Cooking the Books (or, Baking My MacBook Pro Logic Board)
Well, it’s taken me a little while to get this post up—not to mention the fact that its taken me a long while to get any posts up—but I thought this one was worth it just as an encouragement for anyone else who might be dealing with a fried MacBook Pro logic board that is out of the AppleCare warranty coverage. I also needed to get this post up before I forgot most of the details.
As a little background, I put my MBP (17″ 2.5GHz-early 2008, Model A1261 to be exact for you that are searching) to sleep by closing it up for the night, which I’ve done for the past 2+ years with no problems. The next morning I noticed that the glowing power light on the latch release was off and thought it strange and then went to open and wake it and nothing happened. After futilely trying to wake it by varying degrees of banging on random keys and quickly pressing the power button I waited several minutes before I committed to powering it down. After powering it down, I tried to start it back up. While I could hear the hard drive spin up and the optical drive go through its start-up whirrings, there was no start-up chime and no effort to display anything on screen. I tried all the start-up key combinations to start in safe-mode, reset PRAM, start diagnosis—nothing worked. Tried to insert original system install disk and boot from that, all to no avail.
After going through the Apple Support boards, I could not determine a culprit and since there are no Apple Stores closer than the 330 miles to Seattle yet (soon in Spokane I hear), I resorted to taking my system to the only certified Apple Repair shop in Spokane. We were hoping that it would fall under the Nvidia Graphics chip issue so that Apple would cover the replacement (note to self: on future MacBook Pro purchases: Get the full three-year AppleCare coverage!). Since the system would not even get past the initial boot phases, there was no way to even diagnose any other problems. Which AppleCare concluded that it would not fall under the Nvidia replacement program. Which that meant it would be in the neighborhood of $1000-1200 to replace logic board ($800 logic board + labor)—which is not much less than the $1200-1400 my system in good condition was going for on ebay. I’ve since gathered the necessary courage (and tools) to do it myself, so I could save the labor charges in the future. I also found a resource that I might consider as well if I had to face the issue of replacing the logic board again; DT&T Service claims they can replace my model logic board with a refurb for $450. Maybe next time…
I was faced with trying to sell the dead MBP on Craigslist or ebay whole for $600 or try to recover more by dismantling it out and selling the parts on ebay and maybe be able to make up to $800. I determined that the time and effort involved in managing that many auctions wasn’t worth it and posted it on Craigslist. I got exactly two calls on it—one by one of the techs at the shop who diagnosed it originally to ask if I’d ruled-out the Nvidia issue (doh!) and the other by a guy who was tempted to buy it to try to fix it, but just didn’t have the time—he asked if I had considered “baking the logic board”. He quickly countered my skepticism with a plea to Google the term and that I’d find a plethora of advice on how to do it. (Update: when I wrote this, I couldn’t find the contact info for him but just recently found it. Here’s his link: http://www.spokanepcrepair.com/) So I did and he was right-there’s a bunch of crazy gamers out there resurrecting dead graphics cards, Xboxes and logic boards.
I’ve never been afraid to get under the hood and swap out RAM, replace a hard drive or optical drive, but removing the logic board from an expensive laptop (at least when it was bought), was a little beyond my comfort zone. Figuring I had nothing to lose if I messed up the logic board I found some helpful videos on YouTube that showed how to disassemble my MBP and remove the logic board. After running out to get a better selection of Torx screwdrivers, I found this video helpful (with the exception of the backing music):
After successfully removing the logic board, I then proceeded to prep it for inserting it into the oven. Now if getting into the guts of a $3K+ computer doesn’t make you nervous enough, then actually taking the most important and expensive element out and sticking it into an oven should do the trick. One of the things that nobody covered very carefully, was how much of the additional plastic parts should be removed before inserting into the oven. I was initially fearful after reading several posts where the user would actually remove ANYTHING that was plastic and re-solder it back on afterwards. I wasn’t really committed or prepared to do that. I was most nervous about the USB, DVI and Firewire ports because there was no way I was going to be able to remove those and put them back on. I concluded that they have to be made up of at least heat-resistant plastics, and I hadn’t read or seen anything that lamented melted ports and that I should be OK.
