Bricked MacBook Air 11 2014 (magsafe light on, will not power on)
Hi all—this might be a hopeless case, but I wanted to see if anyone on here had ideas: I’ve been gifted a dead MacBook Air 11” (2014), which apparently shutdown in the middle of being used some months ago. When I connect the magsafe cord, the light goes green, then orange, as normal. But there’s no reaction from pressing the power button—no display, no chime, no fan.
So far I’ve tried:
- Leaving it plugged in overnight to ensure a full charge on the battery
- Pressing shift+Ctl+Option+power and holding for ten seconds
- Unplugging the battery from the logic board and connecting the power cord
- Unplugging the battery and pressing and holding the power button for ten seconds
- Unplugging the battery and power cord and leaving both unplugged for about 30 min
The only reaction I’ve been able to get is that after pressing and holding shift+ctl+option+power, the magsafe light turns from orange to green for a couple of seconds, then back to orange. Also at some point during the process, the magsafe light pattern changed slightly—now when I plug it in it stays off for a moment, then shows orange, then green, then orange.
Any ideas on what’s broken? Anything I should try (short of replacing the logic board)?
UPDATE: I was able to get the fan to turn on for a bit and the chime. Specifically: I connected the battery and disconnected the power adaptor. Then I disconnected the keyboard and keyboard backlight and shorted the power pads with a screwdriver several times, holding the contact for about 3 seconds each time, but got no reaction. Then I plugged in the power adaptor and fan started! And I got the chime after a few seconds! But the display did not light up and I didn’t have the keyboard connected so I couldn’t do anything. So I tried connecting an external USB keyboard (this was probably a bad idea) and the fan died immediately afterward.
Unfortunately, I have not been able to replicate this—so possibly I did something else while working on it that turned the fan on and didn’t realize it.
Is this a good question?
Sounds like you may have some damaged compoents on teh logic board. Did you check for corrosion? Has this MacBook ever had any liquid damage?
by Tim