I need help with my first Mac repair

[WDHIII]

I have a MacBook Pro a1260 that will not post. No lights, no noise nothing, just a paperweight. The customer says that his battery has not been charging for several months, so he just runs it on AC power. States that he left the compy powered on overnight and when he returned this AM it wouldn't do anything.

I do not have a spare AC adapter or battery to help with the diagnosis, and I am a total noob when it comes to Macs in general. The AC adapter DOES show a green light when plugged into the magsafe port. The first led on his battery blinks rapidly when I press the test button.

I have reset the PRAM and SMC per this article http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1365

I found an APPLE MACBOOK PRO 15 A1260 DC JACK AUDIO BOARD on ebay, would replacing this be my next logical step or should I try something else?

Thanks for your help,

Wil

 

[14049752]

Send him to Apple. It might be covered under a warranty extension.


And no, the magsafe connector is not the most logical choice.

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

Send him to Apple. It might be covered under a warranty extension.

Looks like the model with the NVidia chip. I had one last week same symptoms. Couldn't even run the graphics processor test to see if the machine qualified. Had to chat with Apple about it. According to Apple they say it needs to at least chime to be covered, so there was no way I was going to be able to replace the board in house. However, I sent that machine to the depot and requested a review, and it did turn out they fixed it under the NVidia REP. So, yeah I concur.

 

[WDHIII]

Thanks for your quick reply. I did see reference to the NVidia chip in my research, but they all said they saw some signs of life in the computer, white light flashing etc. It is good to see that the problem may manifest in this way also.

Should I contact Apple on his behalf?
If it will not 'at least chime' will they turn me away?

I am not familiar with the "depot", could you explain.

Thanks again

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

Thanks for your quick reply. I did see reference to the NVidia chip in my research, but they all said they saw some signs of life in the computer, white light flashing etc. It is good to see that the problem may manifest in this way also.

Should I contact Apple on his behalf?
If it will not 'at least chime' will they turn me away?

I am not familiar with the "depot", could you explain.

The depot is where Apple and Apple authorized shops can send laptops that are in or out of warranty. for instance, if we have to replace more than one part in a machine that is under warranty, we will get dinged on our service scores to order more than one part within 30 days in house. To avoid the hassle we will mail the machine into the repair depot. The depot is also appropriate for cases like I explained above, where I chatted online to Service Provider chat at Apple and they told me I had no case to cover the repair under the NVidia REP. So instead, I sent the machine to the depot for them to review. You could try to go to Apple or an AASP yourself, but Apple won't charge the customer anything to at least try to see if the machine is covered. However, if it does turn out that Apple is going to send the machine to the depot, they may erase the data without any warning. So you may be able to handle it yourself and make a little money doing the backup for the customer.

 

[RedFoxComp]

Too obvious, but, you've checked the adapter with a multimeter already?

 

[WDHIII]

Thanks for the help and sorry for the delay in my reply. I decided to inform the customer of the possibilty that Apple would fix the problem free of charge because of the known nvidia issue and just charge a diagnostic fee. I printed out information from apple and made him an appointment with a genius.

The customer was extremely satisfied with my help and honesty so I think I gained a customer. Thanks again for your help.

BTW how the hell do I test the magsafe adapters with a multimeter??

Wil

 

[14049752]

BTW how the hell do I test the magsafe adapters with a multimeter??

Same as a normal adapter, really. The first and last pin are ground and the two inner bigger pins provide voltage. Thing is, with a magsafe, it won't matter...you won't get the right voltage reading without having a load on the adapter, so measuring with a multimeter is almost useless.

 

[oner]

mmm.. interesting for me information, thanks!

 

[flychromeboy]

Thanks for the help and sorry for the delay in my reply. I decided to inform the customer of the possibilty that Apple would fix the problem free of charge because of the known nvidia issue and just charge a diagnostic fee. I printed out information from apple and made him an appointment with a genius.

The customer was extremely satisfied with my help and honesty so I think I gained a customer. Thanks again for your help.

Wil

I would contact your customer in a weeks/two weeks time as a courtesy call just to check up on them and see if they got the problem fixed. Not only would it be a learning experience for you (they'll probably relay to you the information Apple told them what the problem was) but also its good customer service. If they were borderline of being your customer beforehand, they would definitely become your customer after the call.

Please post back if you do find out what the problem was, I'm sure were all intrigued to know what it was.