Power button doesn't work; Can only run by jumping power pads on AC power

[wea8675309]

This one is gonna be long and complicated. Half typing this out for myself - sometimes you figure things out in the middle of long posts like these... Anyway

Important information
- MacBook Pro "Core 2 Duo" 2.8 17" Mid-2009 5,2 A1297
- Upgraded to SSD and 8GB RAM
- Currently running a fresh install of El Capitan on a formatted Samsung 250gb SSD
- Also dug up original HD with a working version of Yosemite

Symptoms
- Power button does not function whether the device is on or off.
- Keyboard has partial functionality. Shift keys and function keys do not seem to work. Caps lock still works. Option, Cmd, and Control seem to work. Can use keyboard in boot sequence for various things like choosing the boot device.
- Trackpad tracks movement but does not click (Old issue that at one point seemed to resolve itself, but is now back. Could be unrelated).
- Currently turning device on by jumping the power pads next to the RAM.
- If AC is connected, device boots successfully with or without the battery installed.
- If only using battery, device gets about two seconds past the chime before powering off
- If AC is unplugged after a successful boot with a battery installed, device continues to run and will even restart itself and go in and out of sleep mode.

Timeline
- Machine has been running hot for about two years. Suspected it to be some combination of dust in the fans and aging thermal paste under the heatsink
- Early this summer I installed Sierra, which is not supported for this model. Forgot which patching method I used.
- Also put Ubuntu on it for no good reason. Used rEFInd for dual-booting.
- A few weeks after installing Sierra, the keyboard and trackpad completely stopped working once the operating system booted. I could use the keyboard to boot into the recovery partition, and once there the keyboard and mouse seemed to work ok. I assumed it was a software issue like a corrupted OS.
- I recently moved, and because it was already such a project I did not turn my laptop on for around 3 months. The issues listed above under "Symptoms" were not going on before I moved, and were present when I unpacked my laptop. To my knowledge it was stored properly (aside from letting the battery die) and kept dry.
- Since I've started debugging the issues outlined above, I have also disassembled the logic board, cleaned the fans, and reseated the heatsink with new thermal paste. I had not touched any of the ribbon cables prior to these issues arising, and doing so has not seemed to have any effect one way or the other. To my knowledge everything has been reassembled correctly.
- I found my original hard drive that still had Yosemite on it. Used that to create an El Capitan USB and formatted the SSD that had Sierra on it (and some data that wasn't backed up - gotta cut your losses sometimes).
- Original thought was something happened during the Sierra install with the EFI and SMC. Downloaded the latest firware update from Apple (https://support.apple.com/kb/DL975?locale=en_US) but it says it is already installed.

Final thoughts
- I can't manually reset the SMC for the life of me. I'm assuming that it got reset incidentally when I was doing all the repairs, but I cannot get the control + shift + option + power thing to work. There are some jumpers on the logic board next to the power pads that say "SMC Reset," and I've tried jumping them, but I can't tell if it did anything. Would love to execute a clear-cut SMC reset to rule that out. ***I finally got a clear SMC Reset using the jumpers. Saw the power cable change from green to amber for a second.***
- To be perfectly honest, I can't shake the feeling that this is a software issue. I've had this thing for 10 years and I haven't done anything different in the way I've physically handled it other than leaving it off for a couple of months. I just ordered a battery off eBay that I didn't need. Keyboard assemblies are going for pretty cheap, but I don't want to wait a week just to be back at square one. These problems all started after I upgraded to Sierra.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

What is the battery condition? Are you being warned to replace it?? It sounds like a dying battery to me.

 

[wea8675309]

What is the battery condition? Are you being warned to replace it?? It sounds like a dying battery to me.

Battery condition is normal. Battery was my first thought. Ordered one off eBay and the problems persisted. That's when I started jumping the power pads and getting my hands dirty. I've since put the old battery in and it works fine.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Battery condition is normal. Battery was my first thought. Ordered one off eBay and the problems persisted. That's when I started jumping the power pads and getting my hands dirty. I've since put the old battery in and it works fine.

You said it yourself its nearly ten years old it could just be slowly dying, sounds to me like a lot of little issues adding up, battery issues could be corrosion over time keyboard could just be wearing out, HDD cable may be going, at that age it could all just be going at the same time like when your car hits 14 and needs new exhaust and timing belt and clutch all at the same time. You got a great innings out of it may be time for a new one.

 

[wea8675309]

You said it yourself its nearly ten years old it could just be slowly dying, sounds to me like a lot of little issues adding up, battery issues could be corrosion over time keyboard could just be wearing out, HDD cable may be going, at that age it could all just be going at the same time like when your car hits 14 and needs new exhaust and timing belt and clutch all at the same time. You got a great innings out of it may be time for a new one.

This is no longer my main device. I also don't think it's a culmination of things - something very specific happened around the time I switched to Sierra.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

This is no longer my main device. I also don't think it's a culmination of things - something very specific happened around the time I switched to Sierra.

