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SMC Issue on MBP 13 - Hardware Troubleshooting Guide

Hi All,

Anyone had a shorted G3HOT on a 13" late 2011 (2915-B)? Before I start lifting components to find the SC one I thought I'd ask if anyone has had this before.

Regards,

Chigwelldave.
 
chigwelldave said:
Hi, I have a board with a similar or same fault - power on, start to initialise optical drive then switches off and the cycle repeats. This was a liquid damaged board too. I have another with a video fault which will boot so I can take some measurements if you need. I have no heatsinks for these now so I can't power the boards up but I can do resistance checks if it'll help.

Chigwelldave.
Click to expand...

Ok Thanks. I will keep banging away at it and see if I can come up with anything.
I would love to find a K91F board view.
 
I got an unibody A1286 2008 Motherboard 820-2330-A. I do take al precautions knowing how thermal cycles affect the solder joints. So my computer was in such a position that the lid had perfect airflow for the fans. In fact I had all the fans both at 5900rpm. I was running Windows 7 natively.
So I used my macbook plugged in on AC with the removable battery. And honestly i never swtiched it off . But at times when the electricity went off it was the only time the battery drained entirely and turned off.
Now what started happening was that once that happened the lap would not turn on. I searched all over the net and someone at Ifixit said you had to press power button for 10 seconds.. plug magsafe keep pressing it for 10 seconds more.. depress and press again . To my astonishment that made it work.
Now , I never really cared much about that..didn't pay much attention .. thought it would be something that might happen a couple of times.
But now I dissasembled it to clean the heatpipe radiator fins I disconnected the fans vacuumed them and then IT DIDNT" START! I folllowed the exact sam eprocedure as before.
SO what should I do , I managed to get the schematic for my motherboard. I thought about doing a manual SMC reset on the mainboard but the schematics don't tell me the exact location of the SMC reset pad which is 5001. Do you have by any chance the .brd file of this motherboard? Thanks for your help. Some thoughts

- On some places said if the sensor on the heatpipe it's broken it wont turn on (I checked it and it's connected ok)

-I did the 10 seconds procedure on the power on buton.. keep pressing then connected magsafe 10 seconds more .. Nothing ( This worked before) But it worked on the scenario when electricity went off, machine drrained compeltely with removable battery.
then I took battery and did that procedure.

- I managed to check the Power On pins on the logicboard , bridged them .. Nothing!

-I checked the Power button to see might be stuck, disconnected the keyboard flex. found pin 5 bridged it to ground nothing.

-This laptop never exceeded 60 degrees, I had it run windows7 with fans full blast with lubbos at 6000rpm. And was alway on , no thermal cycles. so it wasn';t exposed to vulnerable solder cracks because of thermal cycling.

-I DID FIND ! A SMALL RECHARGABLE BATTERY ON THE LOGIC BOARD which was in bad condition like as mall button cell which was soldered and said F8430 on top. i'm thinking this might be the reason some times the other procecure worked but I don't know what voltage this button cell is
Picture for the button cell is on this link

http://oi39.tinypic.com/2u6cshi.jpg
http://postimg.org/image/uhhr2vyl7/full/


I'm hoping you can help me out, I'm really sad

Update: I measured voltage across one of the Power On pads and I get 3.40 volts. Which from what people have said it's the G3hot trace which means the logicboard it's fine.

I do have the schematics but I don't ahve the board view file so I don't know where to check for voltage. The schematic it's useless without knowing where to tap in . I got landrex test link app but I would need the board view file.:confused:
 
