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Mac turns on, screen stays black, but works with external display.

Yesterday while using my mac, the screen went black suddenly with a small short circuit sound. Today I figured that it actually still works:

  • it can be switched on
  • I can see my display if I plug it into an external monitor via HDMI
  • the caps lock button light works
  • I can type and hear the Submarine sound effect that macs play when you're typing somewhere wrong
  • I can see the screen when I shine a light through the Apple logo at the back of the screen
  • I've tried the PRAM reset to no avail

Worth mentioning: there was tea spilled onto the mac about 1 or 2 months ago.

Does this mean that it's a screen issue or is the logic board fried? I would like to understand what is actually wrong with my laptop before paying the $650 quoted to me by a repairman. Thank you.

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Hey Avery,

This is a classic problem with the backlight circuit and the spilling of fluids :). 650$ is too much (unless you go to an apple store where it's kind of the normal amount). A good repairshop should be able to fix this for <200$ (we charge 180€ including taxes and sending it back to you (if you live in Belgium ;)).

You should look around for a good repairshop in your local area that does microsoldering of Macbook laptops. There are enough of them around. For some explanation what your problem exactly is and how it gets fixed you can always youtube "backlight repair macbook"

If you have any questions, let me know!

Kind regards,

Tom

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2 Comments:

Hi Tom, thank you for your reply. Is this issue then due to a backlight circuit fault and not the logic board? I figured that the price tag might come from the logic board since they are quite expensive.

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Hey Avery,

This backlight circuit is a part of the logic board, simply put, it "calculates" the voltage needed to give a certain brightness, turns the backlight on or off, provides the needed current, etc..) . So the 600$ is probably swapping in a completely new board. While this can be fixed by replacing some/multiple components on your logic board. (the first doesn't really take a skilled technician but expensive components, the latter is the opposite :). As you can guess there are more shops who can offer the first ;)

Kind regards,

Tom

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