Chosen Solution
Hello all, A friend wanted me to look into his dead mid-2010 MBP because no commercial shop is willing to repair this legacy device. The device was not turning on and the battery was old, so I replaced it with a known good battery from another 2010 13” MBP. This battery started charging, I left it for a few hours to charge, and it fully charged as indicated by the battery status button. The problem is that the computer doesn’t turn on. I tried the following steps: I unplugged the battery, and then connected the MagSafe charger. The machine did not boot up.SMC reset (disconnect the power supply, remove the battery, hold on the power button for 20 seconds). Then press the power button. No signs of life.Another way of SMC reset: hold down the Shift+Control+Option keys and the Power button at the same time. Release after 20 seconds. Nothing happened and no signs of life. The battery and the charger do work as expected. The charger shows a green light and charges the battery to full capacity. Is there anything else I could try to revive this or is the logic board replacement my only option to get this to work? Since this does not boot up, what is the most reliable way to find out the version of the logic board I need to buy? Thank you.
Disconnect the battery and the HDD drive, with nothing connected press the power button for 30 sec’s. now reconnect the battery and plug in the MagSafe charger keeping the HDD disconnected. Did the fan spin up at all or even jump a little?
Timing on this is very interesting, because I’m in a very similar situation with another Unibody, but mine is a Mid-2012. Some additional information, I know my charger is good, I use it with a Mid-2011 regularly. When I have the battery connected and the power connected, the magsafe turns on an orange light (which eventually turns green when the battery is full). The little battery indicator button on the side of the machine shows the battery’s charge level correctly. So the charging parts of the machine appear to be working. When I do an SMC reset using the keyboard method (press shift/control/option and power), the magsafe light changes color briefly the way it’s supposed to when it works. This suggests to me that the power button is working. To clarify from the OP: Another way of SMC reset: hold down the Shift+Control+Option keys and the Power button at the same time. Release after 20 seconds. Nothing happened and no signs of life. Are you doing this with the power adapter connected? Does it change colors the way it normally does when you execute an SMC reset? also: This battery started charging, I left it for a few hours to charge, and it fully charged as indicated by the battery status button. Did the magsafe charger also indicate, by its integrated green/organe LEDs, that it was charging, like mine? Because if yes to both of those, we may have exceedingly similar problems. Pressing the power button, or connecting power with the battery disconnected, (even after holding the power button for 30 seconds with the battery disconnected, or even shorting the power on contacts on the motherboard for 30 seconds) has no effect whatsoever. I suspect, since the SMC appears to be getting power, that this is a problem with at least one component on the logic board. This video seems to nail my situation for symptoms at least: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTHwxtpU… EDIT: fixed formatting.
You could check if your keyboard cable is well inserted to the logic board keyboard socket cause sometimes when installing the battery in the MBP there could be stress on that cable and the power button signal goes thru the keyboard to the logic board via that connection.
