Possible Solutions for a Macbook that Fails to Boot

Do not do anything to your A1181 MacBook until you have read all of the following post and have further explored the issues at other websites.     

All things must pass. Even Macbooks die.  Before selling yours as spare parts, make sure you have tried everything.  Exhaust as many resources on the net that your patience allows in  your search for a solution.   Sure as eggs I don’t know everything.  

One thing is for sure though. If your A1181 Macbook is under any form of warranty, including PayPal buyer protection, do not attempt any disassembly of the unit that requires the removal of screws. Even if you are tempted to just reseat the ram. Contact the seller and discuss the matter first.

There is a specific hazard with the A1181 Macbook: It is possible to foul the keyboard cable with a ram slot when inserting ram sticks. If this happens it is possible to jam the keyboard cable into a ram slot as you insert the ram stick. When current flows through the fouled ram slot, the ram slot is killed. Do not use any more than slight force when inserting ram into the ram slots. Hold the keyboard cable clear of the ram slot with an antistatic stick (called a splunger.)

Caution: one of the steps below requires the removal of Ram. Place removed Ram on anti static film. Do not touch the metal connectors on the Ram.

You press the power button and nothing happens:

Does your battery have power? Does your magsafe power adaptor light up when connected to the Macbook? If yes continue with the resets below (when rebooting, wait for the magsafe connector to light up before pressing the power button).

Try resetting the nvram

See http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379 

Try resetting the SMU

See http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964

Is a faulty ram stick or ram slot preventing boot up?

Try booting with only one ram stick inserted, swapping the ram stick from each ram slot. Then try it with the other ram stick.  Be careful to avoid fouling the keyboard cable with the ram slot.

If  the machine still refuses to boot, remove both ram sticks and reboot.

The machine should detect the total absence of ram and you should hear strident alert beeps. The sleep light should flash on and off insistently. 

It you do not hear the alert beeps, I believe this points to three options:

Your logic board is dead.  Your internal speaker does not work.  Your top case is faulty and the power button is, as a result, not working. Place the ram back into the Mac.

Before considering removing the top case, there is one thing left to try.

If a hard drive is faulty, it may stop the mac from booting at all. Try removing the hard drive. Reboot with no hard drive present in the machine.  If the machine boots to a white screen or the flashing folder icon screen, at least you know another hard drive is needed.

If during the process of attempting to boot your machine you see the light flashing, you know at least that there is some hope.

If you have a problem in the graphics system, the built in monitor may remain dark. In this case, the machine might have actually booted and you may not know. Try using an external video adapter and an external monitor.

If your built in display does not work but an external monitor does, and if the macbook does boot up, the unit has some use. Changing the display invertor is about the only economic step to be taken in the case of a dead screen. Doing this will not solve all possible screen failure issues.

If you are at the point where you have tried every suggestion here and the machine still will not boot,  take the battery out, remove the power adapter and put the Macbook aside for a couple of days. Try again to boot the Mac. If it still fails to boot, think about trying another top case.

The A1181 Macbook top case contains the power button, the keyboard and trackpad. It contains a chip that is connected to the logic board via the top case cable.  If a fault in the top case or cable exists, it may prevent the power button from working.

Removing the top case is not very difficult, but it is important to know where all the screws are and which screw goes where. The removal procedure is described at IFixit and PowerBook Medic. It is critical that the screws go back into their correct positions.

Obtaining a guaranteed used or new top case is not expensive or difficult for the A1181 MacBook. The trouble is, there is no guarantee that the top case is the cause of the failure to boot. There is a way of attempting to boot from the logic board.  If you are unfamiliar with this, perhaps leave it alone. If you touch the wrong things on the logic board, the chance of making the situation worse than it already is. If the machine boots from the power pads on the logic board but not from the power button on the top case,  then a replacement top case or cable is required. I would just get a used top case with cable fitted.

Attempting to boot an A1181 Macbook with the top case removed is covered here:  http://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/75620/MacBook+won't+boot+at+all

Do not give up too easily. There are many forums and sites available which offer suggestions.

I think that often a MacBook fails to boot because of an inbuilt protection against a faulty component. It seems to me that old and faulty hard drives which draw too much current at boot up are sensed and the boot sequence is prevented. I believe this protection against faulty components is one of the functions of the SMU unit.

A faulty top case/ keyboard cable is a common cause of failure to boot. But try the simple things before swapping top cases.

Another possibility is a faulty DC in board. If your magsafe power connector does not light up at all when connected to the Macbook, a faulty DC in board is a possibility.  Swapping this board is a complex job.