I was careful to remove a piece of foam cushioning that is attached to the board and placed it back on afterward.
Here it is after I removed the foam piece:
One thing (actually two) that I did not think to remove were the two sleeves for mounting screws that are located at the top of the board (see circled areas in image below). I thought they were metal, but they turned out to be not-so-heat-resistant plastic and I unfortunately learned that lesson the hard way. They are no longer the best part of the securing system of my logic board. I managed to recover one, but the other was toast.
The instructions I followed for baking came mostly from this post on Overclockers. I preheated my oven to 375° F (helpful marital tip: coordinate with spouse if attempting to do this anywhere close to dinner time—trust me on this). I placed the board on rolled-up balls of foil (not sure why—just doing what I saw in the other pics) on top of cookie sheet covered with foil (to catch the grease drippings, or melted plastics I suppose—thankfully there was neither).
Time to take a deep breath… At this point, it should be noted that we actually gathered the whole family around to pray for God’s mercy and that He might bless this endeavor in that it was affecting my ability to provide for the said whole family. It was time to start baking…
After reading through numerous posts (well over 20 or so) about different temperatures and times to bake for, I settled on 7m:30s at 375°F for these two reasons: one is that most of the realistic sounding posts hovered between 7 and 8 minutes so I thought 7:30 should do it. And the other was after reading several posts that 375° would be sufficient to soften the soldering joints to just barely the melting point allowing them to reseat better and where anything over 400°F would melt the soldering too much—along with all the other plastics and burn the stickers.
It’s not easy holding your breath for over 7 minutes, but with prayer, we persevered (it was a family event at this point). After letting the board cool for about 10 minutes (I think “rest” is the proper cooking terminology), it was now time to start on the process of putting the board back in the case.
One thing that helped immensely in the re-assembly process was that I took pictures with my digital camera of all the critical assembly points so that I could reconstruct it all back together to the original condition. With the exception of the oft-pointed out melting of the mounting screw sleeves, everything went back together smoothly and with all the family gathered around (actually they were out watching a movie because it was pretty boring watch me put the machine back together) to hear the delightful start-up chime and watch the screen flicker to life and post a question mark because I hadn’t put the original hard drive back in. But that question mark was a beautiful thing, because it meant that it was alive and looking for a suitable, bootable drive. I had removed the hard drive and placed it in an external enclosure so that I could access it from my older system to at least be able to get some work done and also to initially rule out that it was a hard drive issue. I wasn’t worried about losing my data, as I use Apple’s Time Machine and had my drive backed-up. Putting the hard drive back in was fairly quick to do, and after that was in, the system booted up beautifully.
Well, I don’t have any pics or video of it coming to life but suffice it to say, that I’m typing this post on it and have been working on it happily for the last (almost) 30 days and thankful to the Lord in showing His mercy. I’ve read that there are no long-term guarantees with this fix and to not expect it to last forever. How long that turns out to be, I’ll be sure to post in the future, but I’m taking the precaution of planning for its imminent replacement (hoping my system doesn’t take that last statement personally).
There does seem to be a casualty after the baking in that since I’ve made the fix, it looks like I lost one of my USB ports on the left side closest to the power plug. It provides power to the device, but the device (both input and disk) is not recognized. That and the fact that I had to re-enter all my passwords as once the board’s battery is disconnected, the OS X Password Keychain is wiped. So, that’s a bummer, but well worth the trade-off of having a working system back.
If I could recommend anything to anyone in the future of how to prepare before an event like this happens is, in addition to keeping your drives backed up (at least with Time Machine), is to have a good password manager with all your passwords stored—specially if you have multiple email accounts and website accounts in Dreamweaver that you manage.