Not power on

Hi at everyone (I’m sorry for my bad English) I’m a new member and I’ve read this guide 3 days ago, and I think that thread can help me so much.
Ok now I can explain my story.
I have bought an Macbook pro 2009 (2,53 and nvidia 9400m) water damaged, not power on, not charge and not show the battery level on the left side of the laptop. I have opened the back metallic cover and so quickly I seen the oxide near by fan connector and in the other side near by the capacitors. Ok I thinked to clean all motherboard and all connectors like (superdrive, HDD,display…)with isopropyl alcool, removed all oxide I have remounted the motherboard on the case of macbook; the results no power on. But now it charge and show the battery level indicator.
Now I have an other Macbook pro but this is a 2010 version with other vga and cpu(2,4ghz and nvidia 320m) it work fine, and maybe with an tester I can compare the result with other Macbook (the other motherboard is similar but not identical) so I decided to test some components, but currently do not have any datasheet in order to continue so if someone could kindly post some pictures I would be grateful. Soon I’ll post some pictures of Macbook do not run(2009) and functional (2010) with the respective voltages of some
components.

tester setted in this mode

http://imageshack.com/a/img594/6471/20dr.jpg

this is an picture with voltate of some componente of faulty motherboard.

http://imageshack.com/a/img30/1944/0iuo.jpg


Thanks in advance
 
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Burned chips

chigwelldave said:
Hi GoTimothy,

The 3v3 and 0v9 (actually 1.05v on the 2009) have components big enough to measure with a meter. You need to find L7770 for the 1.05v and L7220 for the 3.3v. Schematic K24, 820-2530 will help you along but you may need a board view to help you locate the components. I may be able to take a picture later if you need.

The 2011 may just be a fuse, check F9700 (3A 0603 package) just west of the LCD connector.

Regards,

Chigwelldave.
Click to expand...

Hi Chigwelldave,

Sorry it took long to get back. My neighbor dropped off his laptop that had 15 viruses on it including a master boot virus. Took me four hours to scan 1 million files for viruses then I had to look up how to boot it and fix it. Then it took another four hours for window 7 to install 200 updates.

L7770 and L7220, Show up on the board view for 2011 13" I got, they look like they’re on the bottom and I haven’t taken the board out yet. Is there anything I can check before pulling the board out?

I got fuses for the 2011 and location but there are 2 resistors that are fried by the LCVD connector in this picture.
1o3.BMP
1o3.BMP
http://www.Timothean.com/1o3.BMP The one in the center is half black. They look like they could be C9015 and L9004 If I am looking at the right board view. Looks like their going to both pin 2 & 3 on the LCVD.

bill27 Jut posted a pic which look like my board. http://imageshack.com/a/img30/1944/0iuo.jpg Perhaps you tell me where to look on that one.
Pic is nice not good at reading schimatics or board views.


Thanks
 
Last edited:
bill27 said:
Hi at everyone (I’m sorry for my bad English) I’m a new member and I’ve read this guide 3 days ago, and I think that thread can help me so much.
Ok now I can explain my story.
I have bought an Macbook pro 2009 (2,53 and nvidia 9400m) water damaged, not power on, not charge and not show the battery level on the left side of the laptop. I have opened the back metallic cover and so quickly I seen the oxide near by fan connector and in the other side near by the capacitors. Ok I thinked to clean all motherboard and all connectors like (superdrive, HDD,display…)with isopropyl alcool, removed all oxide I have remounted the motherboard on the case of macbook; the results no power on. But now it charge and show the battery level indicator.
Now I have an other Macbook pro but this is a 2010 version with other vga and cpu(2,4ghz and nvidia 320m) it work fine, and maybe with an tester I can compare the result with other Macbook (the other motherboard is similar but not identical) so I decided to test some components, but currently do not have any datasheet in order to continue so if someone could kindly post some pictures I would be grateful. Soon I’ll post some pictures of Macbook do not run(2009) and functional (2010) with the respective voltages of some
components.

tester setted in this mode

http://imageshack.com/a/img594/6471/20dr.jpg

this is an picture with voltate of some componente of faulty motherboard.

http://imageshack.com/a/img30/1944/0iuo.jpg


Thanks in advance
Click to expand...

Hi bill27,

I have a similar board June 2009 13" that won’t boot. Here is my voltage from a copy of your picture. http://www.Timothean.com/Got.bmp Hit Ctrl + on keyboard to zoom in on windows computer. Most of those should be over 12v your meter is right setting. Uou should check your power supply and battery.

