2008 MacBook Pro 17 inch repair attempt - HELP!

[thatubuntuguy]

Hey everyone!

I have been on these forums for many months as I played around with my bargain 2008 MacBook Pro - but unfortunately it recently suffered from the famous 8600M GT failure. I set about learning BGA rework with a cheap T-8280D station (I think this is the one DosDude uses) with plenty of scrap boards lying around using @dosdude1 's instructions on YouTube. Once I was confident enough in my ability, I went for it on the actual board.
I got the GPU off well, I did wear away a little solder mask over some tracks. I didn't wear it completely away, like the colour of the track could come through tinted blue slightly, but I couldn't measure any conductivity with my meter so I proceeded along. I got sent fake G84-603-A2 twice, once from eBay and once from AliExpress, so i finally caved and spent the big bucks on the proper DC:2014+ GPUs that dosdude recommended.
I placed it on board, aligned correctly and soldered it to the board. I then tried reassembling my machine, and I (surprise surprise!!) have some issues.

So the machine now turns on, which is a great start. It will boot into OSX as I can see the keyboard backlight come on, caps lock and num lock keys light up, and I can hear the fan coming on when I enter my password and it loads up the startup applications. I cannot see anything on the screen however. I would have thought that perhaps the GPU is not soldered on correctly, but I noticed that the backlight DEFINITELY works - like I can see it change as I press the backlight up/down keys. So basically the screen is completely black but the backlight works.

I also see this weird rectangular pattern as I turn off the Mac by holding the power button down as the display turns off - usually it'd just fade like a circle outwards. FYI this is the upgraded 1920x1200 display, could I have perhaps messed up the display cable? Or is the GPU not soldered correctly? Any help would be greatly appreciated! (DosDude1 - have you seen this symptom before? Would you suggest I put the board back on the preheater and try to reflow the chip - like a proper reflow where the solder balls melt?)

 

[Nbd1790]

Just out of curiosity, why go so far to fix the machine?

I can't give you a definite solution, but some possible scenarios that could have taken place here. It sounds to me like there's damage to the Logic Board if I had to guess. This could have happened naturally, or it could have happened during the process of replacing the GPU.

Were you grounded and not standing on carpet when working on the Logic Board? If on a carpet, static can can damage the Logic Board even in the slightest amount.

What were the symptoms of the machine that made you realize the GPU went? A silly question I know, but a short in the Logic Board can cause a whole lot of issues, including hardware failure.

Just some questions to think about and hopefully someone can give you a solution!

 

[thatubuntuguy]

Hi!
Thanks for the reply. It was kinda the other way round, I was interested in learning BGA rework through repairing this machine. When this one came up for £12 at auction I couldn't resist, it was in really good cosmetic condition.

I was not really grounding myself, but I was working on a stone floor. The symptom was that the white indicator light would come on and stay lit when I tried to power the machine on as the SMC would hang trying to initialise the GPU - well known GPU symptom. I knew it was the GPU 100% when I heated the old graphics chip to ~300 degrees using my heatgun - the machine started working again. I used it like this for a bit while I ordered in the equipment I needed to fix it properly, it then failed again and started doing the same white indicator light thing.

I actually bought two of these machines, one a few months earlier and this one. I got some A1261 scrap boards off eBay with GPU failure (£10 each) and swapped it into the £12 A1229 and it worked with a GPU reheat - I have this black screen with backlight junk after replacing the GPU on the A1261 board.

I just did the same procedure on the stock A1229 board and it actually works!! Kinda...
I see the white screen as normal and the apple logo, but the Mac now crashes about 75% of the way through boot and restarts. It does this forever and ever. Perhaps the SSD is corrupted from all the hard shutdowns? I don't see any error messages, is there a way to get verbose logging so I can see why it's crashing?
I'll attempt to boot from USB and reinstall OS, let's see if it's happy with that. Or boot in safe mode.

 

[eyoungren]

…is there a way to get verbose logging so I can see why it's crashing?

Hold down CMD+V when booting.

There was another thread in here where the user could not get his screen to work no matter what was tried. Someone suggested that the sensor that detects whether the Mac is in clamshell mode or not could be bad.

Maybe the case here?