If you are not familiar with top case removal, think carefully about whether you really want to it. Look for a very cheap known dead A1181 Macbook to practice take apart procedures on. When you are confident, work on the machine you are attempting to revive.  Watching the following video several times helps:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZQ96V3nOiE

Do not loose any screws. Don’t start work until you have the right tools and containers to hold each type of screw. The screws removed from the front edge of the inside of the battery include a mixture of slightly different sizes.  As you remove them, keep them in order. Put each one back in the right sequence on re assembly. If they get muddled up, it greatly slows down re assembly. Due to the MacBook's magnetic latch,  and due to the angle you have work the screwdriver at, it pays to have a magnetic screwdriver.  Keep it well clear of the hard drive.

Best of luck.  Only do it once you have a viable plan in case you stuff it up. Like buying another laptop. Which would likely be the outcome if you didn’t attempt it anyway.  

At the end of all this, if nothing so far has worked, we are still at the diagnosis stage.  Nothing is certain. The average life of a laptop is about 5 years. The average laptop has a hard life. Most do not last a very long time.   Hopefully one of the steps above has solved your problem.  In some cases though, the fact is the MacBook may be dead. 

Do not proceed with any disassembly until you have spent time researching the issues at several forum and technical sites. Do not just take my word for it. Confirm the information from at least two other sources. 

The biggest killers of laptops are heat and physical shock.

Next: Heat. CPUs sometimes hot enough to boil water bolted to a plastic case and reliant on aging thermal grease, heat sinks that come loose and standard fan speed settings.  

Solution to a Dead Internal Optical Drive

I believe the easiest and cheapest solution to the problem of a dead A1181 Macbook internal optical drive is the purchase of a new external optical drive. Various issues arise from this choice.

They include:

 1. While A1181 Macbook usb ports supply sufficient current to power external reading of discs, they do not supply sufficient current to power external burning of discs in a usb powered drive. The work around is given below.

 2. Apple’s DVD Player software requires the presence of an internal Apple optical drive to work. If the internal drive has been removed, or if the internal drive has failed in a such way that the MacBook system fails to recognize the presence of the drive, you cannot use “DVD Player” to play DVD movies from an external drive without additional software. The work around is given below.

3. Where independence from a wall socket is not important, a mains powered, full size external optical drive, firewire or usb or both, is the best option. In my opinion, they last longer, their internals can replaced cheaply and they are more robust than slim line usb powered drives.

 4. Purchasing both types of external optical drive might be wise if you burn a lot of discs and need portable reading of discs. The units can be surprisingly cheap.

 5. Apple’s imposition of “Supported Drives” which renders various direct burning functions useless unless you have a valid, “supported” drive. The work around is given below.

 Work Arounds

Burning with a usb powered slim line external optical drive. If you choose to use an external usb powered slim line optical drive, and you need to burn discs with it, use a powered hub. Such hubs have power supplies that plug into a wall socket. This enables the external drive to reliably burn DVD and CD discs. If you choose the type of usb powered external drive which uses two usb leads or “two into one” leads, then when burning discs, one lead goes to the powered hub, the other goes direct to the MacBook. The powered hub in this case (and this case only) does not need to be plugged into the Macbook’s usb port. It’s just a power source, not a data source, in this setting. One model of usb powered external DVD/CD drive which uses a “Two into one” usb lead is the Samsung SE-20AB. 

Any usb or firewire full size external optical drive is worth considering where portability is not required.

What to do when Apple’s “DVD Player” software won’t load.
 Use VLC media player to watch DVD movies. It is just as good as DVD Player, and it is free here: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html

Buying a new or used A1181 Macbook internal optical drive and fitting it is of course possible. It is not the way I would go though. A modern external drive will allow faster burn and read speeds, and has far greater tolerance of cheap or damaged discs than the now dated original internal Apple optical drives fitted to A1181 Macbooks.

 To be clear, the A1181 MacBook has low current output usb ports. These usb ports will not supply the current needed to burn discs in an external usb powered burner. You need either a powered hub or a mains powered burner for this. The A1181 MacBook is very different to the MacBook Air in this regard. The usb powered external DVD burners sold as MacBook Air compatible will need powered hubs if used as burners with A1181 MacBooks.

 Out of Region DVDs
 Try to avoid playing out of region movie DVD discs on your computer. Only a limited number of region code changes are permitted. Apple explains it this way: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2397 Quote: “You can change the region setting up to 5 times, as indicated in the dialog box. On the fifth time, the drive is permanently set to use that region, and you cannot make any more changes. For example, imagine you have both a Region 1 and Region 2 DVD-Video disc. You insert the Region 1 disc and DVD Player is now set to play only Region 1 discs. You insert the Region 2 disc, and set the drive to play only Region 2 discs. If you continue to switch between the discs, on the fifth time the DVD drive is permanently set to use the region of that disc.” Source: Apple Support. This issue is industry wide and applies, in some form or another to all OEM computer dvd drives. If you wish to explore region free DVD conversion in the Mac environment, perhaps start here: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1774850 The thread explores various issues surrounding macs, external drives and region coding.