Hi Chigwelldave,

Can you see if these voltages are correct?

Thanks again


More info\\\

When I was checking power throughout the board, I noticed part of the board had no power and then I spotted a “another fuse”. A 404 with a small dot on it, as you can see in this picture. http://www.Timothean.com/af.bmp



Does anyone know the rest of the locations of the fuses?

Unfortunately this fuse has continuity, so it does not fix my problem, but maybe it fixes someone else’s.
 
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GoTimothy said:
Hi bill27,

I have a similar board June 2009 13" that won’t boot. Here is my voltage from a copy of your picture. http://www.Timothean.com/Got.bmp Hit Ctrl + on keyboard to zoom in on windows computer. Most of those should be over 12v your meter is right setting. Uou should check your power supply and battery.

Hi Chigwelldave,

Can you see if these voltages are correct?

Thanks again


More info\\\

When I was checking power throughout the board, I noticed part of the board had no power and then I spotted a “another fuse”. A 404 with a small dot on it, as you can see in this picture. http://www.Timothean.com/af.bmp



Does anyone know the rest of the locations of the fuses?

Unfortunately this fuse has continuity, so it does not fix my problem, but maybe it fixes someone else’s.
Click to expand...

I'm afraid I can't load any of your latest pictures, can you try jpegs?
 
Please somebody can tell me where is the problem on my motherboard?
I measured voltage across one of the Power On pads and I get 3.40 volts, I have tried to startup but not working.
many thanks
 
chigwelldave said:
I'm afraid I can't load any of your latest pictures, can you try jpegs?
Click to expand...

Hi Chigwelldave,

Ok. How come images will not inbed in blog?

2009 MBP 13 Board voltage Another Fuse onmy server

I found the schematic & board view for the 2009 13" is this the area they’re calling G3hot? I’m getting 3.394V off of resistor R6695 without having to take the board out and flip it over. Is it the same as G3hot?
http://www.Timothean.com/Got.jpg


If my servers not working I uploaded to image shack same pic
Another Fuse
2009 MBP 13 Board voltage
http://imageshack.com/a/img801/2862/1br4.jpg



Burned resistors
http://imageshack.com/a/img593/6504/o2o1.jpg
 
Last edited:
bill27 said:
Please somebody can tell me where is the problem on my motherboard?
I measured voltage across one of the Power On pads and I get 3.40 volts, I have tried to startup but not working.
many thanks
Click to expand...

Hi bill27,

You have the same problem I have with the same MBP.

Check your power supply. You do not have enough power on your board

Do you have a picture of the other side of your board? I don't want to take mine out to get a look at it?
 
Last edited:
Dadioh said:
The sleep sensor is on the flex cable that goes to the battery indicator light (BIL). If the sensor is bad then you could diagnose by unplugging the sensor cable (beside the battery) and see if it resolves the issue. If it does then you need a new BIL cable.
Click to expand...
Hi Dadioh, I have the same board Macbook Pro 13 Logic Board 820-2530-A that had been cleaned after spills damaged. Amazingly everything works fine except for the one issue that when i put MacBook Pro to sleep by closing the lid then it WON'T wake up / resume despite laptop seems to turn on with fan running but screen won't ever light up and i have to hard reboot or shut it down, no matter in OSX or boot USB OSX it's doing the same thing and i'm kind of lost as where to check
So far, these are steps of diagnosis:
-It's doing it with both AC & battery too
-I know the screen/port/LCD cable are fine b/c i tested it with another screen assembly so it's no it
-Also checked & unplug the BIL cable like you said but no go
Anyone's help would be Appreciated!! even the slightest :eek:;)
 
t0p0ne said:
Hi Dadioh, I have the same board Macbook Pro 13 Logic Board 820-2530-A that had been cleaned after spills damaged. Amazingly everything works fine except for the one issue that when i put MacBook Pro to sleep by closing the lid then it WON'T wake up / resume despite laptop seems to turn on with fan running but screen won't ever light up and i have to hard reboot or shut it down, no matter in OSX or boot USB OSX it's doing the same thing and i'm kind of lost as where to check
So far, these are steps of diagnosis:
-It's doing it with both AC & battery too
-I know the screen/port/LCD cable are fine b/c i tested it with another screen assembly so it's no it
-Also checked & unplug the BIL cable like you said but no go
Anyone's help would be Appreciated!! even the slightest :eek:;)
Click to expand...

