MacBook 13" intermittent backlight failure & intermittent power down

P i


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my MacBook 13" (2008 model) suffered a lightning strike a few months back.

it was off, but the cable was connected. lightning hit the power lines the other side of the island.

I was awake at the time, and the screen flashed momentarily with a 'zing/crack/'k'' sound.

when I tried to reboot it took me 20 goes to get back in. I took it to the local Apple shop and they scooped my data off, pointed out there was a hard disk corruption, reformatted and reinstalled OS X

however, since then the screen backlight has been prone to turning off.

and also occasionally the whole system powers down instantly ( this strike fried my battery as well, so I am running only off the mains )...

the powerdown definitely coincides with heavy usage, for example ( I do iPhone development ), I plug in my iPad and both Xcode and iTunes jump at the same moment, trying to synchronise/transfer data/whatever. this is the day I upgraded to Xcode4, so Xcode needed some data as well. anyway, that combination turned it straight off, twice, So it was repeatable. I think it was low on battery as well, so maybe this is a power drain problem. I remember also a while back when I was making a screen flow movie, compressing the movie, which is probably really intensive on some chip, it kept powering down.

But the power down is now very rare. And it never powers down in the middle of doing nothing.

as for the backlight failure, I tried as an experiment preventing the screen from going to sleep, that was about 10 hours ago, and I haven't had a problem since.

This is a new OS X installation... I am using an external monitor as well... there seems to be some glitch where it will enter sleep mode only on the MacBook screen, while I am still using the big screen, and then it is impossible to wake up the little screen. But going to display properties and forcing the displays to mirror one another is sufficient to turn it back on again.

Again, I'm really clueless here... I just don't know what's going on

can anyone help me? I know the obvious answer is to go to the Apple shop and pay lots of money, but I don't have money right now and my MacBook is out of warranty, and I really need everything working.

What could I do to fix? It looks like I can buy an inverter really cheaply off eBay, is this likely to fix the screen problem?

And is there anything I can get to fix the power problem? Would this require a new logic board?

all knowledge/information very gratefully received,

thank you for reading!

Pi
 

chscag

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It's difficult to accurately predict what is causing the intermittent problems you're having. Lightning strikes are usually very unforgiving. I know of that first hand when several years ago we had a strike across the street which took out my TV sets, computer, modem, and air conditioning controller unit. Very expensive....

It could be the inverter, the backlight itself, the DC power board, or something on the logic board. You might be fighting a losing battle by trying to track it down. If you can live with it the way it is until you get enough $ to buy a new machine, that's what I would do.
 
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P i


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Seeing as DC Power board and backlight each seem to be < 25 bucks on eBay, I am going to try replacing the DC board, trying it out for a week and if that doesn't work I will try the inverter.

I could do with some experience digging into my MacBook.

Am I going to need to order some weird screwdriver as well? The screws on the outside just seem to require a very fine Phillips screwdriver.
 

chscag

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Everything you need can be found at iFixit: The free repair manual. They have the tools and instructions for taking your machine apart. Very good site. Let us know how it went.
 

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