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Early 2011 Model: A1278 / 2.3 GHz i5 or 2.7 GHz i7 processor

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MacBook Pro powers on only when keyboard disconnected after water spil

My wife spilled water on her early 2011 Macbook Pro unibody. It was closed when the spill hit it.

It has been sitting for about a week now and there are no signs of water. Unfortunately it won't power on. After some tinkering under the hood and trying to no avail to get it to boot via the power pads, I discovered as soon as I flip the retaining flap of the keyboard cable it powers up immediately. It boots up all the way with trackpad functioning but no keyboard (naturally).

Is my only option an entire upper case replacement?

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I believe you accidentally did a spontaneous reboot by disconnecting the mag-safe then disconnecting the battery then replacing them. You can do it again just to check. The if it won't power down or restart from the power button, the keyboard has been shorted out and need to be replaced. If this is the case let us know and we can get you to the guide to do that.

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The keyboard could be shorting the power rails responsible for turning the laptop on or resetting the SMC (SMC_RESET_L). Replacing the keyboard will most likely solve this. Fortunately, you can replace just the keyboard, it is quite a tedious job though, as there are many small screws that hold the keyboard into the top case. There are quite a few guides for it on the internet :)

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Cant reset smc without keybord... Key bord is the culprit needs to be replaced...

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You probably have a bad trackpad and maybe keyboard. Try a new trackpad first and I bet your MacBook will work.

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The trackpad functions fine when it boots up with keyboard disconnected.

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Jason will be eternally grateful.
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