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MacBook boards

This page covers some board-level repairs I've completed.

MacBook Air 13" 2015 (820-00165, "chloe 3")

No fan spin, brief pulse on S0 rails, no SMC_DELAYED_PWRGD, no obvious shorts. Eventually, I noticed PPVIN_S0_CPUVR_VIN missing and found R7202 was disconnected from PPBUS_S5_HS_COMPUTING_ISNS.

Fixed by wiring R7202 to C7316 (unpopulated), which had continuity to that rail.

Thank you dosdude1 for tips. This was very confusing for me.

MacBook Air 11" 2014 (820-3435, "mc 1")

It only worked in SMC bypass mode, because PP3V3_S5_AVREF_SMC was shorted to ground. The cause was C5125; removing it let the laptop turn on normally.

Thanks to this post.

MacBook Air 11" 2015 (820-00164, "mc 4")

This (disgustingly dirty) laptop's PPBUS_G3H was shorted. Injecting 5 V caused C7431 (on PPBUS_S5_HS_COMPUTING_ISNS) to smoke, and removing it cleared the short on both rails.

It still didn't work, because F7140 was burned (I don't think by me; it's upstream from PPBUS_G3H). Fixed by replacing with a wire.

MacBook Air 11" 2015 (820-00164, "mc 6")

No power or charger light, missing PPBUS_G3H but not shorted, PPDCIN_G3H_CHGR present but no CHGR_PHASE. This meant Q7130 wasn't turned on (CHGR_LGATE) by U7100, which finally clued me in to PP3V42_G3H being shorted.

Injecting 3.3 V caused C5002 to heat up; removing it fixed the laptop.

MacBook Pro 13" 2015 (820-4924)

Powered on inconsistently, no force touch feedback (touchpad worked otherwise), PPVIN_S4_TPAD_FUSE shorted (but F4800 intact). The short and unreliability went away with the touchpad disconnected.

Found a visibly burnt capacitor on the underside of the touchpad board (bottom-right here; I don't have a schematic). Fixed by crushing it with pliers, oops.