 

[dosdude1]

Hey everyone!

I have been on these forums for many months as I played around with my bargain 2008 MacBook Pro - but unfortunately it recently suffered from the famous 8600M GT failure. I set about learning BGA rework with a cheap T-8280D station (I think this is the one DosDude uses) with plenty of scrap boards lying around using @dosdude1 's instructions on YouTube. Once I was confident enough in my ability, I went for it on the actual board.
I got the GPU off well, I did wear away a little solder mask over some tracks. I didn't wear it completely away, like the colour of the track could come through tinted blue slightly, but I couldn't measure any conductivity with my meter so I proceeded along. I got sent fake G84-603-A2 twice, once from eBay and once from AliExpress, so i finally caved and spent the big bucks on the proper DC:2014+ GPUs that dosdude recommended.
I placed it on board, aligned correctly and soldered it to the board. I then tried reassembling my machine, and I (surprise surprise!!) have some issues.

So the machine now turns on, which is a great start. It will boot into OSX as I can see the keyboard backlight come on, caps lock and num lock keys light up, and I can hear the fan coming on when I enter my password and it loads up the startup applications. I cannot see anything on the screen however. I would have thought that perhaps the GPU is not soldered on correctly, but I noticed that the backlight DEFINITELY works - like I can see it change as I press the backlight up/down keys. So basically the screen is completely black but the backlight works.

I also see this weird rectangular pattern as I turn off the Mac by holding the power button down as the display turns off - usually it'd just fade like a circle outwards. FYI this is the upgraded 1920x1200 display, could I have perhaps messed up the display cable? Or is the GPU not soldered correctly? Any help would be greatly appreciated! (DosDude1 - have you seen this symptom before? Would you suggest I put the board back on the preheater and try to reflow the chip - like a proper reflow where the solder balls melt?)

This definitely sounds like a soldering issue to me. These boards/chips are extremely finicky, and unless done exactly right, won't work at all or will have weird issues. I would recommend reflowing it until all the solder balls are completely molten, and check to make sure the chip is fully seated to the board. Also make sure you're using good flux; I highly recommend Amtech NC-559-V2-TF.

 

[thatubuntuguy]

Thanks for your reply! Understood - I am bound to have done it a little wrong.
What temperatures are you using on the preheater and hot air? The temps on the preheater were ~15 degrees off when I place a board over it due to convection so I had it at 190 degrees through experimentation with scrap boards (real temp 175), and I had 280 on the hot air because the airflow is pretty weak with the large square tip.
I am using this Kingbo flux, I can certainly invest in better flux - the nozzle is really annoying as it's so narrow it requires a lot of force to get flux out. For the reflow, do I place flux underneath the chip and heat like I am desoldering it but without actually lifting the chip off?

I will send pictures of both boards shortly. I do not have an ultrasonic cleaner, could this also cause issues?

 

[thatubuntuguy]

Hold down CMD+V when booting.

There was another thread in here where the user could not get his screen to work no matter what was tried. Someone suggested that the sensor that detects whether the Mac is in clamshell mode or not could be bad.

Maybe the case here?

Thanks! I tried booting the other Mac with CMD+V and it crashes when it seems to be initialising IPV6 which is weird. I did notice that the black screen the messages were on weren't perfectly black, there were thick faint red lines going down the screen. VRAM cooked? Hopefully it's a soldering issue as the backlight no image Mac.
Also hangs on USB booting at "DSMOS has arrived" - probably can't start X because of dodgy GPU soldering.

 

[dosdude1]

Thanks for your reply! Understood - I am bound to have done it a little wrong.
What temperatures are you using on the preheater and hot air? The temps on the preheater were ~15 degrees off when I place a board over it due to convection so I had it at 190 degrees through experimentation with scrap boards (real temp 175), and I had 280 on the hot air because the airflow is pretty weak with the large square tip.
I am using this Kingbo flux, I can certainly invest in better flux - the nozzle is really annoying as it's so narrow it requires a lot of force to get flux out. For the reflow, do I place flux underneath the chip and heat like I am desoldering it but without actually lifting the chip off?

I will send pictures of both boards shortly. I do not have an ultrasonic cleaner, could this also cause issues?

