you should really think about getting a refurbished macbook for only 200 dollars more than you would spend to get your current one repaired, and you could have a brand-new computer!!!

Well, if you wanted to save money, I would start to figure this mystery out yourself. Count a freebie fix by Apple as out of the question (obviously).

Next, do you have any household or contents insurance which would cover the repair of the laptop? If no, read on.

Check with your school if they run a repair program for equipment students use for school work, worth an ask and a try. If no, read on.

You say the computer won't switch on at all. Now, which of these best describe the problem...

A) It won't power on at all, it is as if the life and soul has been sucked out of it by a langolier.
B) It won't power on from the battery
C) It won't power on from the AC power adapter

I know those are a bit obvious, but worth asking (sometimes people try to power up using one method)

Things I would look for if it was my laptop...

1) Check the battery fuel lights, do any light up?
2) If you can, check the power lead on another Macbook, is it still functioning properly?
3) Is there any life at all when trying to boot up? can you hear the hard drive or optical drive kick in?
4) which status light does the magsafe show when it is plugged into the laptop and the battery is in?

If the thing is as dead a s a do-do and you know both the battery and power adapter are fine, then it must be a problem with the power part of the motherboard, as if any power was getting through at all, there would be a kick out of the hard drive, screen, or optical drive at least.

if it is the power bit (sorry i do not know the exact name of the part) of the motherboard, then it would seem like it needs a new motherboard, and that would sort of reflect the cost of Apples repair quote.

I don't know if you have the eqivilant of www.thebookyard.co.uk in the USA but if you do, it would be worth buying a second hand motherboard and fitting it yourself.

The extra cost is in the labour involved as replacing a motherbaord in an apple laptop generally means taking everything out of the case, putting in the new motherboard and then re-=attaching all the internal peripherals to the new motherboard.

A task not for the faint of heart, but it can be done. www.ifixit.com should have the step by step pictured procedure on their site. Oh look, here's a link...

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac/MacBook-Core-2-Duo/Logic-Board-Replacement/116/19/

Mind you, having looked at their replacement parts list, it might also be the magsafe board...

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac/MacBook-Core-2-Duo/Magsafe-Board/116/11/

beating all that, what I would try is to find out about someone who is just plain good with electronics. Someone who quietly repairs peoples broken stuff because they enjoy it. This sounds like a job for someone like that. The internals of the macbook are relatively simple and your problem sounds like a relatively simple one, I.E. no power gets to the parts that need power, and possibly someone good with electronics could track where the power stops and therefor work out which component is faulty.

I know this may not be a big solution, and chances of someone coming forward and saying they had the exact same problem and found a fix are slim, but I hope it is some food for thought.

Mel

Unexpected "corrosion" on Macbook

I had a similar thing happen to my Macbook. My computer was a little less than one year old. It was working perfectly fine one night. I went out to dinner and for some drinks with some old friends and went to bed. When I woke up in the morning the computer wouldn't turn on. The power adaptor light would turn green when plugged into the Mac but it was only a faint light. I took the battery out and back in and it still wouldn't turn on. The apple store couldn't figure out how to turn it on either so they sent it to their maintenance people. 2 days later I got a call saying the computer had suffered from some type of liquid damage that caused corrosion in the internal components. I have never spilled anything anywhere near the computer so it was a complete surprise to me. I even asked my girlfriend, who was home the night before my computer stopped working, if she accidentally spilled something in the computer and that I would forgive her if she did. She said no. I am defenseless against Apple because of course they can just say that I voided the warranty by spilling liquid inside the computer. Now I have to drop another 1000 bucks on a Mac. I'd go with another computer in protest but I liked the Mac so much.

Sucks.