Display/booting issues after replacing wifi antenna

Hello all,

So my wifi antenna crapped out and my Macbook (2012 13”) wouldn’t detect wifi hardware. I saw that a new wifi antenna was relatively cheap and while a long process seemed like a pretty straightforward repair. I removed the old antenna (the wires connecting it to the wifi card had frayed in the uncovered section) and popped in the new one exactly the way the old one was. I pressed the power button and there was no boot chime, the optical drive didn’t make the usual sounds it makes at boot up, and the screen was completely dark. No backlight from the keys either. The fan spins and the hard drive powers up. The light on the front stays lit.

I’m not entirely sure what this is indicative of, if the wires connecting the screen to the board are starting to go or if the board itself is going or something else. I checked all the connections on the board and they were good. Before I go ahead and dismantle the screen, I wanted to get some perspective on what actually happened here. I also put the old wifi antenna back in just to see and it was the same story. Before I replaced the old antenna, it still displayed and booted fine, just said “no hardware detected” for the wifi and I had use an ethernet cable to get internet. I reseated the RAM because I read things like this sometimes happen with RAM issues but with no display or sound there’s really not much to go on.

Any and all help is appreciated, I need my laptop to do my work so I want to figure it out as soon as possible.

Thanks so much!

hi there,


have you tried removing all the ram and powering on the MacBook to see if you get any sounds then ?


as if its booting at all it will make a sound to tell you no ram detected,

jasongoldworthy said:

hi there,


have you tried removing all the ram and powering on the MacBook to see if you get any sounds then ?


as if its booting at all it will make a sound to tell you no ram detected,

Click to expand...

Hey Jason!

Yes I did actually and I still got no sound from the laptop.

ummmm ok sounds like the logic board may have failed have you tried a PRAM reset ?



link here if it helps.

https://thenextweb.com/lifehacks/2017/06/14/how-when-why-to-reset-the-pram-smc-on-your-mac/

Are these the steps you followed?

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBoo...012+AirPort-Bluetooth+Board+Replacement/10363

jasongoldworthy said:

ummmm ok sounds like the logic board may have failed have you tried a PRAM reset ?



link here if it helps.

https://thenextweb.com/lifehacks/2017/06/14/how-when-why-to-reset-the-pram-smc-on-your-mac/

Click to expand...

I attempted to reset the PRAM but it’s still behaving the same way. Without a display it’s pretty hard to tell if it did anything.

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ferrarr said:

Are these the steps you followed?

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBoo...012+AirPort-Bluetooth+Board+Replacement/10363

Click to expand...

That isn’t exactly the fix I was attempting, but as far as disconnecting the wires from the airport card goes I followed those steps.

Try an SMC reset, https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295?

Tried an SMC reset- the charger light changed to indicate it was reset but still behaving the same

Any other thoughts?