And finally, be sure to give a hearty and heart-felt thanks to a gracious Lord who has shown us mercy indeed! Hallelujah!
(Update on Aug. 24, 2011: After hearing of so many success stories of others inspired by this article and baking my MBP six times [five more times after this article], one of the important steps that I did not perform during this bake and therefore did not include in this article is to be sure to clean the old thermal paste off of the processors and the corresponding heat sinks. And then to re-apply a quality thermal paste to the processors and heat sinks. The first five bakes lasted for various durations between one month and four with the average being two to three months before having the problem again. Each time, I failed to clean the old and apply new thermal paste. On the sixth bake, I finally did that and have not had to bake again since Feb 24, 2011 [exactly 6 months so far]. I have detailed this in my post: My MBP is Officially Hexed—But There’s Hope, please read that in addition to this post before baking. Also, as of today, I have counted a total of at least 22 people who have successfully cooked their books and posted back on one of the “Baking the Books” articles—so hopefully, that will give you hope.)
Another success story here!! Thanks for the detailed info.
One thing I will say was difficult was figuring how to get the wired connectors off the logic board. I actually accidentally pry’d one of the connectors to the Left Fan off the logic board. Everything still works but with 1 less fan.
Great topic, this one! It helped me solve my screen problems, which occured about a month ago; green flickering pixels, green/red/blue lines in dark parts of the screen and videos, screen dropping from something like 16- color-modes to black , with a few flashing white horizontal lines. First I was afraid my graphic card had gone, but then I discovered the screen flickered into these different modes when I was typing on the keyboard. This probably caused little shocks to the logic board underneath. Also when pressing the bottom of the laptops main case quite firmly, brought back the normal screen. So I figured it would be a loose connection somewhere. I removed the topcase, and while pressing with caution with a plastic stick on different safe spots on the logic board, I discovered the video connector would be the faulty part. This would be quite logical, since I have opened up the laptop a few times for harddisk replacement and a total screen replacement. So, finally I scraped together some courage to do a baking session in the oven. Quite tricky though, since I have a gasoven, which doesn’t show the temperature in degrees, but in steps from 1 to 7. I figured out that step 4 on gasovens is about 200°C. So I preheated the oven, prepared the logic board with aluminum foil as described, and did put a bit of welding solder on baking paper next to it, to check when it would melt. This because I wasn’t sure if the oven would give an exact temperature of 200°C. Set the timer of my mobile to 7 minutes, and of I went. After 6 minutes, the solder on the baking paper was already melted. But I gave it the full time to 7 minutes before I took it out of the oven. I let it cool off for 20 minutes and then applied new Acrtic Silver 5 thermal paste. I assembled the MBP together and then came the moment of truth: would it work, or did I damaged my laptop? If the latter would be the case, I was screwed. But, luckily luckily luckily, it worked. The screen shows colors as normal. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for how long it will keep going on. In the end, I think I have damaged a few very tiny solder connections on the logic board, while taking out and putting back the display cable a couple of times.
Wow it worked! Found a guy selling his A1260 15″ Macbook Pro with “fried logic board” on local classifieds. Tried going the apple replacement way first but when that didn’t pan out I promptly went to baking. Fired right up. Thanks!
Due to overheating the battery has expanded and damaged LogicBD and top case on a MacBook Pro A1229. Garanti woun’t cover because there’s a dent on one corner . Apple policy. sic! Imagine that policy in an auto insurance. Spoke to a very nice person at Apple Support who told me < of the record > that the batteries are designed to expand rather than explode when overheating. Apparently U’re supposed to take out the battery when it is overheating and starting to expand. Is this a fact? If i’d only known.
Hey guys, I just tried this on an early 2008 MacBook Pro 15″ and I cannot believe that it totally worked, 7,5 minutes at 190 degrees celcius and the macbook came to life againt after reassembly. Thank you so much for this manual, this just cost me 3 hours but also saved me about 800 dollars of repair !! Greetings from the Netherlands
Followed your instructions to a “t”. Voila – Macbook Pro 2.4 ghz is now up and running again after being down for a month. The thing wouldn’t even get to the chime before shutting down again. Thanks for posting this – saved me hundreds of dollars.
