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Am I Struggling with a I/O Board Issue, a Logic Board Issue, or...?

I have a beautiful MPB Mid-2012 Retina that has thrown unexpected temper tantrums up until the point where the Mac will not start. It originally shut it down a couple of times when on battery power and plugging it in would calm its nerves and bring the unexpected shutdowns to a stop. However after a week of keeping him on power he quite suddenly stopped booting. When I plug his mag safe cable in, the green light appears to show that the battery is charged, but he no longer responds to my attempted start-ups. He did, at one point, start his fans in the middle of the night, which scared me to death since my desk is in my room, but beyond that he has been mostly-dead.

What should my next steps be? Just like the Princess Bride, is my Mac somewhat alive? Was he just trying to breathe out the words true love and am I missing it as to blave? Or have I just beat this analogy dead and there is no hope?

The Apple store was absolutely no luck and simply recommended a new computer (Sad, because I think there is a great deal of life still in this mac: There isn’t a single scratch on him). I have repaired motherboards on other’s Macs before, so I am not afraid to make it happen, but I would like to verify that the issue isn’t something smaller before I blow the cash.

The iFixit community has never let me down before, so here’s to you guys! Let the advice rain and thanks for your help in advance.

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Lets see what a SMC reset does How to reset the System Management Controller (SMC) on your Mac Did that change anything?

If the keyboard method fails lets try disconnecting the battery and holding the power button so the system is fully drained. With the battery still disconnected plug the MagSafe the system should spontaneously start did it?

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7 Comments:

Here’s a guide for doing SMC and PRAM/NVRAM resets, if you need it.

How to reset the SMC, PRAM and NVRAM on a Mac Laptop

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Hi Dan, thanks for being patient with my reply. Life got ahead of me, but I'll be available this wekend to work on this. Your solution worked somewhat. Interestingly enough, draining the system without the battery worked. Right after I plugged in the Mac, the fans started on the machine, but nothing else did. The screen on my Mac is completely black too and I cannot get the machine to proceed to boot. What should my next steps be?

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@humbledevid Next step would be to plug in the Mac on an external display/tv to understand if it really boots and still produces an image apart from spinning fans. Try also shining a light to your screen to understand if there's an image but no backlight, or no image at all.

That helps us understand what's the possible damage and if it's worth trying to purchase a new screen assembly.

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This particular system has a known fault with the integrated GPU which will require a logic board replacement.

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@arbaman and @danj, just plugged it into an external display, no image appears, and the screen is not backlit: only the fans run (after another SMC reset). Does this, most likely, confirm my suspicion about the logic board being the critical issue here?

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David Behrens will be eternally grateful.
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