Try F1 - F6 to see if screen brightens dims ect. Used to be a key to turn on and off the backlight. Don't know which one because my Pro 13 Logic Board 820-2530-A don't work at all.
 
chigwelldave said:
Hi canzil,

Looks like your part is a temperature sensor after all. It is a Microchip EMC1412-A-AC3 available from Mouser in small quantities.

Regards,

Chigwelldave.
Click to expand...

Thanks chigwelldave, now I try buy this part and wait arrive to me replace the part. I back here with the news.
You see the schematics and the .brd file on my dropbox link? May be help someone else to identify parts on future issues.
 
GoTimothy said:
Hi bill27,

You have the same problem I have with the same MBP.

Check your power supply. You do not have enough power on your board

Do you have a picture of the other side of your board? I don't want to take mine out to get a look at it?
Click to expand...

Hi GoTimothy

I have tried to starup with an other power supply but nothing, my voltages are with only battery connected, and yours?
However I have uploaded the back picture of motherboard let me know your voltages thanks.

Back picture of motherboard MBP 2009
http://imageshack.com/a/img823/6217/0svk.jpg
 
GoTimothy said:
Hi bill27,

I have a similar board June 2009 13" that won’t boot. Here is my voltage from a copy of your picture. http://www.Timothean.com/Got.bmp Hit Ctrl + on keyboard to zoom in on windows computer. Most of those should be over 12v your meter is right setting. Uou should check your power supply and battery.

Hi Chigwelldave,

Can you see if these voltages are correct?

Thanks again


More info\\\

When I was checking power throughout the board, I noticed part of the board had no power and then I spotted a “another fuse”. A 404 with a small dot on it, as you can see in this picture. http://www.Timothean.com/af.bmp



Does anyone know the rest of the locations of the fuses?

Unfortunately this fuse has continuity, so it does not fix my problem, but maybe it fixes someone else’s.
Click to expand...

Hi GoTimothy,

I have noted my voltages on your photo. My board was booted fully into Apple Diagnostics. The 10.9v ones are lower than yours as I was using a battery which was pretty low. You are missing the CPU and MCP supplies (approx 0.9v). I have added a couple of voltages 3.3v and 5.0 - these are major supplies you need to check (this is the main 3.3v not G3Hot). Sounds like the power sequencing has stalled somewhere (refer page 78 on the schematic).

Good luck,

Chigwelldave.
 

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chigwelldave said:
Hi GoTimothy,

I have noted my voltages on your photo. My board was booted fully into Apple Diagnostics. The 10.9v ones are lower than yours as I was using a battery which was pretty low. You are missing the CPU and MCP supplies (approx 0.9v). I have added a couple of voltages 3.3v and 5.0 - these are major supplies you need to check (this is the main 3.3v not G3Hot). Sounds like the power sequencing has stalled somewhere (refer page 78 on the schematic).

Good luck,

Chigwelldave.
Click to expand...

Hi the image is so small I can't see nothing
 
chigwelldave said:
Hi GoTimothy,

I have noted my voltages on your photo. My board was booted fully into Apple Diagnostics. The 10.9v ones are lower than yours as I was using a battery which was pretty low. You are missing the CPU and MCP supplies (approx 0.9v). I have added a couple of voltages 3.3v and 5.0 - these are major supplies you need to check (this is the main 3.3v not G3Hot). Sounds like the power sequencing has stalled somewhere (refer page 78 on the schematic).

Good luck,

Chigwelldave.
Click to expand...


