Ok, here's the tale of woe.

Adult daughter has this Macbook and her cat knocked over a Pepsi onto the keyboard. She uses this for work so she was between a rock and a hard place (divorce in process) so I fronted her to get a new one ASAP.

It initially would not power up, I took it to the Apple store and they said no hope, the liquid was in the worst place possible, it was toast. Took it home with me, about four or five hours later I tried it, it powered up. And as a P.S., the tech at the store said that while it would not power up he wiped the hard drive clean for my daughter per her request and apparently there is still data on it from what she said. So what he told me I'm kind of taking with a grain of salt.

Anyway, It works but it will not charge now, she tried a different charger with the same results. So quick question, this is about a four month old Mac, anybody think it can be saved? Or am I wasting time?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: shovelhead,

I've had this happen on several laptops (not the diet coke part). Take the battery out, clean the connections and re-insert the battery. My current HP stops charging once in a while and I have to do that and it will then charge afterwards.

The MagSafe connector attaches to a dc-in board, and that sound like your issue. I had one fail and replaced it fairly cheaply. Try Macfixit for parts and instructions.

It's either the battery, the charger, or whatever circuit regulates the charging. Not likely to have burned the battery, and you said you've tried a different charger, so probably the regulating circuit. I don't know if that's a separate board or part of the main board. But, there's a good chance that it's not completely toast, but may have some liquid residue that is interfering with the operation.

If you have the time to pull it apart, clean the circuit board well with alcohol, and let it dry well. Then follow protocol for a new battery. You need to let it run completely down, charge fully, and repeat.

I'd be cautiously optimistic.

quote:

Anyway, It works but it will not charge now, she tried a different charger with the same results. So quick question, this is about a four month old Mac, anybody think it can be saved? Or am I wasting time?

Try a new battery.

New batteries available on Amazon.
Instructions on ifixit.com.
I replaced non-charging battery on an old MacBook Air this way.

my personal results have been far superior with an independent computer / cell phone repair store than with the apple store. if you feel the need to take it somewhere, don't take to Apple.

Louis Rossman (on YouTube) shows on TONS of videos where any liquid will ruin your Apple motherboard in seconds. He does repairs, and you can ship him your unit.

You might even see your notebook repaired on his channel at some point.

He usually repairs the existing boards and circuitry with very little effort.

https://www.youtube.com/channe...mFZoRqjw_ELax4Yisf6w

(FWIW - He also ends up re-repairing tons of Apple repairs)

Thank you for the responses. I'm afraid of ham-fisting it. The shop is Army vet owned, he's been in business in town for about ten years with reasonable prices and about three day turnarounds. I'll let you know what he finds and if it is saveable.

The Apple store disappointed me though. To elaborate, the person on the floor took it to the back and in a nutshell said it was toast, no hope for repairs as it would cost more than it was worth to fix it. I got the distinct feeling he was hoping that I just left it for them to dispose and bought another one. And the other part, he said that he was able to wipe the hard drive clean when he spoke to my daughter. She had work files on it, when she powered it up the next day all the files were still there and that would have been a helluva mess if she had disposed of it without it being cleaned.

Local guy's estimate, 100 dollar maximum to disassemble, clean, wipe the hard drive and restore to factory specs exclusive of parts. So I wait now.

It happens, I spilled a margarita on my wife's Lenovo one Friday afternoon. She was less than happy. After getting a new keyboard for it (the keys would stick) we used it for another year or two before it finally died. If it's only a few months old I'd say fix it.

I've received a similar response the 1 time I went to an Apple store (iPhone issue). I think they think money grows on trees.

It is very very easy to reformat a Mac hard drive using Disk Utility. If you can pull the drive, assuming the laptop is truly dead, the drive can be wiped.

Did your daughter use Apple Time Machine for a backup? If so, then you have a chance to recover the work files.

Local guy said he thinks it is the mother board.

I spoke to Rossmann's in New York today, the YouTube guy. Going to send it out tomorrow, gentleman I spoke to was pretty confident he can make it live again.

^^^ They know their shit, though I still suspect the DC-in board. Report back, please.

Changed gears here.

I found a "local" place, in Ann Arbor. I spoke to the guy yesterday and decided to give him a try instead of shipping it to New York. If anybody is familiar with A2, in Nickels Arcade.

Upon arrival I gave him the Mac and told him it had a Diet Pepsi dumped into the keyboard. He remembered me calling also, a plus in my book. Taking the back of it off, he found some residue on the motherboard, nothing evident on the DC board or the connector. Kind of interesting, he showed the internals to me and the corrosion spot on the board. The Apple Store showed me a "photo"(?) of the damage area, much more extensive than the damage put in front of me today.

The Apple Tech said that they took the back off of the machine, took a photo of it then reassembled. I have serious doubts that it was her machine that they disassembled, probably just a stock photo they use all the time.

The independent store said that he may have it finished tomorrow barring any problems, that with that type of damage he has over 90% success rate of saving them, it is a pretty common problem with the popularity of Macs on campus. So we will see how it all shakes out.

And as a P.S., I haven't been to Ann Arbor much in the last thirty years back in Michigan, used to go there all the time in my younger days. Approaching from the Maynard Street side I was thinking about The Caravan Shop, a gift shop that had been there since 1927. A couple of times during my "Let's go to Ann Arbor on a date" days of long ago I got dragged into there. Guess what is still there? For nostalgia I went in and looked around. Yes, similar to how it was back many years ago.

Update tomorrow.

Take it back to the Apple Store. Talk only to the manager explaining some of the information here.
Then ask him to have his best tech take the batter out clean it and also clean those connectors as another poster mentioned.
Of course it can be fixed!
Likely, Apple Care can fix it for sure but you have to send it off for that. It's still under warranty.
Stay safe
Poli Viejo

quote:

Originally posted by Horn:

It's still under warranty.

Does the warranty cover user-induced things like spilling a soda on the computer? Or, is the warranty coverage for manufacturing defects only?

UPDATE:

Just returned from "Apples And Oranges", the independent store in Ann Arbor, Total bill was $275.00

I asked Raoul besides the small area of corrosion he pointed out to me how much more they found. He said that was the only evidence of where it was wet. I then told him the Apple Store's diagnosis, the photo (?) of the "extensively" damaged area. He was surprised that they only showed me a photo, not the actual machine that night. So a disassembly and cleaning at a third of what Apple said it would cost to bring it back to life.

Maybe Apple techs are parts replacers only. Or like I originally thought they were out to sell a replacement and hope that I would have left the damaged one for them to "dispose" of, yeah, right, dispose to one of the techs to repair it and sell it on the side more likely.

This story should be forwarded to Tim Cook’s personal email. The idiots at that Apple store should be fired.

Absolutely Shameful!

Nothing was in writing, just oral statements. So it becomes a “he said,he said” situation, it was in the last hour of the day I was in there and left about fifteen minutes before closing. And in the guy’s exact words “that Pepsi is in the worst place that this can happen.” Just pisses me off,I should have taken a photo of the photo he showed me, that way I would have had some proof of the B.S. I was handed. But trying to help my kid, she was panicking, trying to get my grandson to bed, he’s three, 60 miles round trip to the store, etc., you get the idea.

No, I’m just going to move forward from here. I put her replacement on my Amazon card, got her six months to pay it off which she needs due to a divorce. I gave her what she could have sold it as a non working unit and now have a replacement for my six year old laptop.

BUT! Not going to the Apple Store again.

I have had nothing but great service from the Apple stores around here.

Of course I don't show up at closing time with no appointment.

Therein lies the problem, I bet.

Bob