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User profile for user: TSuom1981
TSuom1981 Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

MacBook Pro fell on the floor - Battery, screen and fans problem

Hi everyone!


I accidentally dropped my MacBook Pro 15-inch Retina (mid-2015) a few weeks ago and since then there seem to be some problems with the battery, screen and fans.


Problem

  • Once every few days the fans will be running full speed during startup. It takes way longer to boot than normal and once I am logged in it takes forever to start up apps that run at start up (like dropbox and nordvpn) and I can't move my cursor or open any app. It doesn't matter if I restart the Macbook and reset SMC or PRAM/NVRAM or connect or disconnect the charger.
  • At one time the screen turned to black while running, flashed the boot screen with the white apple logo, then showed a grayish snow screen (like those old television sets) and then everything went back to normal.
  • There is a one-pixel vertical line that runs from the center of my screen all the way down. Sometimes it is very bright and pink, other times is is barely noticeable (tested at consistent display brightness and without 'Night shift' or F.lux app)
  • The MacBook sometimes doesn't boot and says that the battery needs to be charged, when I know it was charged up to 40% when I shut it off. Then, sometimes when it does boot, the screen goes to black once I am logged in and it is unresponsive. Only when I connect the charger cable will the display turn back on again.


I am not sure if it is related to the laptop falling on the ground because I checked the MacBook right after and it worked fine without any of the above problems for a day or two.


Troubleshooting

  • Macbook was up to date running macOS Monterey 12.6.8.
  • Once I ran into the problem of the fans running at high speed during startup and it being laggy and unresponsive I did a SMC and NVRAM/PRAM reset. This didn't help even after several attempts.
  • I checked Activity Monitor for any strange apps, but it was mostly kernel_task using up most of the CPU.
  • I removed the bottom plate and disconnected and inspected all the visible connectors (battery, touchpad, screen, fans etc.) and removed the SSD and fans. I cleaned out any dust from the fans and the vents in the aluminum housing. Then I reconnected everything and double checked. Everything looked fine. The battery didn't look bloated.
  • I inspected the screen and laptop housing but there aren't any external cracks or dents or anything.
  • I restarted the Macbook and the fans didn't go turbo-turbo mode and it booted perfectly. All the apps opened instantly and it ran perfectly.
  • Then the next day I wanted to start up the Macbook and the battery died. So I connected the charger and checked my battery health. That looked fine. Did a check with Battery Health, see the screenshot attached to the bottom of the post.
  • I decided to do a battery recalibration and reset the SMC again before charging completely to 100% + 2 hours. Then drained the battery completely to 0%. And recharged again. This didn't seem to do the trick as in the following days it happened again.
  • When during a startup the fans were running at max rpm again I did a Apple Diagnostics check (holding 'D' on startup) to see if maybe there were hardware problems, like fault codes for the fans or anything. According to the diagnostics everything is in healthy condition and there are no problems.


What worked

  • The only thing that seems to work when the fans run at full speed during startup is to remove the bottom plate and disconnect the battery cable and reconnect. The MacBook boots fine after that for a day or 2.
  • When I also remove the SSD, wait for 5 minutes and reinsert, the vertical line seems to fade (it is barely visible) for a while. Like the fans, it will come back eventually.


I've considered replacing the battery, but since the battery has an adhesive which needs to be completely removed, I am hesitant to buy a new battery and find out that's not the problem. I am okay with troubleshooting the logic board with the aid of a multimeter, but don't have the expertise as where to start.


Any help is much appreciated!



Posted on Nov 5, 2023 11:43 AM

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8 replies
User profile for user: Grant Bennet-Alder
Grant Bennet-Alder
User level: Level 10
127,711 points

Nov 5, 2023 5:37 PM in response to TSuom1981

You have some serious problems on that computer.


NordVPN or any VPN you installed yourself has no place on your already well-protected Macintosh computer running reasonably recent MacOS. it actually Decreases your protections dramatically.


DropBox (being ported from another operating system) in its default mode punishes performance by searching brute force, non stop for files that need to be sync-ed. You should run it only long enough to sync a new file, the quit it. if you could get by with Apple File syncing, it uses the Mac File System Event Store to determine instantly what files need to be backup op or synchronized.


Battery recalibration has not been recommended for Mac batteries for quite some time, For Lithium Polymer batteries, it just shortens their life, rather dramatically.


You CAN"T troubleshoot the logic board with a Multi-meter. Yours starts and runs, it does not have broken wire traces (which is all you can find with a meter). Even a logic analyzer is nearly useless, because there is a three-level cache from memory to the CPU.


<<. According to the diagnostics everything is in healthy condition and there are no problems. >>


Answer: Then just keep using it until the wheels fall off.


Batteries for your model are about to become un-available from Apple. The third-party batteries you can buy are generally Garbage.

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User profile for user: HWTech
HWTech
User level: Level 9
56,048 points

Nov 5, 2023 6:01 PM in response to TSuom1981

It is really hard to say, but obviously the LCD Panel on your built-in Display suffered damage as evidenced by the thin vertical line. The visibility of this line will be affected by the colors on the screen around the line. Some colors will hide the line while others will make the line more visible, plus there is a possibility the line may be intermittent due to movement of the display.


Your battery is definitely nearing the end of its life since the Battery's Full Charge Capacity (FCC) is at 78%. For some people this is still fine, while for others it may not. Also, when an Apple battery's FCC gets near 78% and with a higher Cycle Count, there is a possibility a battery cell could start developing issues, but this is not always easy to notice. This is when there has been no damage, but an impact shock like this laptop suffered can easily cause damage to the battery....again it may not be easily noticed.


