Live data from Hacker News

How I resurrected my MacBook Pro by putting it in the oven

ales.io

61–70 of 204 posts

Re: How I resurrected my MacBook Pro by putting it in the oven

#61
post #2

You might want to get rid of that Vertex 2 as soon as reasonably possible. It has an issue where at some point when switched on or resumed from sleep it will corrupt all your data and refuse to boot. Some have a different bug where it will silently corrupt some of your data and the only way to find out is by the HDD light being on for longer than usual. Back up your data and get rid of it. I had it happen to me twice…

Any idea if the Vertex 3 is in danger of this as well? I've been running it since April, 2011 without a problem - and have good backups - but I'd hate to waste the time trying to recover.

Re: How I resurrected my MacBook Pro by putting it in the oven

#62
post #12
post #6

Or you can use a hot air gun if you have one. Reflowing does work wonders.

Be careful not to use vigorous airspeed. It's possible to blow balls of solder away from the pads. These then cause shorts and are annoying to fault find and repair.

Huh? The solder balls are under the chip sandwiched between the IC and the PCB. There is no direct contact with the hot air.

Re: How I resurrected my MacBook Pro by putting it in the oven

#64

Similar story: I was at a friend's house, and we wanted to play Nintendo Wii. Tried to turn it on, but nothing happened. My buddy grabbed the power brick, tossed it in the microwave, and blasted it for 3 seconds. After plugging it back in, it started like nothing was wrong. I was flabbergasted (one: because WTF! who puts a power supply in a microwave? and two: OMG! it worked!)

Stupid Wii power supplies, these are known to be pieces of junk. I keep a spare for this reason. Simply letting it "rest" unconnected for some unknown duration also does the trick.

That's probably an open polyfuse. Unlike the fuses of old, the new ones actually regenerate themselves (re-crystallize).

Re: How I resurrected my MacBook Pro by putting it in the oven

#65

I have a friend, that lived in a dodgy part of town. And the day he bought his new Powerbook, he hid it in the oven before he left the house. Sadly after a visit to the pub, he thought pizza would be a good idea and preheated the oven. Only to suddenly realise his new computer was inside it. He rescued and cooled it, and oddly, it survived! Only it had shelf marks permanently moulded into the chassis forever more.

This is why I obsessively check the oven before I turn it on. Always.

We had an incident when I was probably 5 years old when my sister put a stuffed toys in the oven then a while later my mom turned it on to use it. Then we smelled smoke...

There was no lasting damage (beyond my sister losing her favorite toy) and she of course was much too young to know better. That incident however got me paranoid about me turning on the oven with unknown objects in it. So now I check first.

Re: How I resurrected my MacBook Pro by putting it in the oven

#66

"with people having apparently similar but in reality completely unrelated problems" Not sure what he was reading - this is a known problem with at least many early 2011 MBP - I had one (still do - it's in the closet). Apple is refusing to acknowledge this as a problem, and will offer to replace the motherboard (or something like that) for ... $300 and approximately 5 business days. From what I've read, whatever they…

Can I ask why a store (sixrig) has ads on their site?

Re: How I resurrected my MacBook Pro by putting it in the oven

#67
post #2

You might want to get rid of that Vertex 2 as soon as reasonably possible. It has an issue where at some point when switched on or resumed from sleep it will corrupt all your data and refuse to boot. Some have a different bug where it will silently corrupt some of your data and the only way to find out is by the HDD light being on for longer than usual. Back up your data and get rid of it. I had it happen to me twice…

That sounds really bad. Guess this laptop is totally doomed now. Thanks for the tip though.

Re: How I resurrected my MacBook Pro by putting it in the oven

#68

"with people having apparently similar but in reality completely unrelated problems" Not sure what he was reading - this is a known problem with at least many early 2011 MBP - I had one (still do - it's in the closet). Apple is refusing to acknowledge this as a problem, and will offer to replace the motherboard (or something like that) for ... $300 and approximately 5 business days. From what I've read, whatever they…

I have a new board in mine as well. Without AppleCare, it would have been $550. Estimated value of the machine, from CL, eBay, etc: $575.

The downside to Macs having become popular is the severe price drop in the used market.

Re: How I resurrected my MacBook Pro by putting it in the oven

#69
Dealt with similar issue with HP tx2000 (HP is a horrible company that refuses to acknowledge a problem that has plagued their entire series). I removed the processor, applied fresh thermal paste with a copper shim & gave it the oven + hair dryer treatment. It worked for a while but failed again. Not worth wasting time on it. It's better to ebay it for parts.
Post reply on HN