Yuriman
Diamond Member
Recently I took my wife's old mid 2007 (A1181) Macbook apart to put a new WiFi adapter in. After reassembling, it failed to power on. Upon removal of the part, it still fails to power on.
I've taken her Macbook apart many times before so I'm pretty familiar with it, and I don't remember doing anything that might have caused damage to any major components this time. I was hoping that the ribbon cable between the keyboard and the motherboard developed a break, or perhaps that there was some failure in the keyboard/power button itself rather than a failure of the motherboard or power circuitry, until I looked at prices for parts. It appears a replacement motherboard + CPU is actually cheaper than a keyboard, at around $25 vs $45 on eBay.
I don't know how I can test without buying parts. As I understand it, this particular model is not one that powers on automatically upon inserting the battery and so the only way I know to power it on is with a working power button. The green light on the end of the charging cable comes on when attaching the charger, but I don't know for certain what that signifies.
This is an old machine and I find it hard to stomach the idea of throwing much money at it, but on the other hand, I don't think I could get something else to fill my wife's use for it at anywhere near $25. She only uses it to chat on Skype from bed or watch movies/listen to music while I'm studying and she can't use her desktop. Since we're poor college students, if it looks like it's going to be more than $50 or so to fix or replace it, we'll probably toss it and do without.
What do you think? Troubleshooting tips? Advice?
I've taken her Macbook apart many times before so I'm pretty familiar with it, and I don't remember doing anything that might have caused damage to any major components this time. I was hoping that the ribbon cable between the keyboard and the motherboard developed a break, or perhaps that there was some failure in the keyboard/power button itself rather than a failure of the motherboard or power circuitry, until I looked at prices for parts. It appears a replacement motherboard + CPU is actually cheaper than a keyboard, at around $25 vs $45 on eBay.
I don't know how I can test without buying parts. As I understand it, this particular model is not one that powers on automatically upon inserting the battery and so the only way I know to power it on is with a working power button. The green light on the end of the charging cable comes on when attaching the charger, but I don't know for certain what that signifies.
This is an old machine and I find it hard to stomach the idea of throwing much money at it, but on the other hand, I don't think I could get something else to fill my wife's use for it at anywhere near $25. She only uses it to chat on Skype from bed or watch movies/listen to music while I'm studying and she can't use her desktop. Since we're poor college students, if it looks like it's going to be more than $50 or so to fix or replace it, we'll probably toss it and do without.
What do you think? Troubleshooting tips? Advice?
