Re: Dead A1278 (Early 2011) Macbook Pro?

No lab supply, unfortunately. I'm considering jury rigging one from a PC power supply with a standard power diode for overvoltage protection, but it's at the point where without the tools (PCH or CPU, it's out of my league) it's probably not worth it.

Might see if any tech nearby do BGA rework on Macbooks, but it's over four years old so probably not worth fixing.

Re: Dead A1278 (Early 2011) Macbook Pro?

Thank you all for the help. I think I'm getting closer to resolving this...



Yeah, I fear it's that or the CPU (the CPU also takes 1.05V for something - I/O perhaps?). I only say that because some of the worst damage seemed to be near the CPU.



It's a low resistance to ground. And not low as in a few ohms, low as in as close to zero as I can measure with my equipment. I wasn't 100% sure this was a fault (if there are non-linearities and the CPU draws a constant current even at low...

Re: Dead A1278 (Early 2011) Macbook Pro?

Thanks for your help. Unfortunately I haven't got a good microscope or something to give a detailed image and I still can't see any burned ICs to focus on, but I've attached a few files that might help.

And strangely enough the "burned" pins near the CPU are not PP1V05, but VCORE.

I know CPUs rarely fail, but I'm not sure what else it could be. My guess is something happened to dump a higher voltage into the rail. It could be a cap, but there are a lot of caps on that rail and I didn't think failed...

Re: Dead A1278 (Early 2011) Macbook Pro?

Haven't got access to a BGA rework station to remove the CPU, and I didn't remove the logic board until after it died... it was on a dry cloth when I was testing the laptop with the backplate off.

Could be static as I wasn't wearing a strap, but I didn't touch the board directly until after the fault, the humidity here makes ESD much less of a concern, and I grounded myself before work to a PC chassis.

Not sure what you mean by "make a macro picture of the burned ic". It appears the burned ic is the...

Hi all. I fear the worst, but hopefully some here can be of assistance or at least find me closure.

I fixed what I thought was a simple problem with the battery in a friend's A1278 (820-2936-A). Dead battery, new battery installed. Everything was working fine while I reinstalled the OS (which was corrupted), but about an hour in, the logic board died completely.

While I have the G3Hot supplies and the charging circuitry works, the other rails appear dead. What's more, there appears to be a dead short from PP1V05_S0 to GND (multimeter reads 0.5 Ohm, the same as from...

Re: New Members - please post your introductions here

Hi all, I'm Stuart. Just joining to try to fix a few dead boards (Macbook Pro A1278, 2011, and a Lenovo G570) I have and make use of the knowledge here. Seems I've been unlucky with boards lately and am hoping to change that.