Hi Chigwelldave,

I’m using the 16.5 power supply with battery disconnected. Should do all testing with the power supply that came with your laptop. Some people plug-in the higher 18.V apple power supply which uses the same plug, but is for the larger screen MMP’s. Reason being, you can quickly unplug the mag safe or the wall outlet if something starts smoking. Plus voltages will remain constant . If the battery is burning pretty hard to unplug it. The battery should also be disconnected, because if its low, power supply will increase the voltage to charge it.

I’m getting the same voltage as you 5 v & 3.3v by the fan connector, but less than half a volt from the components by the USB that you’re getting 5 V from.

When I first took off the bottom plate of the laptop I noticed a piece of tape covering components by the camera connector, the tape was warn through in two locations and the shiny soder showed signs of arcing against the metal bottom plate shorting to ground. This seems to be a defect that might be causing the problem in all of these 2009 models. I will circle them on my next photo.

The lack of 5 V by the USB port tells me someone must have plugged into many high-voltage USB devices and shorted something out or blown a fuse. I’m not that good with schematics page 78 shows the FireWire ports. You must be looking at the schematic for the 15 inch.

I also noticed a small chip in a component by the USB ports.

The numbers are chipped off but you can read the first two letters KS. This might be the problem. I’ll circle this item in the photo too. http://www.Timothean.com/Chip.jpg Can you tell me what component this is? It looks like D4610 Page 38 of Schematic http://www.Timothean.com/D4610.jpg How do I order a new one?




http://www.Timothean.com/got.jpg


Hi bill27,

These are my latest voltage readings in the link above. I made them a little bigger. Zoom in by hitting ctrl + on keyboard or copy the image to a photo editor and zoom in.
 
Last edited:
Hi GoTimothy,

If the component is the protection device RCLAMP0502 then Digikey, RS and Element14 all stock it with Digikey being the cheapest. Decider will probably be shipping cost depending on where you live.

You may not expect to see power on the USB ports until the chime, the power saving is pretty aggressive on Macs and lots of things only receive power when required.

How far does this board get in the start up sequence? Do you get beep tones with no RAM for example? As far as I can tell, you should get 3.3v and 1.05v first, the memory power and internal USB next and finally 5v, 1.8v plus a few others. Sounds like your schematic doesn't have the same page numbering as mine so look for the 'POWER SEQUENCING' page for hints.

I personally always use battery power when testing a liquid damaged board or one with power issues. The reason is battery powering eliminates a fair amount of the power circuitry from the chain.

Regards,

Chigwelldave
 
dadioh can you please help me out ! :(

Well I've checked on the schematic and it's the RTC . Supposedly it's defined as Super capacitor C2800 but the format it's the same as a button cell. So it doesn't look like a cpacitor at all. I was worried about this supercap or battery whatever. Cause I've fixed lot's of notebooks before which seemed dead, and I just removed the cmos battery shorted to reset it and it came back to life. So I thought this might be going on here.. this cap/battery might have drained entirely rendering an SMC kind of reset line issue.
Do know that I also did a manual SMC reset from the logic board pads, and same thing. Another thing there's an IC from intersil ISL6269 (U7750) which is running extremely hot to the touch, even without pressing the power button. I just had the logicboard out of the case just with the magsafe board plugged psu and it was burning hot to the touch.
Some other insights. I measured G3hot voltages and Always voltage on power rails and I do have 3.4v on Power on PAD , something to notice is that when I press the power on button that voltage goes down to 0.880 from 3.4 if it's of any help. 12 volts rails are there. I did also reflowed the solder on the EFI chip just in case as I've found one guy on youtube saying solders were dry , but nothing.
Something to do have into consideration is , I do repair notebooks as well and I'm used to GPU BGA's to be desoldered cause of cracked solder joints and thermal cycle stress. So my macbook in question , always had fans at a full speed 5900rpm.. the lid was in such an angle that airflow was precise. I can't believe any of the bga's might have desoldered from the board.
Something I would really love is to understand all the power on sequence, where to measure voltages and trace this indepth. But I don't have the experience of dealing with the power on states and which signals should go where it's kind of confusing on apple schematic I would need some help here.