And another one here in Sweden. Baked my MBP A1226 yesterday and it runs perfectly now. It’s been dead since januari this year but when I found this info I had to try it. I had nothing to lose…
Getting the logicboard repaired costs 2000 dollars in Sweden.
Thanks!
This post has been quite helpful, so thank you very much. I have a question or two for you, but first I’ll give you the backstory:
I have a 15 inch MBP, early 2008 model. I’ve experienced what sounds like identical symptoms to yours – my MBP essentially went comatose, seemingly on but unresponsive with a black screen – and now my MBP doesn’t boot. It powers on very briefly (only for a second or two) and I hear the sounds of the inner workings starting up but then it shuts off after a second or two. It doesn’t last long enough to reach the startup chime.
I took it to my local Apple Store and was unimpressed with the service I received there. After keeping my computer for several days and not calling me about it, I ended up just going back in and picking it up myself. I was told to replace the Logic Board. When I asked about the Nvidia issue, the Apple Genius sort of neither confirmed nor denied checking for it and mentioned that my computer wouldn’t be covered for it anyway (despite being an early 2008, 15-inch MBP, which seemed curious to me). I’m not sure why or if he even bothered checking. I have spoken to Apple’s phone support since then and they have advised me to take my computer to an AASP to get looked at for the Nvidia issue, which leads me to my question for you.
Can the Nvidia issue be diagnosed with the Logic Board in its current state? The computer doesn’t turn on long enough to even reach a startup chime, never mind run diagnostics. t asked this very issue to Apple’s customer service earlier today and he assured me that Apple’s diagnostics tests are pretty much foolproof, but I remain unconvinced. I have read elsewhere that the diagnostic test for the Nvidia issue is flawed and I have trouble believing that a software diagnostic (which it seems to be) could work on a computer that refuses to stay on for more than a few seconds. Furthermore, some of your other writing led me to believe that you have been taking your computer to be looked at when it is functioning properly in the hopes of diagnosing the Nvidia issue. If the issue can’t be diagnosed in my computer’s current state (as I suspect), I may have to resort to baking my Logic Board. I’m just trying to gather a bit more info about the subject before deciding to proceed with either baking or wasting my time running a diagnostic test that is doomed to fail.
Thanks a lot.
P.S. As I am one of those “bunch of crazy gamers out there” who has resurrected an XBOX 360 with the overheating method, I believe it can work. However, being my MBP’s logic board, I’m still slightly terrified.
P.P.S I have (had) 3 year Apple Care and it just ended 6 weeks ago. Safe to say I’m am not pleased about this.
Sounds like you have exactly the same symptoms. You should check your system according to this post to see if it falls under the Nvidia replacement policy. The bad news however, is even if it falls under the Nvidia issue, when your system fails to even boot, it is impossible for them to run the diagnostic test–which basically tries to get the chip to run an error code–but it has to be able to boot in order to do that. The other bad news is, once you have successfully baked your board and you try to bring it back in, while they will now be able to successfully run the diagnostic test, since you basically “fixed” the graphics chip, it will fail that test. So it is literally a danged if you do–danged if you don’t situation.
The good news is that I’m pretty confident your bake attempt if you follow all the steps carefully (including thermal paste) will be successful.
