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

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

#201

Post by mncolinlee »

This is a hackish form of "Reflow Soldering." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflow_soldering

I used to work at Cray, the supercomputer company. Back in the 1970s, 30 yrs before I got there, they used to solder the circuits on each board by baking the entire board in an actual kitchen oven. With smaller and more delicate circuitry on mainboards these days, this is less practical and more dangerous, but that doesn't mean it isn't still possible with some degree of luck. I'd still recommend removing the BIOS battery if you're crazy enough to attempt this.

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

#202

Post by gohrt »

larrys wrote: post #146
gohrt wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is entirely not true. When microwaves were first released, they were so low powered that microwave cookbooks gave advice like "wrap the edges of the chickin in foil". http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/281275232630?lpid=82 Also, most microwaves have a large metal rack inside them. Only certain configurations of metal are dangerous in a modern microwave. A computer has those, though. http://www.todayifoundout.com/index…

"Came out" refers to when they became in widespread use. That was in the 70's. As far as low power I can find nothing that indicates that it was ever ok to put tin foil in however I do know that in some cases you might put metal to specifically block cooking. So perhaps with a low power microwave there was no sparking etc. (I can't find anything on that and I don't see the link you sent showing that (which page is it…

Sorry, I can't provide a proper page citation. I had one of those books many years ago, and I was surprised when I saw the recommendations about foil.

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

#204

Post by IbJacked »

yardie wrote: post #200
specialist wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While doing desktop support, one of my Mac user's hard drive was failing, wouldn't spin up at boot. So you had to help spin it up. One trick was to give the HDD housing a rotation jerk the moment you turn on power. Another was to use a pencil eraser to spin the exposed spindle, also during power on. Good times.

I've talked to a few recovery experts. They told me taking the cover off destroys the drive. Apparantly the head has some tracks embedded in the cover. If it's not removed in a certain way you can rip the entire thing out.

I don't think he removed the cover. The spindle was was exposed, not the platters.
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