Late 2013 MacBook Retina Pro Fails to boot on international power

[kelly_liz]

Hi all,

This is quite a unique problem as far as I can tell from folks I've spoken to, I'm wondering if anyone else out there has experienced this. I live in Toronto, Canada, and in the last three other countries I've visited my computer has failed to power up once the battery died all the way down. And two of these were work trips, so it's quite a drag!

Locations were Hawaii, Colombia, and Scotland. Hawaii and Colombia both have 120V power, same as at home. But even still, it refused to power up while I was over there, and each time, it powered up immediately as soon as I got back to Toronto. In Scotland I tried both straight wall power and with a converter.

I think I'll have to take it to the shop no matter what, but if anyone has any ideas, or has experienced something like this, I'd love to hear about it!

For what it's worth, I have a third-party hard drive, and I've had some power/start-up issues in the past - that have been totally corrected for Canadian power, at least!

Thanks!

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Are you using the normal MBP charger brick? It should support input voltage of 110 to 240V and do the necessary conversion down to what the MBP needs. Your 2013 MBP has the MagSafe charger and thus, did the led turn orange when connected? If the same charger works when you return home, then there's something goofy. Additionally, does this problem never occur at home?

 

[kelly_liz]

Thanks for your response! Yep, normal charger brick, mag-safe adapter. Indicator lights turns orange, and even full green after it's been plugged in a while. Resetting the SMC in these situations shows that it works (the light does the colour change), but has made no difference. Also, I have attempted to reset the PRAM (I only know these things from reading other forums...) in these situations but it has made no difference either.

The problem used to occur at home occasionally (or it would take an hour of just sitting there hitting the power button until my computer would power up) but I've since had it looked at, and now at home it turns on right away, every time.

Hours of hitting the power button in each of these places has yielded no results. Admittedly, I didn't try quite as hard in Scotland because I remembered the issue. Still really gave it a good go though, to get it to turn on.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

If the LED is going through the orange to green cycle, then it must be charging the battery and the charging portion of your logicboard must be fine. I wonder if there is something around the power button that is messed up. Have you had any liquid spills on this machine?

 

[kelly_liz]

Very good question - yes, I have had a bit of liquid damage, but had it fixed - I didn't have to have the logic board replaced, but did replace something else that I can't seem to remember now (not too helpful).

It just seems incredibly odd to me that it works fine in Canada, but nowhere else. A very specific problem! If I am able to get any information from whomever I get to fix it I will be happy to share.

Thanks again!

 

[pm-r]

I live in Toronto, Canada, and in the last three other countries I've visited my computer has failed to power up once the battery died all the way down. And two of these were work trips, so it's quite a drag!

What does it do or how far into the boot process does it get when it fails to boot??

I'm not sure that those models even produce the usual old Mac startup boot sound.

Does the display screen even light up???

I must admit the problem does sound a bit odd unless it was caused by the user consuming too much of the Scottish nectar…







- Patrick
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[kelly_liz]

Thanks for responding! It gets nowhere - as in, the screen does not light up, no sound, no nothing. While I was in Hawaii, I could see a little internal greed led going on as I hit the power button (would then go off immediately) when I looked through the fans at the back. This didn't even happen when I was in Scotland.

In both places, the power indicator light just showed that the computer was charging, and responded to SMC reset, but that was it. Otherwise it was a brick!

 

[chscag]

Very good question - yes, I have had a bit of liquid damage, but had it fixed - I didn't have to have the logic board replaced, but did replace something else that I can't seem to remember now (not too helpful).

There really is no permenant fix for liquid damage other than either a new logic board or just replacing the entire computer. It does seem odd though that your computer seems to work ok at home but not when you travel to various places. Perhaps coincidental.

We tell folks that liquid spills can be very unpredictable and while the computer may seem to work ok, problems can occur later on in its life. If you do a lot of traveling and need your computer, it may be a good idea to consider replacing it with a new or newer one.

 

[kelly_liz]

Thanks for your response! That makes sense, regarding the unpredictability of the computer later on. It does seem a bit more than coincidental, that it chooses not to work only when I travel, but who knows really what could be going on.

I was hoping that maybe one other person in the world would have had this problem - it just feels so strange! We'll see if they stumble upon this thread at any point.

Stop gap solution - remember this problem and don't let the computer die, ever, while I'm abroad! Ha.

Thanks again for your answer!