SMC Issue on MBP 13 - Hardware Troubleshooting Guide

[motechman]

Hi motechman;

Have you done the pram reset yet? Also make sure the date is set? Will it go on line for automatic date set? I will see if i can get the
schematic or layout for my 820-2879B logic board for you.

Regards

south657

What is the PRAM reset sequence again? The date sets fine from NTP now. System remembers my wireless connection & credentials now too.

I find this whole series of malfunctions to be very weird and unusual. It all started about a 6 weeks ago when I noticed the control key wasn't working. Didn't notice any other issues. Then, 2 - 3 weeks ago I bought new RAM (but was too fast so returned to original 4GB) and that's when one problem after another started to occur.

I'm beginning to think this is an Apple campaign to force my hardware into early obsolescence!

 

[South657]

What is the PRAM reset sequence again? The date sets fine from NTP now. System remembers my wireless connection & credentials now too.

I find this whole series of malfunctions to be very weird and unusual. It all started about a 6 weeks ago when I noticed the control key wasn't working. Didn't notice any other issues. Then, 2 - 3 weeks ago I bought new RAM (but was too fast so returned to original 4GB) and that's when one problem after another started to occur.

I'm beginning to think this is an Apple campaign to force my hardware into early obsolescence!

Resetting NVRAM / PRAM

1 Shut down your Mac.
2 Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command (⌘), Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
3Turn on the computer.
4 Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.

After resetting NVRAM or PRAM, you may need to reconfigure your settings for speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk selection, and time zone information. If issues persist, your Mac's logic board battery (not a portable Mac's rechargeable battery) may need to be replaced. The logic board battery helps retain NVRAM/PRAM settings when your computer is shut down. You can take your Mac to a Mac Genius or Apple Authorized Service Provider to replace the battery on the logic board.

http://pingguoweixiu.com/usr/uploads/2012/05/788481843.pdf

regards

south657

 

[motechman]

Resetting NVRAM / PRAM

If issues persist, your Mac's logic board battery (not a portable Mac's rechargeable battery) may need to be replaced. The logic board battery helps retain NVRAM/PRAM settings when your computer is shut down.
http://pingguoweixiu.com/usr/uploads/2012/05/788481843.pdf

regards

south657

The info I have is that there isn't a separate NVRAM battery for MBPros with a non-removable battery. Is that not correct? Where on the logic board is this battery located if there is one?

I've seen posts that say for non-removable battery type machines the NVRAM battery is in the main battery pack.

Oh and thanks much for the schematic!

 

[motechman]

Tried the NVRAM sequence. It's actually in progress as I type this (no I don't have 4 hands).

When I start mbp with two hands on the 4 keys, I get the chime, then gray screen PLUS a progress bar. It moves so slow I couldn't continue to hold the keys, so I released them. The progress bar is still moving, it's about half way now. Minutes have past.

Progress bar done. now. It went on to boot, no second chime. The whole thing took like 4 minutes. Do I need to hold keys that long to do a PRAM reset?

---

I've done the sequence a few more times now. I don't get the progress bar anymore, only that first time. I also don't get a second restart or second chime.

 

[South657]

Tried the NVRAM sequence. It's actually in progress as I type this (no I don't have 4 hands).

When I start mbp with two hands on the 4 keys, I get the chime, then gray screen PLUS a progress bar. It moves so slow I couldn't continue to hold the keys, so I released them. The progress bar is still moving, it's about half way now. Minutes have past.

Progress bar done. now. It went on to boot, no second chime. The whole thing took like 4 minutes. Do I need to hold keys that long to do a PRAM reset?

---

I've done the sequence a few more times now. I don't get the progress bar anymore, only that first time. I also don't get a second restart or second chime.

Don't worry about the battery i copied that text and should have edited that bit.

You need to hold all the keys start button as well i do this with the hard drive out first it should go to flashing folder.

regards

south657

 

[motechman]

Don't worry about the battery i copied that text and should have edited that bit.

You need to hold all the keys start button as well i do this with the hard drive out first it should go to flashing folder.

regards

south657

Thought so on the NVRAM battery.

