tuner2000i
New member
Hello everyone. Glad to be part of this forum. It's my first shot with macbook reapairs so please have some patience with me.
I normally do playstation 4 repairs, eveything from smd rework to reballing and so on.
i decided i wanted to give it a shot with macbooks as well since its a good business especially in the country i live in where there's no competition.
I bought a macbook a1398 advertised as faulty with gpu artifacts. After speaking with the seller he said that no attempt of repair was made so i decided to buy it. Unfortunately when the product arrived i saw that the board was slaughtered. there are no returns for this so i have to take it as it is and figure something out.
after searching online i saw that i was not the only one having this specific issue, but i did not see anybody actually resolving it, since most took the laptop to the apple replacement program.
basically the screen has red horizontal lines distortion mostly where black background is supposed to be. it does not boot to os, continuously restarts after displaying the last text you see in the picture taken at verbose mode.
The previous "repair person" tried reflowing the GPU, all VRAM, U8900, U9100 and i think maybe even CPU and other components.. You can see how he left the board in the pictures attached.
I first reballed the GPU because i had to see if he did not mess something up because i found a solder ball right next to it. after taking it off, i found a few oxidated pads, but unfortunately that did not solve the issue.
After putting everything back together it still does the same.
There are 2 things i noticed. When he removed the glue from the VRAM he made a small cut in the PCB, about 1mm. as far as i can see there are no traces affected ( I do not have a microscope, only a powerfull magnifier). Can someone please confirm if there are traces there or not.
Also, some components near the VRAM were not soldered properly: C8532 and C8208 . C8524 and C8574 were completely missing. I replaced them with a random capacitor from an ipad 4 board as i do not know what value they should have and if it matters.
I suspect that i have a dead GPU or faulty VRAM. I did not try reballing the VRAM, I would replace them but i dont have 256mb DDR5. i only have 512MB chips from PS4
Also I ordered a new GPU N13P-GT-W-A2 from ebay UK.
Please let me know if i am on the right track or if you have any suggestions. also if you saw something like this before please let me know.
PS: friday i have another A1398 coming in with no video.
I normally do playstation 4 repairs, eveything from smd rework to reballing and so on.
i decided i wanted to give it a shot with macbooks as well since its a good business especially in the country i live in where there's no competition.
I bought a macbook a1398 advertised as faulty with gpu artifacts. After speaking with the seller he said that no attempt of repair was made so i decided to buy it. Unfortunately when the product arrived i saw that the board was slaughtered. there are no returns for this so i have to take it as it is and figure something out.
after searching online i saw that i was not the only one having this specific issue, but i did not see anybody actually resolving it, since most took the laptop to the apple replacement program.
basically the screen has red horizontal lines distortion mostly where black background is supposed to be. it does not boot to os, continuously restarts after displaying the last text you see in the picture taken at verbose mode.
The previous "repair person" tried reflowing the GPU, all VRAM, U8900, U9100 and i think maybe even CPU and other components.. You can see how he left the board in the pictures attached.
I first reballed the GPU because i had to see if he did not mess something up because i found a solder ball right next to it. after taking it off, i found a few oxidated pads, but unfortunately that did not solve the issue.
After putting everything back together it still does the same.
There are 2 things i noticed. When he removed the glue from the VRAM he made a small cut in the PCB, about 1mm. as far as i can see there are no traces affected ( I do not have a microscope, only a powerfull magnifier). Can someone please confirm if there are traces there or not.
Also, some components near the VRAM were not soldered properly: C8532 and C8208 . C8524 and C8574 were completely missing. I replaced them with a random capacitor from an ipad 4 board as i do not know what value they should have and if it matters.
I suspect that i have a dead GPU or faulty VRAM. I did not try reballing the VRAM, I would replace them but i dont have 256mb DDR5. i only have 512MB chips from PS4
Also I ordered a new GPU N13P-GT-W-A2 from ebay UK.
Please let me know if i am on the right track or if you have any suggestions. also if you saw something like this before please let me know.
PS: friday i have another A1398 coming in with no video.
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