And that could very well be a coincidence. I know people don’t like them but they are incredibly common, there is not always a link between these things. You have already completely reloaded an older OS, that says hardware issue to me.
[doublepost=1508940259][/doublepost]

This is no longer my main device. I also don't think it's a culmination of things - something very specific happened around the time I switched to Sierra.

Hell it could be a dying GPU on that machine they were notorious for it.

 

[wea8675309]

And that could very well be a coincidence. I know people don’t like them but they are incredibly common, there is not always a link between these things. You have already completely reloaded an older OS, that says hardware issue to me.
[doublepost=1508940259][/doublepost]
Hell it could be a dying GPU on that machine they were notorious for it.

It definitely could be coincidence. If this post doesn't produce a solution by the end of the day I'm probably going to order a keyboard assembly and see if a replacement fixes it. I just don't know why the keyboard assembly would have gone bad, though.

 

[Fishrrman]

Unless you can fix it cheaply, perhaps it's time to "start looking around".....?

 

[wea8675309]

Unless you can fix it cheaply, perhaps it's time to "start looking around".....?

Again, this is not my main machine. Fixing this machine is a project.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

It definitely could be coincidence. If this post doesn't produce a solution by the end of the day I'm probably going to order a keyboard assembly and see if a replacement fixes it. I just don't know why the keyboard assembly would have gone bad, though.

Age?? I have had a fair few keyboards fail over the years.

 

[wea8675309]

Age?? I have had a fair few keyboards fail over the years.

I mean I'm not ruling out coincidence and age. I'm pretty sure the patches I used to put Sierra on modified some sort of firmware, though. I put Sierra on my machine, within a few weeks the keyboard becomes completely unresponsive. I put it away for a few months, and now that I have time to take a look at it I'm met with all these problems that definitely were not there before. That's a pretty big coincidence if it is one. Still, though, probably not a bad idea to replace the keyboard assembly.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

I mean I'm not ruling out coincidence and age. I'm pretty sure the patches I used to put Sierra on modified some sort of firmware, though. I put Sierra on my machine, within a few weeks the keyboard becomes completely unresponsive. I put it away for a few months, and now that I have time to take a look at it I'm met with all these problems that definitely were not there before. That's a pretty big coincidence if it is one. Still, though, probably not a bad idea to replace the keyboard assembly.

Within a few weeks? A software issue would be immediate. Leaving an old computer for a few months without use (and the heat that you get from it) could well cause any corrosion, that may be present, to get worse. Now we have a little more data then possible explanations become a bit easier to devise. Have you tried looking at the keyboard connector to the motherboard for corrosion?? That may be worth a look also a good scrub with 99% IMS (or IDA) may be worth it on any discoloured sections of the motherboard connectors etc.

 

[MikeThicke]

How could a firmware update stop the power button from turning the device on?

 

[fessen]

- If AC is connected, device boots successfully with or without the battery installed.
- If only using battery, device gets about two seconds past the chime before powering off
- If AC is unplugged after a successful boot with a battery installed, device continues to run and will even restart itself and go in and out of sleep mode.

Not sure whether it helps to hear it, but I have the same model MBP.
I am still running El Capitan. (8 GB RAM, 10k rpm spinner.)

For going on the past about a year, I too have been having issues with the power situation.

If I try to boot on battery alone, it won't make it through the complete decryption after I enter the password, before it shuts off. If I try to boot on AC (battery installed), I have to let it sit for several minutes after I press the power button, leaving the greeting screen waiting for the password to be entered, before I try entering the password; if I try to enter the password without waiting several minutes for it to "warm up," it will almost always turn itself off a few seconds later, before the decryption has completed. Recently, during a neighborhood power outage, I was forced to try to boot on the battery alone. I finally did succeed in booting and decrypting, all the way to a working desktop, but it took probably 8 or more tries, one after the other, on the battery alone.

One of the interesting things about the failed boots is that the failure never occurs at quite the same time. Sometimes it shuts itself off right away. Sometimes it will be halfway or further in the decryption (or, more accurately, the timer indicator indicates that the decryption/loading process is halfway or more done) when it shuts off. Once it completes decryption and the main desktop view appears, all is fine.

No problems with the keyboard or trackpad.

I have wondered whether there is some kind of fault related to the electronics of the graphics card, with the computer shutting off because it's not getting enough juice when it tries switching from the motherboard graphics processor to the Nvidia card. Really no idea, though.

I have replaced the battery twice since this started, with supposedly new batteries, without any significant improvement.

I mention all of this just to add a data point that might suggest your issues may not be solely related to running Sierra, since I am experiencing possibly (sort of-)related boot issues even though I am not yet on Sierra. Immediately prior to upgrading to El Capitan I had been on Snow Leopard. The problems started after going to El Capitan, but I don't recall the problems starting right away. I believe it took a few months after the change.