  Opinion – “Apple Supported Drives” Macs need “Supported Drives” in order to burn from direct from programs and from the OSX burn folder. Personally I have never bothered with burning discs in this way. I have always disliked the internal drives Macs come with. I dislike slot loading drives particularly. For routine stuff, I burn to “no brand” discs I buy from Cheap as Chips. Apple drives either spit these out as half burnt coasters or reject them altogether. So I have always used an external burner. When a disc gets stuck in an Apple slot loader, you can spend hours trying to get it out. It’s a subject in itself. E.g. : https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2373587?start=0&tstart=0 Poor Dave. There are two options not mentioned in the replies to his stuck disc issue. The old gravity and acceleration trick and “buy an external drive Dave.” The kit you need is simple, dead drive or not. Roxio Toast 10 or similar burning program and any half decent external drive. Roxio Toast “supports” any burner on the planet.

If your external optical drive does not show on the Mac: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4286317?start=0&tstart=0 There is no need to load any driver software when you attach an external optical drive to your Mac.

Next: Attempting to boot an apparently dead A1181 Macbook.

Introduction

Aim

 The aim of this blog is to assist owners of the Apple MacBook model A1181. The content of this blog consists of my opinions, beliefs and knowledge. It also consists of portions of the knowledge entered into the public domain by Apple and other organizations and individuals. These external sources are credited and often linked to in this blog.


An A1181 MacBook. They also came in Black. (Photo Source: everymac.com)

Background 

The A1181 MacBook had a long production life and continues to provide many people with reliable and affordable computing. These machines continue to  age.

Many people buy used Macbooks and need to orientate to the Apple environment for the first time.  It is a different environment to the Windows world. Things are different.

Everyone in the Windows world, for example, has some idea of the BIOS screen on a Windows computer.  Apple computers do not have a BIOS screen. They have other, resettable facilities instead.

For example, here's an Apple forum post in which a person is asking how to "reset the BIOS" on his Apple machine so he could boot from an external drive:  https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3748878?start=0&tstart=0

There are many such facilities which the new user needs to know about. Such knowledge becomes critical when the Macbook refuses to boot because it needs its "SMC" reset. The Mac may play dead until this simple reset is performed. Apple explains the SMC reset at this support page: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964  There are other critical routines to know about. It pays to explore the Apple support pages and to explore the Mac forums.

 There are a number of things one can try in an attempt to revive even an apparently dead A1181 MacBook. Most of the possible routines do not involve taking the machine apart. Most of them are evidence of the intelligent design embodied within the A1181 MacBook.

 I am not a tech. Just an Apple user. These are some of the things I have found and experienced. Some of the things I know, some of the things I believe. I hope it helps you.

Identifying your MacBook 

Apple produced the A1181 MacBook from 2006 until October 2009. At that time the A1181 MacBook was replaced by the A1342 MacBook (The Polycarbonate “Unibody”).

(An Aluminum “Unibody” MacBook was introduced in October 2008 and discontinued in June 2009, being sold alongside the A1181 MacBook). This blog is devoted the A1181, (polycarbonate, Black or White), fitted with the Intel Core Duo or Core 2 Duo processor.

 Some of the opinions and knowledge contained here will apply to any MacBook, and indeed to any Mac. Some of it, however, will not.

 Over the years the specifications of the A1181 changed and improved. The model identifier of each series of MacBook changed as a result. To fix a Macbook, you often need to know which A1181 MacBook a particular machine is. There are no visual clues. The A1181 MacBook model identifiers are as follows:
From May 2006: 1,1
From November 2006: 2,1
From November 2007: 3,1
From February 2008: 4,1
From October 2008: 4,2
From January 2009: 5,2
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook - this is a good page to read, particularly if you are considering buying a used Macbook of any kind.

Sometimes the specifications changed without a corresponding change being made to the model identifier.

"System Profiler" Identifies your MacBook

You can find the model identifier of your MacBook by clicking on the Apple symbol on the top left hand side of the upper task bar. From the drop down menu which appears, select “About this Mac”. From within the box which appears, select “More Info”. You have opened “System Profiler”.
The “Hardware Overview” Screen appears. The second item listed is the “Model Identifier”. While you are on this page of System Profiler, note down your machine’s serial number, which is the 12th item on the list.

Using the Model Identifier and Serial Number

 Enter “MacBook” followed by your model identifier in your internet browser search box. Eg. “MacBook 4,1” (or whatever yours is.) From the search results, select the EveryMac site listing. You should now be at the EveryMac “Lookup” page. Follow the instructions and enter the portion of your serial number required into the EveryMac search box and hit return. A full description of your machine is given.

