Chosen Solution

Hi! Not sure if I have spilt something on my MacBook Pro, but a few days ago it turned off with a small puff of smoke, and the motherboard has some damage, pictured, is this repairable does anyone think? Also when I did plug my power adapter in while case was open, there was a mini spark from that point again. Any help would be great!

Cameron Lewis, looks like your board is a 820-3115. The component in question is U9410 which is CD3210A0RGP current-limited power mux. Now, if you do a Google search for CD3210AORGP you’ll find a few places like this where you can buy this IC. It is an LGA IC and as such will or course require good skills and tools to resolder. From what I can see on your image, it appears that you shorted out pin 6 or pin 7 (hard to see and consider posting a close up image)of this IC and damaged the trace to the capacitor right beneath it. Anytime you shortened out a component, Please remember that your board may also have a short circuit in other components.

It is a very open ended question. Mother board repair is not a simple component swap and you are done. There are a lot of measurements you need to take in order to know what’s up. It also sounds like you have not made any measurements or checked the schematics… UPDATE (09/05/15) After closely looking at the picture I realized there was actual damage on the board instead of being a stock picture or what not…

  1. That chip is part of the 3.3 V main line.
  2. OldTurkey is correct. That is the chip you are looking for.
  3. Now shift your focus to the capacitor right under the chip on the left side. The diagram has it as C9410 for your reference. These are the specs: 0.1uf 10% 50v 603-1. That is most likely the cause of that chip blowing up. When a capacitor fails you will get a straight wire which will short your chip to ground. This voltage is more than the desired burning your components and most likely in this case there might be some board repair on the paths and traces underneath. This is repairable. You can mail it in to someone who can do the job OR you can try to do it yourself if you have the right tools and experience. If you decide to give it a short let me know and Ill be happy to give you some pointers :)

Just by looking at that picture, the main damage is obvious - it also looks like it took out a few nearby components. I don’t have a schematic - I don’t know of any out there for these…. if anyone here does, I’m sure they’ll point you in the right direction. Personally, I think your mac is dead. It has some value left there in at least the screen. If you could find out what the components are, and could change them…. it MAY work…. but, like you say, you’re not really sure what even caused the original problem. Was something split on it? if you replaced those with obvious damage, and powered it on, would you just burn them out again? Giving the board a proper inspection may reveal more clues, but on the face of what you have here, as a repair shop, I would not want to waste my time. The only feasible repair at this point, would be a full motherboard replacement….. but you would have to weigh up the cost of that, vs selling your damaged unit, and buying a working second hand, or splash the cash and get a new one (slightly discounted by selling the faulty one)