Again thanks !

2jesf4h.jpg


2e1vcec.jpg


a couple things here..

1) I haven't tried this system with a completely new magsafe PSU ( though voltages are fine ) could it be screwed up not giviing enough juice current?

2) I've already suspected that PWM chip from intersil might me bad ( though this chips are made to work at hgh temps it's not normal being freaking hot to the touch). So I've ordered a couple samples from intersil.
Should I desolder the qfn and solder a new chip there?


3) It might as well be the reason the FAN it's being shorted. I've been using this macbook always with Bootcamp Windows 7 Natively, running lubbos fan controller . Cause on Windows 7 the SMC fan control didn't work as it should. So Im suspecting this has to do with SMC controller. Now... the system I know it's not on .. cause I don't hear the HDD spinning neither the screen backlight is on .. so something could be shorting the fan.
What do you want me to check ? Advices if it was you.. here.


Update: I've checked voltage from PP3V3_G3_RTC which goes to MCP79 VBAT+ and I get 2.8 instead of 3.3, which is the voltage going out from the RTC clock or battery.
 
chigwelldave said:
Hi GoTimothy,

If the component is the protection device RCLAMP0502 then Digikey, RS and Element14 all stock it with Digikey being the cheapest. Decider will probably be shipping cost depending on where you live.

You may not expect to see power on the USB ports until the chime, the power saving is pretty aggressive on Macs and lots of things only receive power when required.

How far does this board get in the start up sequence? Do you get beep tones with no RAM for example? As far as I can tell, you should get 3.3v and 1.05v first, the memory power and internal USB next and finally 5v, 1.8v plus a few others. Sounds like your schematic doesn't have the same page numbering as mine so look for the 'POWER SEQUENCING' page for hints.

I personally always use battery power when testing a liquid damaged board or one with power issues. The reason is battery powering eliminates a fair amount of the power circuitry from the chain.

Regards,

Chigwelldave
Click to expand...


Hi chigwelldave,

It only charges the battery. No fans spins, no beeps nothing. Good point about the battery.

I took the board out to look at the bottom. It’s looks like somebody tried to fix this board before. You can tell somebody has been probing around the SMC.

I’m still trying to figure out how to read schematics. I have the K 24 MLB 6/12/2009 version it’s real similar to my board 820 2530 A MBP 13".

Ok now I see, the PDF only has 81 page but Schimatics has 109 pages. Page 78 on Schimatic shows Power Control Signals. :)

I found the USB part on eBay and ordered it from China for $3.

I thought the SMC checks all circuits first to make sure they’re good before it sends power. So maybe it checked the USB and found a bad part, decided not to start.

On the bright side.
I got my 2011 MBP backlight working by replacing the fuse. I didn’t touch the fried resisters and it still worked.

Also:

L3402 looked like it was shorting to the bottom cover and that coincidently is for the USB camera. There are two USB components, one is chipped (broken) the other is not. L3403 is right below it, it looks like it might have shorted to the bottom cover. It is for the USB Bluetooth. I am reading 2.7 V off of L3403 and 0.0 V off of L3402. USB should be 5 V.

Both of these are usually turned off to save power, but I believe the switch is on the negative side of the line. So they all should be receiving power simply waiting for a short to ground at the end of the line to turn threm on. A short to ground before that, causes problems, blows fuses burns resisters. I mean I’m just guessing, but it makes sense.

I might have to go in take all my readings again. I just noticed on my meter that sometimes I may get MV (mega volts) instead of V Volts. Other readings on my picture are in volts, unless I recognized mega volts.
 
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Hello, I have one board 820-2327-a with this faulty,PP1V5_S0 desappear, I think this voltage is make inside the U7300, is it correct?,please I need help
 
schematic

If anyone has the patience to teach me how to read semantics or (simply give me some tips) and the board view, let me know.

I figured out how to search for component locations, but can’t figure out how open, short, work. How do you find a location 19D3 76C3 on the board view or even where it connects to in the schematic? What does “critical” mean?
 
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