Baking a MacBook Pro Logic Board Video
This was too awesome to pass up. A link to this video was posted in the comments section of my blog post Cooking The Books (or Baking my MacBook Pro Logic Board) by Roland who’s IP showed him from Montreal. He did an awesome job putting together this accelerated video (on his revived MBP) that compresses the whole experience into a little over four minutes that’s made even more entertaining by a nice soundtrack: Right Here, Right Now by Fatboy Slim.
Roland is now one of at least 15 people that have commented on my blog posts alone (up to at least the writing of this post) that have successfully baked their logic boards. Only one person has experienced anything like a fail, but there were other indications that it wasn’t the same exact issue that I had originally posted about.
I hope to post again excerpts of some of the success stories for more encouragement and also possibly something to show Apple that they need to rethink their policy in expanding these symptoms to the Nvidia 8600M issue or creating a whole new category. Normal users shouldn’t be expected to have to go through this trouble to repair something that wasn’t their fault to begin with.
My MBP is Officially Hexed—But There’s Hope!
It took me awhile to get this posted. Not sure if it was the fact that I’ve had an incredibly busy month or that I was just tired (it is getting a little old) of posting how many times I’ve had to bake my MacBook Pro now—six for anyone whose counting (hence the clever “hexed” title). I’m getting more than a little self-conscious about mentioning it now, specially when you read further and find out how my n00bness has more than likely contributed to this multi-bake syndrome. I’m really only posting this for the benefit of those who will experience the same issue or similar and that they might avoid my fate—so read on.
Pentabulous! Fifth MBP Bake Successful
I’m sure for most of you this is getting old (so just buy a new Mac already!). But for me, my investment is being stretched past three years (next month) and I’m still holding out an outside hope that Apple may have a change of heart and decide to include this symptom in the Nvidia case and I’ll get the logic board replaced free and be able to pass it on down to my progeny. I know the symptom is pretty common because this site gets quite a bit of traffic based upon baking a MacBook Pro and this model (A1261) in particular. For those of you that are looking at the possibility of baking your logic board, if you haven’t already, check out the previous articles I’ve posted, specifically beginning with Cooking the Books.
Back to the point of this post–on January 31st, after slightly over four months of up-time (which has been the longest time by a month so far), and right in the middle of huge web launch deadline, my MBP refused to wake up that Friday morning. This time, for the first time, with no peripherals attached when put to sleep by closing the lid–so that kinda blew my peripherals-affecting-the-sleep-mode theory. I went to work going through the now very familiar process of tearing down, baking and putting it all back together. It can be noted that just the weekend before, I finally upgraded to Snow Leopard OSX 10.6.6 from 10.5.8 and upgraded my original 250GB hard drive to 500GB. I don’t think that had anything to do with the last failure, as it was working swimmingly that whole week, but it’s worth noting.
The encouraging news for anybody who has made the commitment or about to make the commitment to bake their logic board, is that in this case, my board has been baked successfully five times. Of course, that is all contingent upon your definition of encouragement.
Here are the (now four) previous MBP Baking Series articles:
Cooking the Books (or, Baking My MacBook Pro Logic Board)
Twice-Baked Mother Board (or Refried Logic of my MacBook Pro)
Ooops! I Baked It Again. (3rd Time!)
It’s Officially a Quad-Baked MacBook Pro (4 Times and Counting)
You can tell I’m running out of steam for creative titles. Next will be something to do with Hexes I’m sure.
Ooops! I Baked It Again. (3rd Time!)
In the ongoing saga of trying to keep my MacBook Pro alive long enough to replace it, I just had to bake the logic board again. For those of you that are keeping score or just curious about how many times a MacBook Pro motherboard can be yanked out and baked and put back in and still work again—so far, we’re at three now. The bad news is, where the first bake lasted three months, this last re-bake (or re-fry or whatever) has lasted only one month and four days. So, replacement time is coming on quicker than I was hoping! For details of the logic board baking process I used, read about my first Cooking the Books article or the second, Twice-Baked Motherboard. For the differences I did this time, read on…
Twice-Baked Mother Board (or Refried Logic of my MacBook Pro)
Wondering what pairs best with a refried MacBookPro logic board? Well, just in case you were, my suggestion would be a 2008 Viognier from Coeur d’Alene Cellars (full-disclosure: they are a client of mine and they keep me supplied). I would also recommend as an après-bake maybe a Merlot. I happened to have the remains of a 2007 Hogue Genesis Merlot that filled in quite nicely. I needed it as I was In the process of baking my MBP logic board for the second time.
This is a follow-up article to my 4/27/10 Cooking The Books post for those who might be wondering how long a baked mother board lasts…
