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The March 2015 update of Apple's 11" MacBook Air features fifth generation Intel Core i5 and i7 processors, resulting in slightly increased performance and battery life.

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i/O or Logic Board?

Hi all, first time post on here after having used ifixit guides for a couple of fixes. i have a MBA 11” early 2015 with me that died recently. After stripping it down it became obvious the cause was liquid damage primarily around the SMC chip(bad news i know).

I am going down the route of replacing the logic board first but this raises an interesting question for this and any other machines that come my way. Does anybody use a logical step by step process to determine which component is bad. I have seen several posts here with similar scenarios with great solutions but all achieved via various routes. i suppose i’m looking for a generic troubleshooting process. I’m sure many of you who are old hands at this have a well established thought process which i am trying to learn for myself. Thank you!

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It depends on your knowledge level and skills!

Some people use the swap out method having spares of some of the parts. Over time you tend to learn what is the more likely part to fail and have as spares.

Others use a digital Ohm/Volt/Amp meter to troubleshoot the logic using schematics and board views. But you need to have a good understanding of analog and diagonal electronics.

I try to use a logical approach to isolate the issue based on how the given system is setup. As an example your MacBook Air logic is broken into two parts the main logic board and the I/O board so assuming you have power in the battery what is not working? Is the headphone jack has failed then its most likely the jack or the cable which passes the signal to the I/O board. So I might replace the cable if it looked ratty or replace the I/O board if I see any corrosion on it.

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Thank you for your comments Dan, very helpful.

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Bob Taylor will be eternally grateful.
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