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

 

Exploding batteries in MacBook Air.

Yes, the title is a little scary-

But we’ve seen it too many times. The MacBook Air is a THIN computer, I use one at home and I have to be careful handling it…it’s very fragile and lightweight (don’t ever pick it up by the screen!). There’s something going on with this customer unit though, as many end users over the years have sent in units like this. Take a look, and peek at these pictures closely:

You’ll notice the keyboard is bending “outward”; that’s because the battery inside of the unit has expanded and is putting pressure on the keyboard causing exterior damage! Yikes!

In this particular case, once we replaced the battery, not only did the computer start working again, but it also fell back into shape. This was a lucky turn of events for this customer because sometimes the “bulging” failing battery physically damages the logic board inside the unit which is NEVER good for the unit or the customer; and is costly.

If you find yourself with a bulging keyboard (this is a good sign that your battery has failed) or if your battery is no longer charging or showing up as being “installed” when it actually is there…give us a call at 866-638-8402. We will take care of you fast.

Best, Ryan