Pinning down the exact part your Macbook might need

While the cost of new parts is probably prohibitive, good second hand parts are available from excellent suppliers in many countries. Parts can also be found on eBay and other online sources. Brand new but non genuine sourced parts, mainly from China, can be good buys. (When a new battery is required, a genuine Apple battery is definitely worth the money however. The quality of non genuine batteries is very variable. Some dodgy ones can damage your MacBook. A used genuine MacBook battery is often better than a new non genuine battery. More on batteries later.)

The internal components of the A1181 MacBook changed over the years and some parts are not interchangeable between all the model series. Two sites which are very useful in giving the exact part number required for a specific MacBook model series are IFixit at http://www.ifixit.com/Device/MacBook and Powerbook Medic at http://www.powerbookmedic.com/

The IFixit page explains why identifying your Macbook is difficult: “The MacBook is the most difficult Apple laptop to identify. While the MacBook Air and MacBook Unibody are easy to distinguish, differentiating between the plastic MacBooks is challenging. Unfortunately, Apple printed the same model number on all machines, regardless of their internal configuration. Even if you think you know exactly which MacBook you have, a quick trip through the laptop identification system can't hurt.” – Source: IFixit.

The difficulty is matched by the importance of buying the right part. Some parts are interchangeable between each A1181 model series, some are not. If you assume you know the specific MacBook model series you have without checking, you will probably be wrong.

 The A1181 (Core Duo, Core 2 Duo) Macbooks are like the old VW Beetle. At least with the old Beetle, a trained eye could tell the model year by looking at the door handle type in combination the tail light size and window size. There are no such visual clues for the A1181 Macbook. They all look the same, but there are significant internal differences.

Given that top cases (the keyboard/palm rest units) are often changed as they fail, (more about that later) there is no guarantee that the model identifiers printed on the topcase underside (seen inside the battery bay when the battery is removed)  actually refer to the machine they are fitted to. Go by the System Profiler information first. This reports what the machine actually is. Take that information and use it at EveryMac, IFixit or Powerbook Medic to Identify your MacBook and the parts you might need.

OSX Versions and Your Macbook

Every Mac user has a preferred version of OSX. Some people have to have the very latest. Some people still use Tiger. Some people have expensive applications in versions which run only on earlier versions of the Apple OSX operating system.

 On the other hand,  each series of the A1181 MacBook has a “minimum” and “maximum” (earliest, latest) version of OSX which it can handle. Knowing which versions of OSX your machine can work with is important. It is pointless buying applications software which require OSX Mountain Lion if your machine cannot not handle Mountain Lion, for example. One site which lists every Mac made and which gives the maximum and minimum OSX version for each machine is http://apple-history.com/ At this page, choose the model year of your Macbook in the “year" column. For example, let’s choose the very first Macbook, the 2006 model. The listing under “Essentials” for this early machine states: “Minimum OS: 10.4.6 Maximum OS: 10.6.8” This early machine will happily run with the given versions of Tiger (10.4), Leopard (10.5) and Snow Leopard. But it will not run from Lion or Mountain Lion. So, if you have this first model MacBook, the Mountain Lion compatible version of Final Cut Pro, for example, is not for you.

It is quite impressive that the early Intel Macs can run an Operating system as late as Snow Leopard. This forward compatibility is a hallmark of Apple computers.

Before you buy software, make sure the software is compatible with your machine and your version of OSX. If you want or need to upgrade your version of OSX, make sure your machine can handle it. Experimentation may reveal that a particular machine may successfully run a particular version of OSX even when the information indicates, in theory, that it won’t. Such cases are rare.

When you upgrade your version of OSX, make sure your existing applications software is compatible with it. Before you upgrade your version of OSX, make a bootable clone of your primary drive. Do this just in case you discover your needed applications software won’t work with the new version of OSX and you need to revert to your previous configuration. Making a bootable clone drive is very easy on a Mac. I use this: http://www.bombich.com/ - Carbon Copy Cloner. Another opinions about Carbon Copy Cloner in comparison to Apple’s Time Machine are found here: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1169769

If your old version of OSX does not include Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner is one answer. I use Carbon Copy Cloner out of habit even though I now have Time Machine via Snow Leopard.

You can put more than one version of OSX on your machine. Simply create multiple partitions on your hard drive and install the versions of OSX required and which are compatible with your machine.

As OSX contains security features which are updated with each later version, it pays to use the latest version of OSX that you have when using the internet. To ensure your version of OSX is as updated as possible, run “Software Update” regularly. Pick and choose the updates you want, but include all Java and Security updates. (Software Update: Click Apple Symbol, Left Hand Side  top task bar > drop down menu> select “Software Update” when connected to the internet.)

Java updates for Apple are very important. Missing a Java update may mean that months later you have to hunt the Apple site for a required update in order to run a new piece of applications software.

Here is an example of an Apple Java Security Update for Lion available for free at the Apple site: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5242



Next: Solutions for a dead optical drive.