Retina Macbook Pro Repairs – Now expedited service included!

Hello everyone –

Since purchasing Mission Repair earlier this year, I have been working to bring new repairs, quicker repairs, and a overall high level of customer service without raising prices. I’m excited to bring you quicker turn around times on all Retina Macbook Pro and Macbook Air LCD repairs. We now offer 72 hour turn around once we have received the computer.

 

Partnering with world class suppliers makes all the difference – from parts, repairs, and highly technical repairs (such as the Retina LCD replacement) – allows Mission Repair to bring you added services with no additional cost. Should the unthinkable happen, come by one of our two locations, or box up your computer and ship it in to our Lenexa location.

Thank you again for all your support!

Jeff

Remember – don’t get your MacBook wet!

Good morning,

Water and electronics don’t mix – I’ve talked about it before but I want to discuss a few points again. Is your MacBook waterproof? Not a chance.

It’s more common than you might think; but we receive items in for repair on a daily basis that show signs of liquid damage and without doubt if you get your iPhone wet, you’re bound to see problems unless it is addressed.

My guess is that some of these customers don’t even know that they had a liquid spill or had any contact with water/soda/coffee whatsoever. Sometimes is the unknowing fault of a child or household pet that inadvertently spills or “leaks” onto a keyboard.

For example, here’s a logic board that came out of a 2014 MacBook Pro with Retina Screen; and the device was not displaying video.

If you look closely, and I know that it’s hard to tell; but can you see that chip that is on the logic board that says “Apple 2010”? (It’s actually upside down) It’s about dead center in the picture…there is an IC that is on top of it with slightly green corrosion that is growing from some sort of liquid that got onto the board.

I know, the picture doesn’t do it much justice, and I even almost missed it. For scale, that component just below it is the headphone jack port, which is very small in itself…this was a minute amount of corrosion on the MacBook Pro Logic Board that was causing a major amount of problems!

So I cleaned it up and guess what? Video displayed back on the screen again. This would have been a $680 repair had this customer went directly to Apple…but it was just took me one hour of labor to complete it. The customer makes out and Mission Repair saves the day.

We offer a full-line of liquid damage repairs; but to be realistic, not all of these are repairable. If your MacBook was sitting at the bottom of the lake for week, it’s probably not repairable. But if you spill a cup of coffee on the keyboard of your computer; turn it off quickly and give us a call. We will do our best to save your day too!

Take care, Ryan

 

I walked into my Mission store and saw this:

Hello there friends,

I made a surprise visit to my Mission location yesterday..unannounced…and found my guys watching cartoons!  Yeah, you may know it.  It was “He-Man” from the 1980’s!

Just as I was getting close to letting my team hear an earful, I calmly asked “why is He-Man running on this customer’s MacBook?”  I’m a fair guy.  I don’t mind the employees listening to music while they work, or even tune the radio to AM to listen to a Royals games now and again.  But watching cartoons while you’re on the clock?  It ain’t happening.  I was looking for the ring leader.

Carl stepped up and said “It’s me.”  Mmmm boy, here we go!

“Ryan, this customer was having issues with Youtube shutting down randomly, and I’ve pinpointed it to the RAM in this unit.  I diagnosed it, tried it myself after I was able to duplicate the issue, and now it appears to be solved.  I’m now running the first long video that I could find, and He-Man was it.”  He goes on to say “It’s been running for a long time, but this is a 10-hour marathon and I wanted to make sure that our customer didn’t have the same issue after I repaired the computer.”

Well then.  I grabbed a large piece of humble pie and took a bite.  Those guys weren’t messing around.  They were testing a repair.  GREAT!

That means apparently I do condone cartoons while we’re on the clock.  As long as you tell me it’s for “testing” purposes, that’s all I need to hear!

Bonus points…what was He-Man’s tag line?  “I HAVE THE POWER!”  I can personally remember that opening sequence of the cartoon, apparently it’s a keeper in my mental files.

So rest knowing that if you bring your MacBook Pro in for repair: we may watch some cartoons on it.  But it’s for a good cause, and this customer was thrilled that we did.  It’s a highly technical operation, but someone has to do it 😉

Take care, Ryan

 

 

MacBook Pro Retina Screen Repairs – not an easy task.

Hello there Mac lovers…

Have you ever wondered why the screen on your 13″ or 15″ MacBook Pro with Retina Display looks so amazing?  Yes, the “retina” piece has a lot to do with it – Retina displays have a pixel density that’s so high, your eyes can’t discern individual pixels at a normal viewing distance. This gives content incredible detail and dramatically improves your viewing experience.

The other slightly lesser known fact is that they are assembled in a clean room which mates the LCD with the glass and “seals” the entire assembly from the elements and the environment – The problem with this is that fixing a cracked screen or glass cannot be done by the “casual” technician.  They are simply too hard to separate without the proper tools and techniques.

We recently had a customer try to make the first attempts at removing a glass panel on his own:

Can you see that discoloration in the middle of the screen in that picture?  That where he tried to heat it up.  He said that the glass bubbled out like a balloon, and when it cooled it returned to “normal” shape.

Yes, heat is part of the process, but you cannot put these screen assemblies into an oven, in front of a space heater or use a hairdryer to correctly remove the glass.  Physics simply doesn’t permit it.  Kudos to this customer for trying to resolve this repair on his own; it how I got started in the business (repairing stuff on my own), but this was like starting to hike by trying to conquer Mt. Everest.  Not likely!!

At Mission Repair, we have repaired thousands of MacBook Pro Retina Screens; and our pricing beats the competition, and most certainly beats Apple’s replacement price by a few hundred dollars!

If you find yourself in a bind and have a cracked MacBook Pro Retina Display, do not try to do it yourself – you may end up causing more damage than you want to deal with.  Give us a call 844-459-0105 or you can place your order online here.  We’re ready to help you.

Ryan

 

Now THIS is a bad MacBook Pro battery!

Hello there and good morning!

We’ve been receiving an unprecedented amount of blog reads in this first month of 2016, thank you and I really appreciate it.

I’ve blogged before about MacBook batteries “puffing up”, or even popping open and leaking.  It becomes more and more common the older these units get.  We have even seen batteries fail in the MacBook Air as I posted earlier.  Take a look at this recent battery that we removed from a customer’s MacBook Unibody (this is an Apple OEM battery I will add, not a 3rd party or “copy”):

 

I visited my Mission Store yesterday and was helping solve a few problem when I came across this unit that needed to be removed from the premises immediately.  Not only is an exploding battery like this just terrible for the computer (it needs further repairs now too!) but if the gasses from this battery leaked out and into our tech lab it would be smelling and toxic.  This is one that need to get to the recycling depot asap.  We don’t want to cause a fire or make anyone sick at the office that’s for sure!

Here are some tell-tale signs to look for if you suspect that your battery might be heading in this direction:

1.  The computer stops taking a charge or won’t run off of battery power.
2.  The trackpad on your computer stops clicking.
3.  The spacebar or the “lower” keys feel different when you depress them.
4.  Your trackpad pops out of the case, from the bottom up.

The Apple software will also tell you when your battery should be replaced, and it’s a good idea to follow through with that advice and have your battery replaced.  I mean, it is a portable computer so you’re going to want the battery to be as good as possible, right?  Right!!

We can most certainly replace the battery for you at Mission Repair – just check out our website or give us a call and we’ll be happy to set the service up for you so you can get back to doing your emails from the coffee shop, the living room or even the beach.  Wherever you’d like to be…

Have a good morning, Ryan