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The March 2015 update of Apple's 13" MacBook Air features fifth generation Intel Core i5 and i7 processors, resulting in slightly increased performance and battery life.

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Won’t charge - no light

I purchased a second hand early 2015 MacBook Air early this week. Ad said it was water damaged, said she took it to a place and diagnosed it with logic board failure and a couple of other flexes needed to be replaced. She said it worked fine and the only issue it had was that it couldn’t tell how much battery was left on it, so I took a chance and thought that was fine. Battery was on 39% at that stage and by the time I purchased a charger from Apple and got it home it was down to about 20%. I noticed that when plugged in the little light on the charger wouldn’t light up but it was still showing it was charging, however in store in Apple we tested it on a charger and the light did come on. It wouldn’t charge over 20% and when you unplugged it and plugged it back in it would go up to 21 but then go back to 20. I was curious so I let it go flat, which took roughly an hour and a half whilst playing a YouTube video to speed it up. But now it won’t turn on. I’ve tried sitting on the charger to warm it up, tried doing it with a hairdryer but nothing, I suspected the light may have come on in Apple as the thing was already hot. I’m wondering if it may be the battery and not the board? She was quoted $810 to fix it (I picked it up for $400 thinking it wasn’t too bad). I don’t have all that much money as I’m a struggling Uni student and I was wondering if any of you had any ideas as to fix it, preferably very cheap as I have $250 to my name and need that for fuel and travel money.

Is it fixable cheap? I was thinking worst case is a battery replacement or a chip on the board or something. Or is it totally useless?

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To isolate things I would recommend you open the system up and disconnect the battery. Then give the MagSafe charger a try the LED on the connector should glow Amber at this point if not your logic board needs repair.

Water (liquid) damage is a tricky thing, a few small drops of tap or rain water tend not to cause any damage. A 1/16 cup or so is a deluge! And depending on what it was it can be corrosive or cause ionic conduction which can cause breaks or short out the delicate electronics. Milk, soft drinks and juices are the worse! They can harbor micro-organisms (bacteria & molds) which can then eat the components and logic board its self.

So while the logic board and/or battery may need replacing there can be more damage. This may not have been a wise purchase as it could end up costing you more than a non-water damage system from the start.

If you can I would get my money back and look again.

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Brianna deMol will be eternally grateful.
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