MacBook Pro does not start up

I resent the implication that age or generation has anything to do with my judgment! My first "professional" experiences in electronics where I serviced gear for money were on equipment that is probably older than you.

Pultec equalizers from 1951. Lansing coaxial speakers from the early 40s(with ORIGINAL ALCINO MAGNETS!!!) I still have some in storage for my own personal hobby. LA-2A limiters from the late 60s, and Studer A-827 from the late 80s(this would be considered "new"). Neve consoles from the early seventies before Siemens took over the name and butchered them with the VRP line(the "2011 15" Macbook Pro" of the studio business in the early eighties).

Do you know the difference between a 1951 Pultec and a 2007 Macbook Pro? One is fixable with new parts. One is not. Which would you guess is which? Quality analog audio gear ages gracefully, but cheap modern consumer electronics age like trash.

You can FIND a new part to replace a faulty part in a 1951 Pultec. You cannot find a replacement part to replace a faulty part in a 2007 Macbook Pro. Therefore, what do you get? Recycling after recycling and eventually all you have is total, utter junk. Unfit, broken trash that in no way resembles the original functioning device.

You can buy a capacitor for a crossover of the same spec as the original from 1941, that is NEW. These are common items. You can rebuild a 1951 Pultec equalizer to have the same level of reliability, same longevity, and same quality as a Pultec that came right out of the crate in 1951. This is repair and I promote it with tenacity.

You cannot find an X1600, or an 8600M that is new. The same holds true for the southbridge or northbridge for any of these boards. This is custom fabricated; a unique piece for which there are no drop in replacements. It is incredibly expensive to fabricate these items, so they are fabricated for a short period of time. They are only fabricated while it remains profitable to do so. Once they are done being fabricated, they are never created again, and whatever supply exists must be sufficient until newer devices come along requiring newer chipsets.

So what do you think happens eight years after a chip is no longer produced? What do you think you are getting? Do you think AMD decided to open up billion dollar fabrication plants so they could create chips they can't sell for more than a dime? Or are random scammers prying this junk off of old, dead boards and reselling them as "new" after reballing and an ultrasonic cleaning? The latter.

It is noble to wish to repair something that is broken. There's pride and an ear to ear smile to be had in taking a 604e from the forties, years before my dad was born, and making it sound the way it did on its first play. This is repair.

However, it is sad to patch back together what was once a great machine that has no ability, given current circumstances, to be anything but a piece of trash. That's butchery. There is no pride in bringing back a device as a skeleton of what it once was; lacking in reliability, performance, and capability of its original design. In this there is only shame, and it's what is promoted anytime someone sells some reheated reballed dead POS zombie chipset on eBay as either a BGA chip by itself or a "tested working" board.

This has nothing to do with age or generation. It has to do with a fabrication economy where chips are created for a limited time period, while profitable. After which, every machine capable of fabricating said chip is trashed. This is the reality of profitable silicon wafer production. I did not choose for the world to be this way, but I will live within the reality of it and repair accordingly!

zzz, I'm just seeing the end of my life of repairing Macs. I am older than the Pultec. I have been an advocate of Apples high quality since its inception and have seen it degrade over the last fifteen years to the point that they are almost unrepairable. Due the drop in prices and quality of these once fine machines I have even been unable to raise my repair prices from 1993 levels People were willing to pay 10-20% the prices of a Mac to have it repaired and prices for these machines remained at the $3500 level for years. But the costs and quality have continually dropped. For me there just not much joy in a 2015 and its repair rating of 1 out of 10. My repair days will soon be over and my usefulness to society at an end. I don't know how you will continue but you can have it.

Maybe you and I can share a niche repairing Pultecs? :)

I would you you can't do it and eat.