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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

#51

Post by raimue »

sgt wrote: post #50
downplay wrote: post #24

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.

"that lived in a dodgy part of town." ^ How is this relevant to your story?

Why else would you need to hide your laptop in the oven?

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

#52

Post by johnchristopher »

mgkimsal wrote: post #35

"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…

> Source: apple forums and http://mbp2011.com

Wow: “The problem might be on the GPU” Said the “Genius”. That’s exactly what I was hoping to hear (he didn’t mentioned this until I pushed them this far.) So I replied, “You all knew exactly what’s going on here and you intentionally kept this from the customers, right?” Right this moment, the “Genius” has left.

That's insane.

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

#53

Post by pgeorgi »

sgt wrote: post #50
downplay wrote: post #24

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.

"that lived in a dodgy part of town." ^ How is this relevant to your story?

I read that as an explanation for the "hide notebooks in the oven" thing.

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

#54

Post by ripa »

This is a known method for fixing this type of problem where the solder has been damaged due to excess heat and/or improper cooling from the start. It's also known that this is most likely a temporary fix where it will fail again in a couple of months (depending on the usage etc.).

This is also why I would take great caution purchasing a used laptop (especially with a discrete graphics card). It's a real risk that the previous user did this trick to quickly sell it while it's "working".

As an owner of a 2011 Macbook Pro with AMD graphics (known to fail) I sure hope that Apple acknowledges this issue soon.

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

#56

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

ics wrote: post #16
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, 170C is not quite hot enough to melt solder. It would need to be around 200C.

Depends on the alloy, tin/bismuth will melt around 140C. I would've expected over 180C to be necessary as well though. Sn63Pb37 is very common and melts at 180C, but since it has lead I don't think it's used much in large scale electronics manufacture.

If your electronics are RoHS compliant (they are), there is no lead.

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

#57

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

eterpstra wrote: post #40

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.

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

#58

Post by marincounty »

Did not read story, but if it it what I think; HP had the same problem with a bad nvidia chip, poorly designed cooling system, etc. They denied the problem, until sued. Meanwhile, desperate users where putting their motherboards in the oven, curling the hairs in the nvida chip, and sticking pennies on the hot chip. I will never buy another HP laptop! I'm surprised Apple won't admit to a problem. I think if Steve was still alive he would admit to the defect and offer a fix--why?? Because Steve was one of us--he liked his toys, and expected them to work. A video card problem would have irked the hell out of home, and his engineers would have to pay for their mistake. What's his name--Tim Cook--just worries about the books. Which will eventually be Apples fall from grace.

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

#59

Post by mgkimsal »

johnchristopher wrote: post #52
mgkimsal wrote: post #35

"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…

> Source: apple forums and http://mbp2011.com Wow: “The problem might be on the GPU” Said the “Genius”. That’s exactly what I was hoping to hear (he didn’t mentioned this until I pushed them this far.) So I replied, “You all knew exactly what’s going on here and you intentionally kept this from the customers, right?” Right this moment, the “Genius” has left. That's insane.

They wouldn't run any advanced diagnostics on mine because I had 'too much ram' in it - model was rated for 8gb but I had 16gb. Not necessarily unreasonable, but... it worked fine for 2 years with that ram in it, and the problem was obviously video related. well, nothing's that obvious, but... they didn't offer to just unscrew the back, remove the extra ram, and run more tests - they seemed to want to not handle my issue at the store. "5 business days" without my business computer is a bit too much, and now I realize I need a fallback strategy. :/

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

#60

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

downplay wrote: post #24

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.

I am surprised the LCD survived. Most don't like temperatures higher than ~150 F.
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