I did not remove the hard drive, but tried the sequence, this time holding all 5 buttons down. I hold all 4 buttons on keyboard then press & hold power button last.

It takes awhile but just boots to the login screen. No second chime or reboot.

Page 57 on the schematic is interesting. Can see how all these symptoms could be related on that one page.

I pulled the hard drive and repeated sequence. Got flashing folder but no reboot / second chime.

Is there a good way to tell if keyboard is recognized? For example, when should the green LED toggle for caps lock? It never does from earliest point after pressing power switch to when I get flashing folder.

Any chance you have the board layout file for the 820-2879B? I could check the keyboard connector and see if it has power etc.

 

[bill27]

Nobady can help me?
Please

 

[South657]

Thought so on the NVRAM battery.

I did not remove the hard drive, but tried the sequence, this time holding all 5 buttons down. I hold all 4 buttons on keyboard then press & hold power button last.

It takes awhile but just boots to the login screen. No second chime or reboot.

Page 57 on the schematic is interesting. Can see how all these symptoms could be related on that one page.

I pulled the hard drive and repeated sequence. Got flashing folder but no reboot / second chime.

Is there a good way to tell if keyboard is recognized? For example, when should the green LED toggle for caps lock? It never does from earliest point after pressing power switch to when I get flashing folder.

Any chance you have the board layout file for the 820-2879B? I could check the keyboard connector and see if it has power etc.

Hi motechman,

You should hold all keys down and power button as well and then let it go to the second boot then let go. If it will not do that then a key or keys are faulty or they are not getting the signal through for other reasons?

Can not help you on board view just google K6 820-2879B board view have a look you might get lucky.

regards

south657

 

[motechman]

Hi motechman,

You should hold all keys down and power button as well and then let it go to the second boot then let go. If it will not do that then a key or keys are faulty or they are not getting the signal through for other reasons?

Can not help you on board view just google K6 820-2879B board view have a look you might get lucky.

regards

south657

Brand new keyboard so I believe the issue is on logic board. Found the board view thru google as you suggested, thanks.

Care to comment on caps lock key? On a known good mbp when does green caps lock LED start to work after powering the machine up, immediately or after some initialization? At what point?

I described the various iterations of trying to do the option-command-P-R-power to clear PRAM, never got a second reboot.

I may try the AHT again but I'm not optimistic; whatever keeps it from getting past the probe phase is the clue to malfunction. Sure would be nice to know what the AHT probe code is doing when it hangs!

I'll check to see if there may be a fuse or common power source for the trackpad and keyboard, since they both appear dead.

Thanks much for your help, I truly appreciate it south657!

 

[South657]

Brand new keyboard so I believe the issue is on logic board. Found the board view thru google as you suggested, thanks.

Care to comment on caps lock key? On a known good mbp when does green caps lock LED start to work after powering the machine up, immediately or after some initialization? At what point?

I described the various iterations of trying to do the option-command-P-R-power to clear PRAM, never got a second reboot.

I may try the AHT again but I'm not optimistic; whatever keeps it from getting past the probe phase is the clue to malfunction. Sure would be nice to know what the AHT probe code is doing when it hangs!

I'll check to see if there may be a fuse or common power source for the trackpad and keyboard, since they both appear dead.

Thanks much for your help, I truly appreciate it south657!

Hi,

Light comes on just before log in, grey screen with apple.

regards

south657

 

[kokito]

Hi dadioh or anyone in canada

I am in montreal and I could not find anyone to charge my battery for macbook pro 17 a1297

Also I want to buy Isl6259a from digikey they don't have it, ifound it on the net but before I order it can somone plese tell me if the other number under isl6259a is important or not

On the part it is marked ISL6259a
F026SG

Thank you

 

[kokito]

An update on my MBP battery and system:

My MBP (mid-2009) has an internal battery that died, and this happened to many people it seemed by googling the issue. Usually it exhibited this problem by random shutdown and low battery life, or reporting weird battery status, eventually it won't power up the system at all. What happened here is that the battery safety circuit (inside the pack) shuts down the battery output and thus no longer able to power the system, including keeping alive the "G3HOT" power supply that is supposed to be up 24/7. Today, I hooked up a 10kOhm resistor between pin5 (center pin) of the battery and its ground pin. This tells the battery to enable the DC output from the battery. Since my battery is totally depleted, I measured only a fraction of a volt between GND and +V. See the attached picture.

