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Repair information and guides for the updated version of the 2015 Retina MacBook that was released in early 2016. Model A1534 / EMC 2991

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Water damaged MacBook won't turn on, Battery appears to charge

I recently acquired a water-damaged 2016 MacBook on the cheap and I'm trying to fix it as my first really major mac repair project. From what I was told, it had less than a cup of water spilled on it while it was closed. It won't turn on now.

In taking it apart, I did see significant corrosion on and around the logic board. I did my best to clean it with isopropyl and a toothbrush (applied gently) then put in the oven for about 2 hours at 220. It still doesn't boot up, but when I put it back together, there's a white SMD LED near where it connects to the battery that light up after I plugged it back in to power, and seems to indicate that the battery is charging or has some power. Though it still won't turn on using the keyboard power button.

Does anyone know for sure what the light indicates? Is there a possibility that the problem now is the keyboard/keyboard cable?

As it stands I intend to actually do an ultrasonic bath in isopropanol (99%), but I wanted to get feedback from more experienced repair people before charging on with potentially unnecessary or harmful techniques.

(I am fully aware that there's a significant chance I won't be able to repair the logic board, I just want to give it a shot before I part the machine out)

Pictures of the logic board can be seen here: https://imgur.com/a/VnL32

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1 Answer

Are you talking about the Yellow LED which is located to the right of the battery connector as marked here?

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6 Comments:

Yes, exactly.

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That only implies the board is getting power, try hitting the power button sw to see if it will start.

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Tried it. Nothing seems to happen. Should I proceed as planned with the ultrasonic bath (after letting capacitors discharge)?

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How about posting some images of the areas you have questions on so we can see what you see. While an ultrasonic cleaning might help in removing corrosion. I'm not sure your issue is a corrosion issue at this point. Cleaning won't fix a bad component or patch a broken trace line.

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I'll post some after work today, but I was operating under the assumption that if it's a bad component I'm pretty much SOL. Not to get ahead of myself, but is there a practical way to replace them at home?

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Will Elliott will be eternally grateful.
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