820-3115 - Sluggish in OS, ASD error: Thermal Interface: - Processor: Processor0: TIM Test

[baker_jeff]

Hi All! I have a fun one here which hopefully someone can tag the issue. (Also glad to be back, signed up my early days 2 years ago and was NOT ready for advanced troubleshooting haha).

Original Problem: Liquid damage (where exactly... hard to say. The board is pretty clean and it sat on my shelf for over a year lol).

This unit is sluggish, with a sluggish cursor inside the OS. It is fine in the boot menu, ASD menu, etc.

I have:
- Cleaned in ultrasonic
- Swapped trackpad & cable
- tested with everything else unplugged
- tested with an external mouse
- reballed SMC (have no replaced it though)
- loaded a clean ME BIOS
- Checked all the traces for the different thermal sensors
- Replaced a couple of the thermal sensors just because
- Loaded up Hardware Monitor and all temps are reading normal
- Applied new paste to the heatsink
- Replaced Q5520
- Installed a fresh OS on my test drive

No luck so far. Please, for the sake of my sanity... any tips?

 

[2informaticos]

Try first disconnecting webcam.
Also test it booting in SMC bypass mode.

 

[baker_jeff]

Gah! I always forget about SMC bypass. Must.. not... forget.

It works normally bypassed. SMC, here I come.

 

[2informaticos]

Run corresponding ASD EFI version.
Check the errors reported.

 

[baker_jeff]

It was indeed the SMC

Solved!