WARNING: before you do what I am about to do next, know how to charge a Li-Ion battery manually if you want to try it yourself!!!! Doing it wrong could cause explosion and fire!!!!!!!!!

I then hooked up a spare PC laptop power supply (output = 16.5 VDC) to the GND and +V of the battery pack and a voltmeter to the same terminals. I immediately saw the voltage rise up to 10.65v and gradually goes up to 11.9v (in about 45 minutes). I then remove the +V supply and trickle charge teh Li-Ion thru a 47Ohm resistor for about 2 hours, and I got to 12.46v. At that point I remove the charging wiring.

I put the battery back in my MBP, and the system powers up normally as I had hoped it will. Looking at the system profiler, it says that I have about about 3000mA and full capacity of 4987mA. That means that my battery is still OK. I then connected the magsafe adapter. No Green/Orange LED, totally dark, and NOT charging. The profiler says the same thing. So at this point I think I need to take the logic board out and check the DCIN fuse on the inner side of the logic board. Evidently, external DC power is not making it through the charging/power system. So bottom line is I need to trace the power logic from the DCIN board all the way to why the SMC is not enabling the adapter. BUt I made progress.

hi,

i hope you can help me here ,i have a macbook pro 17 mid 2010 (a1297)
my battery is brand new ,but by doing somme test it has only 120 mv left in it

i would like to charge it the same way you did( i know there is a risk of fire but i am very carful and can folow directions verry well )

i have a spare 85w charger that i have cut the magsafe and mesure 18,5 v on the positive.

my battery is only a 7,4 v battery and on the shematics i have i saw that charger bgate send only 8,4 v to charge the battery whitch is logic(just one volt above the battery).

i know from you post that i have to short the enabling pin througt a ressistance.

my question is what resistance should i use to short it, and how did you use the 470k to limit the charge.

notice that i will be monitiring this througt the multemeter as you did

thank you verry much.

 

[grize]

I suggest you get a stencil and a new SMC from somewhere as im unsure how valid replacing an smc without a stencil or rebelling would be.
It could be the MCP failed and is not issuing s3 power enable signals. id be sure the SMC is good before proceeding.

im going to try get to the macbook air later as i should probably get it ready for sale, owned it for about 2 months!

Hi,

I have replaced the SMC with a new one which came pre programmed and had solder already applied. It still isn't powering on though. Do you have any suggestions where to look next? Battery is now charging so at least some progress has been made.

Thanks

 

[greekhero]

Macbook Air - Charger light always orange - even without battery!

Hello everyone,

I am seeing a strange problem in 2012 Macbook Air ( water damage) everything works in it, except it doesn't charge, and the charger light is always orange. I have changed tried other charges no luck. The laptop works on battery if I have the battery charged externally.Q7055 shows 8.3V ISL6259 (charger chip) has both 3 and 14 correctly set; pin 6 has 0v.

Even if a charged battery is connected AND the adapter is connected, it forces and turns on the mac. With charged battery everything seems normal.

Any advice or ideas would be great. Battery and charger are both good known.

Thanks!

 

[bill27]

Chip missing Macbook pro 2010

Here the picture of chip that is missing on my motherboard. Please someone can help me to find it? What is his name? someone can indicate me where is in the schematic?
Many thanks

 

[grize]

Start up conditions

Hi

I am really struggling with this one and could do with some more help please. After replacing the SMC chip the system is now charging the battery and responds to the SMC reset process via the keyboard.

However it still wont power on and I am going round in circles trying to work out the power on routine! I have 3.4V PP3V3_S5 at Q7930 (3.3V S0 FET) and 3.4V at Q7970 (3.3V GPU FET) but both of the enable lines are low so there is no output from either FET.

