feeling techy? Macbook riddle for you!

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macattack600

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Well I have a whole bit of problems with the macbook I got for free. Last night playing with it a bit I was moving it around and it shut off. The hard drive I put in is brand new with fresh install of 10.6.7. I was using it directly plugged , power chord never come undone. Sometimes it would reboot on it's own. I disaled the sudden motion sensor. Then I got to a point were it did the continous chime over and over. I've read before that could be a hardware problem with the DVD drive which actually always reads CDS does'nt burn them won't read DVD R but can put in very clean no scratch DVD movie and it will run. So in the morning I reboot without the batttery. Seemed okay I was'nt moving it around though. I then put the questionable battery in with it off and charged it full , booted it with battery only and got a kernal panic. Did SMC reset then screen was black fan running. Finally booted off battery alone after PRAM reset moved it a bit shut off, then I did it again connected the charger and the charger went blank. Took the battery out, charger only this time and booted right into OS. By the way the white led that indicates sleep and shines when powered on is not working at all. Seeing kernal panics definatley tells me there is a hardware issue I'm thinking maybe the battery connector from batt to logic board needs replace or the sleep light causes hardware malfunction (which is connected to the SATA Drive socket) maybe the HD connector cable is bad, or even the DVD being corrupt as a hardware issue. Any thoughts. thanks.
 
Sounds more and more like damage from an old liquid spill. I've seen a bunch of MacBooks with similar symptoms. Check in the area of the internal battery cable connector for any signs of corrosion. I expect you'll find some damage there... Also, check in the area where all the drives and video attach to the logic board, mostly in front of the fan. Problems related to a liquid spill do not always show up immediately, sometimes weeks later before symptoms appear.
 
Well I talked to my friend he is absolutley shure there was no liquid spill I've since took off the keyboard and inspected the top logic board the fan is real dusty for one I see small amounts of dusty like material around different places but the battery connector looks alright I don't have the apple test disc for this machine it would tell me too if the problem is connector or magsafe . I'm gonna take a closer look at the drives and video cables on the logic . I have this pesky feeling about that ding dang white sleep light not working . If I decided to take the whole board out what's the best liquid solution I can use to lightly clean it or should I just use air in a can. Oh by the way I took the dvd drive out and ran it with the battery outside moving it all around it worked for awhile then it gave me a kernal panic to restart when I started shaking it more. What are the chances the battery could be causing a kernal issue? It has 300 load in cycles but it seems to get about an hour . Thanks
 
If you are going to take the logic board completely out - I would just use a soft brush, or air-in-a-can is fine, too.
If you get kernel panics with that battery, but not with a different battery - then replace the battery. I've not seen kernel panics caused by a bad battery, but I suppose it's possible.
 
Well I have an update on it I decided to take loose battery connector and run straight power plug I couldn't even get it to boot last night until I did this morning it boots everytime now, but I don't think that's my problem Now if I move the macbook just a little too much it will automatically reboot. I thought I disabled the sudden motion sensor but I've reset pram I don't know if the will reverse it. Where is the sudden motion sensor on the mac/logicboard or is that the power management controller I need to know where it's at on the logicboard thanks.
 
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Don't really know how much time I will spend on it once I find it. The strangest thing I've found that's happend to it is that the battery that was in it will knock the power off the power adapter instantly if the light comes back on it is blinky, and it was tested in a good working macbook did the same thing I think batteries can cause power problems after seeing that.
 
A battery isn't going to cause it to reboot with movement. Did you try reseating the RAM? Other than that it, on machines I've looked at with those symptoms it usually indicates a short.
 
Well the one battery when I stick in a good macbook will cause weird problems for instance at one time the charger went to green red the knocked off completly. I had disconnect the battery and wait 5 min for the charger to work again. Is the short in the bad macbook a capacitor or the power managament controller? Do you happen to know where I can get a diagram or tell me where these are located on the board? I just want to take a look at the actual chips and connections.
 
macattack600 said:
Do you happen to know where I can get a diagram or tell me where these are located on the board? I just want to take a look at the actual chips and connections.
Click to expand...

No, Apple doesn't even release that kind of stuff to Authorized Service providers. Best way to start at finding a short is remove any screws holding the board to the bottom case, but don't remove the heatsink. Then play around with it and see what happens.
 
Ok. I guess by removing the heatsink I would need to apply thermal past to the copper shims when I put it back? I wanting to take the whole board off and clean it if I can. If the battery is causing strange problems in a good mac too what are the chances it can screw something up on the good board. Do you know anything about Techtool Pro for mac is that good program for hardware issues?
 
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