Surprised you had such a negative experience with your Apple Store Genius. Just so you know, after over a year and a half of baking I had taken my MBP to our Apple Store on three separate occasions and tried to get them to honor the Nvidia replacement without the test–which they honestly tried every trick they knew to get it to produce the error code (evidently there are tricks) but to no avail. One thing I know, is they appreciate it when you’re up front and honest with them about the system. In my case I told them up front about the baking–which they were always surprised that I was as successful as I was. On the final visit where I was successful in getting them to replace the board, I let them know (respectfully–yet firmly) that I was beginning to get very disappointed with Apple. After scheduling my Genius appointment, I had to reschedule it twice because work related issues came up. When I arrived only 7 min. late, they had cancelled my appointment and since I had already gone past my daily allotment of reschedules, they kindly suggested that I come back the next day. I wasn’t as kind in return, but I was careful to be respectful and not take it out on anyone personally. It won’t do you any good to try to go postal with these guys. I had also had a negative experience the day before upgrading my iPhone 4S to the then new iOS 5 update which hosed my phone and I lost several GB of photos and videos that hadn’t been backed up. I let the genius know these things and that I was not a happy camper with Apple at the moment so they went ahead and squeezed me in (but still had to wait 2 hours). When the tech finally came up to he tried (once again) every trick he knew to get it to test and to no avail (once again). Knowing my history and frustration, he graciously decided to get the logic board replacement covered for free. Now I am a happy camper. And now I will copy and paste half of this for my next blog post.
Hope that helps.
Yes!!! Currently working. Had one screw left over and a bit of foam. Had a heck of a time removing the isight and display cables. The instructions on other sites were rotate to the left, but the cables simply slide straight out. Hopefully it will last.
Hi !
Did you pre-heat your oven before you took it in for 7:30 mins ?
Thanks !
Long live for your Blog and You of course !
Yes–you definitely want to preheat your oven–and thanks!
ok I got it even better ! May I ask that for how much heat and for how much time did you pre-heat your owen ? Thanks !
hallo Russell
first let me say thanks for your very good guide.
Ive been baking the hole week, and so far 4 dead macbooks pro from 2008 have been baked and 4 is now running without any problems, 100% so far.
I still have more dead macbooks in stok and i even have a levono and a HP to, so I will be baking and testing in the furetur, alot of free fun
thanks again for passing this creazy thing around, I like
/svend
That is awesome svend.
hi again,, now i got 10 macbook pro up and running again, no break downs and no failures.
the levono did not make, and the HP is a mess inside, I thanks steven jobs for makeing a mac easy to disassemble
“I don’t f*cking believe it!!” … were the words out of both my wife’s and my mouth when the chime went off and it started up without a hitch. Baking my computer’s logic board ranks up there as one of the strangest things I’ve ever done, and I was sceptical even though it appears a lot of other people have had success. But it worked, and I thank you very much for posting such a detailed account that seemed credible enough to convince me to try it!
Thank you very very much…
This worked perfectly and I’m typing this on my MacLazarus Pro, hehe.
Greatness… lots of expletives of disbelief exited my mouth when she fired up anew!
Thanks again….
worked for me too! my mbp was 2 months beyond the 4-year warranty period for the well-known nvidia problem! replacing the motherboard would have costed me an arm and a leg. baked the motherboard at 190C for 7:30, put it all back together and voila! As I routinely service my other computers at home, I did remember to change out the old thermal paste (it was quite gray and hard)!
Thanks to Russell for the blog and to all the others who posted their stories – all of you gave me the courage, confidence and heart to bake a 1000$ piece of electronics.
Another success story here. All the same symptoms, now I’m typing this message on the newly restored macbook pro. 190*C for 7:30 minutes. New thermal paste. Hope it lasts. Apple wanted $1900 au to replace the logic board.
almost an hour ago i fixed a macbookpro… thanks for the theory i found here, but instead having put this in the oven i just run a heat blower for 5 mins around the IC’s same principle i applied when i fixed PS3 and XBOX…
thanks again….
Thanks for this Blog. Seems to have helped lots of people!
I wanted to ask you (Russell Heistuman), how long did your baked mac last?
Additional tips and advice would be great!
