Won’t charge, no light on charger, no power.

Hi,

I have a MacBook Pro mid-2015 15” Retina Display, A1398, EMC 2910, board number 820-00426-A, 16gb RAM, i7 core, 2.8ghz, Discrete Graphics.

I got this MacBook over a year ago, and about six months ago, the charger, and charging port area started getting really hot. (In my lack of knowledge, I was using a cheap knockoff MagSafe.)

It still worked fine, so I continued to use it. Then it started to only work intermittently, and I’d have to fiddle with the connection to get it to charge. Finally the charger seemed to die, and would not charge my laptop, showing no indicator light until occasionally AFTER being unplugged from the MacBook.

Wanting a reliable charger, I spent the $80+ to get a new MagSafe directly from Apple. When it arrived, I plugged it in, with no response; no light, not fans spinning, nothing.

Having had no previous experience repairing devices, I looked up all the YouTube videos I could, and tried the SMC and NVRAM resets many times.

Thinking it was the DC-in board, I bought and installed a replacement, but still got no light. I then replaced the battery, and my MacBook turned on, the battery having arrived with 82% charge, but still there was no charging. I replaced the right IO board, as well, and even tried to replace the motherboard (though the eBay motherboard I got was a scam, and was in fact worse than the existing board.

Since then, I have put it on the shelf. I recently got back into it, as our old MacBooks are becoming insufficient, or breaking. I got myself a multimeter, and the boardview and schematics for my board number, and have run several diode/continuity tests on several of the main power rails, and other than under the heat sink, which I can’t remove yet because I have no replacement thermal paste yet. Everything seems in order (other than what seems like there might be some corrosion under the heat sink), though I can’t figure out how to get the multimeter to measure the DC voltage the board is receiving.

Is there any component under the heat sink that could prevent charging if corroded? The MacBook runs perfectly with battery power, other than not charging, though the battery has long since died.

I know that neither the battery or the charger is not the problem, because I have tested both the old and new batteries, and the charger with someone else’s A1398 MacBook, and they work fine.

Sorry this is long, I just wanted to be detailed so the problem will be as obvious as possible to those who might know how to recognize it.

I have no soldering tools, or heat rework station, though I’m willing to get them if need be, I would just really like to avoid component level repair.

Can anyone help me? I really need this to be fixed, and can’t afford to get a replacement.

Front side of motherboard:

Back side of motherboard: