How did this FRIED logic board recover? (no power)

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Hi guys,

This is a strange one. I've had my macbook pro since late 2010, one month out of the extended apple care and boom... wont turn on. Seems a bit like a ticking time bomb, no?

Paranoia around planned obsolescence aside, something strange happened. My symptoms were hinting towards a logic board problem (battery charging ok, indicator turning orange when charging, only turning green when fully charged of doing SMC reset) still in any case never powering on, plugged into the mains or not.

Being out of warranty, I decided to open up my machine and take a look for myself. Sure enough, a capacitor or something had blown, taking a few things around it out too - see these pics:

Flickr: bwolla's Photostream

That whole area appears to control the battery interface with the logic board, so situation seemed a no go without a new board or some annoying soldering. (Anyone happen to know what capacitor this is supposed to be? incase I do have to repair?)

HOWEVER, I put my case back on, turned the machine over, opened the lid and it just... turned on. Like it was waking from hibernation.

What did I do? nothing. Unplugged the keyboard connector and put it back. blew away a little dust. You see from the pictures that this is a real hardware issue... so how on earth does it manage to turn on now!?
 

chscag

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Probably luck. It's hard to say what the components are from your photos (not clear), however, you may be able to identify them better by going to iFixit: The free repair manual and find your model. Look for the take apart instructions.
 

pigoo3

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Like chscag mentioned...probably luck!;)

One thing I noticed...that burn-mark has an unusually "symmetrical" shape to it (kind of almost a perfect rectangle with rounded corners). It could just be coincidence. But normally burn-marks have a very free-form/random shape to them.

Keep your fingers crossed!;)

- Nick
 
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Like chscag mentioned...probably luck!;)

One thing I noticed...that burn-mark has an unusually "symmetrical" shape to it (kind of almost a perfect rectangle with rounded corners). It could just be coincidence. But normally burn-marks have a very free-form/random shape to them.

Keep your fingers crossed!;)

- Nick

So where on earth did it come from? Looking at an image of the logic board from the manual, there is supposed to be SOMETHING there.
 

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