Thanks again
All my tips and advice are in these postings–be sure to check all of them out (search “logic board” or “baking”). The only thing I would add is if you think you’ve got a case with getting Apple to replace your board, keep bugging them–politely and respectfully, but push back and let them know that you’re unhappy with your Apple experience (not like a ranting tantrum, but be genuine) and they will at least try their hardest to take care of you and make sure you stay a happy Apple customer. As for how long my baked mac lasted–those are also in the posts. But it was a range between 3 weeks and 6 months. Usually averaged 3 or 4 months between bakes until I started to apply thermal paste–then it lasted 6 months between bakes for a total 8 bakes. The final time I was able to bring it back to the Apple Store and they replaced the board for free–even knowing all the abuse I had put it through. Hope to post that story soon–before I forget the details.
thanks for the reply. i’ve read all the comments before hand. I just wanted to find out if anyone had success by a single back. i’m gonna try to get it replaced afterwards.
Bengt A E says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
January 18, 2012 at 12:53 pm
Due to overheating the battery has expanded and damaged LogicBD and top case on a MacBook Pro A1229. Garanti woun’t cover because there’s a dent on one corner . Apple policy. sic! Imagine that policy in an auto insurance. Spoke to a very nice person at Apple Support who told me < of the record > that the batteries are designed to expand rather than explode when overheating. Apparently U’re supposed to take out the battery when it is overheating and starting to expand. Is this a fact? If i’d only known. At least now U know, don’t leave the battery in when baking. Best regards from yet another Swede and Thanks for info, tips and advice.
Reply
Man i baked once and did it according to the ‘instructions’ here but it didnt work with my macbook pro a1260. I dunno what went wrong. no i’m backing again to see if thatll help.
any ideas guys?
Without knowing more of the details of what the initial symptoms were and what solutions may have already been tried, it’s hard to say.
before baking, when i would turn on the mac, it would only light up quicly where the latch is. then it would go out. i could hear the super drive running. when i would take out the ram, the mac would beep. now after baking and reassembly, there are no signs of life. no light, no beep. but the battery still charges. thats about it.
UPDATE: I’m listening very closely to my dead MBP and i can hear some ticking/clicking when i press the power button. anyone know whats up?
It worked! Now I can go to apple and see if it gets the code to replace the re flowed logic board. Thanks for the post.
While I wouldn’t hold my breath that it will produce the code (it never did in my case and I tried four different times after baking), I would recommend going to Apple Store to have them test it just in case it does. Basically, the baking process “fixes” the Nvidia issue and it will not produce the error code. The drag is that it is only a temporary fix to get you by until the next time it fails. I would encourage you to keep at them politely, but let them know that you’re unhappy with the performance of your Apple product.
Ok, today I picked up my MBP from Apple with the new logic board installed for free! I had taken it in before I did the baking but to no avail. It wouldn’t boot up so they could not run the test for the NVidia recall. So, I came home, did exactly what you posted, then boooong! It booted right up! With it booting up and working now I was able to take it back in and they verified that the logic board was one that needed replaced. They paid for parts and labor under the recall. Over $500 worth!
Thanks for the post! I am now writing this post on the repaired computer. It works great!!
Yesterday late afternoon I refused to pay the 650 EUR to replace the logic board of my 15” MBP in a Belgian Apple store. Instead I’ve bought two screwdrivers and thermal paste… 3 hours later my macbook was up and running again!!! I went to bed with a simile on my face… Thanks a LOT!!
Hi Russel, I knew this trick existed for quite some time, but until now I used the also quite well working blanket trick. However recently it proved less and less reliable, until the point it didn’t work anymore. So I started searching for the baking trick. So far I haven’t seen too much extensive information, so I always was reluctant to try this option. But at this point I was afraid I didn’t have another option anymore. So I saw there was a lot of info now. I followed up the steps. I baked the board at 190 degrees Celsius for 7 and a half minutes and IT WORKED! Thanx for having this site with all this info. By the way Apple has great products, but their aftersales are worse than terrible. If I can buy a similar product from another company I would do that immediately. And I always advise my friends to do the same. Greetings from the Netherlands!