I tried to trace P3V3S0_EN back to see what enables it but i got as far as PM_SLP_S3_L being low and didn't know where to go from there.

Any suggestions where to start with this?

Thanks

 

[tiagobaracho]

guys, i hope you can help me.. I have here a MacBook Pro 17 inches... It has 3 BGAs... one nvidia, another i5 processor I5-540m, and another the bd82hm55 chipset...
The problem of this macbook is when you turn it on, it show strange forms and does not boot... But if you let it get hot and try shut down and turn on again sometimes it works...
So i went straight to the Nvidia gpu.. Bought a new NVIDIA chip and installed... The same exactly problem still happpens.. so i remember that this macbook uses 2 graphic cards, and only activate the nvidia when needing more graphics support...
So i amd a little bit confused... When we turn on it uses the Intel HD graphics ? Should i reball the CPU Or this chipset ? I read that one of those cores on the CPU is the graphic processor but the chipset that handles.... I am a little bit confused.. Anyone know how it works ?

 

[lappyfixer]

mbp 13 a1278 power on

hi,
all the below problem happens when the adapter dont macth the machines like if you using a 15" mbp and use a 60watt adp it will not power up but you can do a bypass method.basically the smc need to detect dc_in sense and adapter-sense (onewire) to get watts of the adapter.so it is normal nothing wrong with the MBP 13.

Temporary bypass:
With the magsafe disconnected press and hold the power button. While continuing to hold the power button plug in the magsafe connector. Continue to hold down the power button for 5 to 10 seconds. Release the power button and wait a couple of seconds. Now press and release power button. PRESTO! The Macbook chimes and starts up but with fan on high speed. Boots up into OSX but with a few caveats which I list below:

 

[tiagobaracho]

just adding to my last post this picture when i power on the macbook..
Now i have already changed the NVidia GPU for a new one and reball the BD82HM55 SLGZS chipset... but the same thing keeps happening... I still have the CPU to reball and the video card memory chips ( 4)...
Have you guys seen similar pattern ? Usually Bad GPU does not show this time of image... I am not sure if when we start up the video that is being used is the Nvidia GPU or the intel hd built in on the processor..
Please... anyone knows about it ? i believe it might be the video memory chips

 

[tiagobaracho]

update:
just did reball the 4 memory chips and the same image appears!!!
Or i need do reball the cpu , or there is something bad.. the chipset, the ram memories...

 

[South657]

update:
just did reball the 4 memory chips and the same image appears!!!
Or i need do reball the cpu , or there is something bad.. the chipset, the ram memories...

Hi tiagobaracho

I would say you need to go to the back light thread for this. Just a thought
have you tried pushing down on the LVDS socket it looks like a bad back light connection to me?

south657

 

[tiagobaracho]

Hi tiagobaracho

I would say you need to go to the back light thread for this. Just a thought
have you tried pushing down on the LVDS socket it looks like a bad back light connection to me?

south657

Not for sure.... Same image on the hdmi output

 

[grize]

Not for sure.... Same image on the hdmi output

If you have access to another working mac, try putting the hdd from your faulty machine in it and boot to the OS. Disable automatic graphics switching, and then put the hdd back in the faulty machine and let it boot to the OS. This should stop the intel gfx being used and force the dedicated gfx to be used. Worth a try....

 

[tiagobaracho]

If you have access to another working mac, try putting the hdd from your faulty machine in it and boot to the OS. Disable automatic graphics switching, and then put the hdd back in the faulty machine and let it boot to the OS. This should stop the intel gfx being used and force the dedicated gfx to be used. Worth a try....

Its not related... Its before boot... As soon as it would show a blank screen... It shows this screen.. Its something related to graphic card...

 

[grize]

Its not related... Its before boot... As soon as it would show a blank screen... It shows this screen.. Its something related to graphic card...

So does it chime or have hdd activity? I understand that this is happening just after you power on, but if it is just a gfx problem and the machine is booting ok in to the OS (albeit without a display), then doing what I suggested may allow you get a display again.