Yeah, just apply flux and heat as if desoldering the chip. I normally set my preheater to around 170 degrees C, with 280 degrees C on the hot air. I'd highly recommend getting good flux before doing so.

 

[B S Magnet]

Yeah, just apply flux and heat as if desoldering the chip. I normally set my preheater to around 170 degrees C, with 280 degrees C on the hot air. I'd highly recommend getting good flux before doing so.

Seconding @dosdude1 here when he says get good flux, such as the Amtech NC-559-V2-TF. This is what I use, along with GootWick de-soldering wire/ribbon, when removing solder from a board. The Amtech is a bit more spendy relative to other fluxes, but it’s well worth it.

 

[thatubuntuguy]

Thanks for all the advice! I've been a bit busy, but hopefully will get round to reflowing the boards very soon. I've ordered the Amtech flux, I already have some excellent Chemtronics BGA desoldering ribbon because I ruined an A1229 board with a crap one.
Will let you know how it goes

 

[thatubuntuguy]

Thanks! I tried booting the other Mac with CMD+V and it crashes when it seems to be initialising IPV6 which is weird. I did notice that the black screen the messages were on weren't perfectly black, there were thick faint red lines going down the screen. VRAM cooked? Hopefully it's a soldering issue as the backlight no image Mac.
Also hangs on USB booting at "DSMOS has arrived" - probably can't start X because of dodgy GPU soldering.

Also does anyone have any ideas about this thick red line symptom? Does it look like dodgy GPU soldering or failed/failing VRAM? Or both?

 

[dosdude1]

Also does anyone have any ideas about this thick red line symptom? Does it look like dodgy GPU soldering or failed/failing VRAM? Or both?

GPU soldering issue, or bad chipset. The latter is unlikely if you used that see-ic eBay listing to buy them.

 

[thatubuntuguy]

Hello all,
Been slammed with university the last two years but I've finally gotten this machine up and running. Sure enough reflowing the see-ic GPU the second time round with ample flux did the job and the red lines disappeared - using a replacement NewerTech 75w battery this old A1229 lives to see another day. Works very well indeed with Linux 6.6 LTS & xfce4.

Now time to turn my attention to my working but no-display A1261 board -> I have a feeling this might be for an LED 1920x1200 model and thus incompatible(?) with the older glossy 1680x1050 panel on my other A1229.

 

[thatubuntuguy]

SOLVED
Somehow I had knocked L9010 off the A1261 board during the GPU replacement. This meant the LVDS clock signals weren't reaching the panel and thus explaining the no internal image.
I scavenged a replacement off one of my ruined boards and I now have two fully functional machines!

Thanks again @dosdude1 for the brilliant repair videos and patchers making these devices functional long past their EOL.

 

[B S Magnet]

SOLVED
Somehow I had knocked L9010 off the A1261 board during the GPU replacement. This meant the LVDS clock signals weren't reaching the panel and thus explaining the no internal image.
I scavenged a replacement off one of my ruined boards and I now have two fully functional machines!

Thanks again @dosdude1 for the brilliant repair videos and patchers making these devices functional long past their EOL.

Nice! How did you pinpoint that in your troubleshooting?

 

[thatubuntuguy]

So I went into System Information on the A1261 board with the LVDS connected, and saw that the panel was recognised at the correct resolution - which implied that the GPU was able to communicate with the panel on the DDC/EDID lines at least. I then wanted to check the other LVDS lines to see if there were any cold joints from the soldering job - so I pulled up the 820-2262 LVDS schematics and boardview and started checking all the lines
Then I found the clock lines were shorted together, I fixed that and then realised on the boardview there was supposed to be an inductor in the place I'd just removed a solder bridge

I think I'd learned how to read Apple schematics the summer after I did the BGA rework so I never realised until now that it could just be an issue on the LVDS side instead of the GPU which could be troubleshooted

 

[thatubuntuguy]

@dosdude1
I recall you mentioning that these machines KP when booting MacOS with a Core 2 Quad installed - I wonder if booting Linux in BIOS/CSM mode could succeed potentially...

(edit: won't work on these MBP 3,1 and 4,1 as FSB is 800MHz - BUT could it work on the 1066MHz FSB machines?)