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I second bad SMC..... Rarely the ISL can cause the PPBUS being 12.26 issue so it's worth a shot to throw one on. If a new ISL doesn't work, replace the SMC
Liquid or not, still beep out the data lines 6259 / SMC and probe for comms.... But yeah, you probably could have just slapped another SMC on there and had it working without posting the thread.