Well, I never thought it could happen, but what did I get in for repair today? A green dot sticker Early-2008 17" with GPU issues! Odd, right? Well, the first thing I noticed was that the symptoms it was experiencing were quite different from that of an actual failed GPU. In the case of this system, it would start booting no problem, no artifacting on screen, but eventually would just abruptly shut off. When powering back on, it would just turn the hard disk on, but no fans and no boot. Not the usual symptoms of a failed GPU for sure. The symptoms DID, however, match up to issues I experienced after performing my first ever GPU replacement on one of these, when the chip was not soldered properly due to my inexperience at the time. This behavior also changed when tapping the board on top of the area where the GPU is soldered. I opened the machine, saw that it already had an Apple-installed G84-603-A2 in there (complete with edge bonding), and proceeded to desolder it. Immediately upon removal, the issues were obvious. At least 4 solder balls were not soldered properly, and the solder mask was damaged in some areas (which happens if you use too much pressure when wicking the board), pictured below. Obviously a pretty bad job done by Apple's contractors. Luckily the solder mask wasn't bad enough to cause issues with re-installation, so fortunately, after installing a brand new G84-603-A2 (although I could have simply reballed the original 603, I decided to install a new one just for good measure), the machine started working reliably again. Just goes to show I guess, that even if you have an Apple-installed 603, you could still have issues. Not because of the chip this time (as it would be with a non-revised 602), but simply poor soldering. Something to watch out for on some very few "green dot" boards.
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