Charge A1707 without using USB-C port

[willyboy]

I have an a1707 that was working fine until the battery got low and I went to plug it in and it wouldn’t charge. It slowed to a crawl, I tried a restart, it went through a couple of instances of the fan cycling and now just shows the charging indicator on the screen if holding a button down. This says to me that the battery supplies power to the computer fine, it’s a charging problem.

Is there a way to charge the battery without going through the USBC port? This is my first MacBook repair and if I can charge the battery, I can get a backup before I do anything that might permanently Bork the computer.

 

[2informaticos]

First of all, welcome to the forum!

Be sure to use original 87W charger.
What is the 820-xxxxx MLB code?

 

[willyboy]

Hi! Thanks I’m trying to figure out where I find that value but after scouring Google and the back of my logic board for the last five minutes I’m getting nowhere. Any tips on where it would be? I’ll keep looking

 

[willyboy]

I suppose I should also mention that I’m getting 5v, 0.020ma, and around 300 ohms on the reader. Based on all of the videos I’ve seen so far, there is an issue with the charging circuitry which is why I was wondering if there was a simple way to bypass

 

[willyboy]

Edit: I had the wrong value. See @2informaticos post below.
——— original message below——-
For anyone who finds this post later, it’s under the battery clip.


(search: where is the mlb number on my MacBook Pro)

My value is 820-01190-01

 

[2informaticos]

I asked about MLB (Main Logic Board), not battery electronics board.
You should find a code like 820-00281, or 820-00928.

I7 2.7 GHz 16GB 512GB Logic Board 820-00281-A for MacBook Pro 15" A1707 2016 | eBay

Macbook Pro 15" A1707 2016. MacBook Pro 15" A1707 820-00281 280-00928 Onboard SSD Data Recovery Service. 2.7 GHz Core i7 16GB RAM 512GB SSD Logic Board 820-00281-10 820-00281-A. MacBook Pro "Core i7" 2.6 15" Touch/Late 2016.

www.ebay.com

Check the fourth picture there.

"Be sure to use original 87W charger."
???

 

[willyboy]

Gotcha! Thanks for the pointer. 820-00928-04. I didn’t realize there’d be two numbers starting with the same 3 digits and when I found that one I was like, “aha! This must be it!” And it wasn’t

 

[willyboy]

“Be sure to use original” - oh yeah. I’ve done that. I tried with multiple MacBook chargers. I took her apart and found some corrosion near the vents and brushed that out so as far as I can tell, everything looks clean. But still getting the 5v 20ma reading.

 

[willyboy]

“Be sure to use original” - oh yeah. I’ve done that. I tried with multiple MacBook chargers. I took her apart and found some corrosion near the vents and brushed that out so as far as I can tell, everything looks clean. But still getting the 5v 20ma reading.

But using the original block with the meter was really important to isolating the problem chip. All but one do the cycling behavior that the other posts say means those are good.

 

[willyboy]

Just touching base on this. The only idea I’ve come up with is to get another logic board that I could use to charge the battery and then switch the old one back in once it’s charged.

 

[2informaticos]

"Original" but 87W???
This board doesn't turn on with 61W, if battery is fully drained.
Better to have a 96W, or even 140W original charger in service; then you can test any MacBook.

Do you get PPBUS_G3H and 3V3_G3H_RTC?
Check SMC_USBC_INT_L.

 

[willyboy]

Yes, it’s an 87 watt charger. There is a bad CD32 chip based on the fact that 3 out of 4 of the USB C connections cycle power. I can check those connections in your post when I get home but to be clear, I’m not trying to solve that right now. I just want to be able to charge the battery without going through that chip. I was hoping there would be some hack to do that.
If I got another logic board with a working chip, I assume that would work but it seems like overkill.

 

[2informaticos]

All USB-C ports are related.
You can't charge the battery in other way on this board.

If you deal with laptop repairs (Apple or not), get this:

One moment, please...

Then you can test and charge/discharge any laptop battery.
Buying the license, you can even repair some of them.

 

[willyboy]

Just as a follow up for anyone who finds this later, I was able to use a new board to charge the battery so that I could get a backup before mucking with anything important.