Rep: 37
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I was told my SMC chip on my mcp 2012 may need a good cleaning (X through battery icon). Is it just a matter of leaving logic board in, disconnecting battery and using toothbrush and alcohol? Please advise - really need to get this running for my son and school. Thanks everyone.
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You don't need to do any cleaning here!
You may need to reset the SMC which we can do but before we do that, lets get some better diagnostics. Download this gem of an App: coconutBattery. It will tell you if the battery is still good as well as the charging logics health. You may need a new battery.
Post a screenshot of the main screen so we can see it as well.
Can you give us a bit more here. Did you get your system wet? spill something into it?
Your MagSafe charger is not charging the battery (Charging with 0 watts)! While your battery still has life (only has 19 cycle counts). So at this point your logic board likely has an issue which we need to fix first.
What is the color of the MagSafe charger LED, Amber or Green?
OK, not good ;-{
This systems logic board needs some serious repairs. Clearly the charging logic is damaged from the liquid spill while one can go in and do some cleaning I often find with the symptoms you've told us the comparator logic is burn't and the battery charge side MOSFET is likely also damaged. SMC is responding! As we do get a cycle count so the micro controller (SMC) chip is OK.
This is beyond DIY as you need some special tools to desolder the chip properly and access to the parts. I would strongly recommend you find a good micro-soldering tech locally or ship your system to someone who can fix your system.
The other direction is to find a replacement logic board and just swap it out.
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Sorry - how do I post a screenshot from an iPad?
Cant get my iPad to load a pic/screenshot here.
But here are coconut battery findings:
Current charge: 0%
Full charge capacity: 0%
Design capacity: 15.3%
19 cycle count
Charging with 0 watts
Yes battery failure
I'm surprised you just didn't do it from your MacBook Pro. Its a bit harder with an iPad but it can be done. Once you get the image into your photo's collection you can copy it over it into the media drawer. Here's the process: Adding images to an existing question
Yep water spill. Coconut battery says yes to battery failure..... doesn't that mean I need a new battery?
MagSafe is green
Let look at it this way your car runs out of gas along the road. As the tank is empty, we need to replace the gas tank not fill the gas tank with fuel!
Here we're in the same boat the gas tank (battery) is empty so we need to first fix the reason why the battery is not charging not replace the battery.
As you are also telling us the MagSafe LED is green we know things are really messed up!
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9 Comments
if the solder balls look bad they will need reflowed with flux then cleaned with alcohol
by daniel
@djdannyrock - Why are you recommending soldering? A battery Icon with an X through it is a failing battery or disconnected. Review this Apple T/N: macOS Sierra: If an X appears on the battery icon in the menu bar
by Dan
@danj well if thats the case how did the repair shop not know that, also i was commenting to the question about cleaning the smc not to do with the x through the battery icon
by daniel
@djdannyrock - 'cleaning the SMC' would more than likely imply a SMC reset vs soldering.
by Dan
@danj yes dan but he is asking how to actually clean the smc by asking if just to use isopropyl and a toothbrush. so thats where im coming from not the x through the battery icon, thats why im saying to use flux to reflow the balls if they are damaged and then clean with isopropyl
by daniel
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