An impact can sometimes even cause solder joints to crack on one of the boards. It is kind of rare for this to happen, but I have seen it happen once in a while when I've actually seen a component cracked or even fallen off a board. This type of issue is nearly impossible to detect since it could be very a very minuscule crack.


The fact that the fans are running at high speed for no apparent reason usually indicates one of the temperature sensors is not communicating.


Unfortunately there is no good way to figure it out on these Retina model laptops without being able to at least swap in a known good battery which is not easy to do for this model as you have noted. All things being equal, the battery is usually the weakest link. In fact some of the symptoms match a bad battery. When there is a battery issue with a Retina laptop, it can cause them to run very slowly, plus if the battery temperature sensor is not seen, then the fans will run at high speed. I guess you could try using MacsFanControl to monitor the temperature sensor to see if one of them is reporting a bad value or goes missing completely when the fans run at high speed. I recommend taking a screenshot of the sensors when the laptop is working correctly so that you can verify whether all sensors are displaying when the fans run at high speed. These apps don't always list all sensors, but may only list the sensors they detect, so it is good to know the baseline.


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User profile for user: TSuom1981
TSuom1981 Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

Nov 6, 2023 11:58 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

@Grant Bennet-Alder Thank you for taking the time to reply and sharing your thoughts.


Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

NordVPN or any VPN you installed yourself has no place on your already well-protected Macintosh computer running reasonably recent MacOS. it actually Decreases your protections dramatically.

Based on your statement I assume you don't trade crypto and nfts on your Mac.


Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

DropBox (being ported from another operating system) in its default mode punishes performance by searching brute force, non stop for files that need to be sync-ed. You should run it only long enough to sync a new file, the quit it. if you could get by with Apple File syncing, it uses the Mac File System Event Store to determine instantly what files need to be backup op or synchronized.

I use DropBox for business and unfortunately need to have it active all the time for synchronization between multiple devices and teammembers. Will look into Apple File syncing, never heard of that before.


Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

Battery recalibration has not been recommended for Mac batteries for quite some time, For Lithium Polymer batteries, it just shortens their life, rather dramatically.

I understand. However, a MacBook shutting down at 30-50% isn't optimal. So as suggested in some posts I read online I thought resetting the battery might do the trick.


Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

You CAN"T troubleshoot the logic board with a Multi-meter. Yours starts and runs, it does not have broken wire traces (which is all you can find with a meter). Even a logic analyzer is nearly useless, because there is a three-level cache from memory to the CPU.

The reason I mentioned this is because I read a topic of someone who was troubleshooting different sensors on his logic board with a multimeter and detected the problem that way. Like HWTech mentioned, it might be due a failing sensor (like the temperature sensor) that some of the problems occur.


Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

Batteries for your model are about to become un-available from Apple. The third-party batteries you can buy are generally Garbage.

Thanks, will see if I can get my hands on a low mileage used model or find a new Apple battery somewhere.

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User profile for user: TSuom1981
TSuom1981 Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

Nov 6, 2023 12:11 PM in response to HWTech

@HWTech Thank you, those are some helpful insights.


HWTech wrote:

It is really hard to say, but obviously the LCD Panel on your built-in Display suffered damage as evidenced by the thin vertical line. The visibility of this line will be affected by the colors on the screen around the line. Some colors will hide the line while others will make the line more visible, plus there is a possibility the line may be intermittent due to movement of the display.

That makes perfect sense.


HWTech wrote:

Your battery is definitely nearing the end of its life since the Battery's Full Charge Capacity (FCC) is at 78%.

I figured this was the case and can see how the shock might have damaged the battery as well.


HWTech wrote:

An impact can sometimes even cause solder joints to crack on one of the boards. It is kind of rare for this to happen, but I have seen it happen once in a while when I've actually seen a component cracked or even fallen off a board. This type of issue is nearly impossible to detect since it could be very a very minuscule crack.

This is what I thought. I have had some problems with cracks soldering in my previous MacBook Pro, the GPU was prone to overheating which created cracks in the soldering. The only way to fix that was to take out the logic board and shove it into the oven to resolder all the connections. Fun times. It did work though.


Would it be possible to check if the sensor is faulty?


HWTech wrote:

Unfortunately there is no good way to figure it out on these Retina model laptops without being able to at least swap in a known good battery which is not easy to do for this model as you have noted. All things being equal, the battery is usually the weakest link.

I don't mind replacing the battery. I don't think it's a particularly difficult repair. It's just that if it wasn't confirmed that the battery was near its end, it wouldn't be worth the hassle. I will order a new battery and do some tests with MacsFanControl.


Thanks again.


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User profile for user: TSuom1981
TSuom1981 Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

Nov 10, 2023 2:54 PM in response to TSuom1981

Small update:

Bought a new battery and connected it to troubleshoot; it boots perfectly. Ran several tests, rebooted the MacBook several times, but it seems to be working fine again. No fans running max speed, no lagging and all apps start up right away. I did try to troubleshoot the battery by disconnecting it and trying to boot it on the adapter before I ordered the new battery, but the MacBook just wouldn't boot. On my old 13 inch Pro I could just disconnect the battery and boot it solely on the adapter. Might it have to do anything with the adapter (85W) not being powerful enough to bypass the battery?


Anyhow, will do some more testing and despite the fact that the pink line is still visible (that will be because of the drop and damage of the screen/screen cable) I am happy that it boots again and seems to be working well.


If anything comes up again, I will update here.

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MacBook Pro fell on the floor - Battery, screen and fans problem

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