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alternative ways of finding serial number or MAC address on hardware?

Hello all and thanks for reading.

I own a MacBook, bought on Feb 2008:

MacBook Pro 2.4GHz Core2Duo 15"

It suddenly stopped working: It crashed while running and it's not coming up anymore. The screen stays completely dark and the machine resets itself every 20 seconds or so (you can hear it from the typical reset sound of the DVD drive).

Due to special conditions I bought it with 5 years of warranty, therefore the machine is still under warranty.

But the dealer now refuses to repair the machine, because the technician is unable to find the serial number on the case. It _should_ be on a label somewhere in the battery slot - but it isn't there anymore. One more detail: the machine was on warranty repair about two years ago. I guess it is that during this operation the label must have been lost(i wasn't aware of this until now). Back then, the iSight camera was broken and they replaced it together with display and keyboard.

What I now have:

- serial number (written on the invoice)

- MAC address (ethernet address, grabbed from my router)

- broken macbook with NO serial number on case or in battery slot (currently at the dealers technician)

- warranty (theoretically)

What I am looking for:

serial number or MAC address somewhere printed on the logic board, chips etc.

The technician says I cannot claim my warranty, because there is no serial number on the case or in the battery slot. And because the machine cannot boot up anymore, it's not possible to read the s/n from the firmware in a normal way.

I already tried to figure out if there is either the s/n or the MAC address printed on the board (ifixit and google), but I couldn't find a real solution: possible or not.

Can you help me? This would be totally great.

Many thanks in advance,

Oliver

Answered! View the answer I have this problem too

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Have you tried a safe boot?

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3 Answers

Chosen Solution

The MAC address would be on the Network Card (there's a plate/tag on it possibly underneath if you don't see it as it sits on the logic board).

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2 Comments:

machead, this was exactly the kind of information I was looking for.

I forwarded this Information to my resellers repair center, let's see what the say...

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You're welcome - BTW the most common reasons for missing SN# stickers?- Liquid damage made them unreadable, or, you have a replacement logic board from a damaged/refurbished machine.

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Most Helpful Answer

Your problem could be a top case power switch issue. Tell the tech to remove and disconnect the top case and try to boot the machine directly from the logic board. If it works then you can access the serial number via the system profiler.

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Here is how the case worked out in the end (the "answer" how the case actually took place in real life):

My reseller / Apple service partner solved the problem this way: Apple was able to tell the s/n of the machine from the s/n of the logic board. That's all. Although they also mentioned that this took quite some time.

Today I received the fixed MacBook.

Thank you all for your contributions. To respond to the other suggestions:

The error behaviour was like this:

1) push power button

2) hear the sound from the machine being turned on: fan runs, hard disk (only spinning, not reading)

3) dvd drive makes the typical 'eject' sound

4) screen stays dark. no target mode, no shortcuts, no safe boot, nothing.

5) after about 20 seconds of nothing, repeat from 3)

... until you hold the power button to force power off.

I cannot accept any tips or try out anything, as the machine is repaired and fully functional again.

Thanks again to all!

- Oliver

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