Macbook (early 2015) logic board failed

Just wanted to note that some companies do BGA rework for Apple products. It only helps if there's something like a bad/marginal solder connection or maybe if it's easy enough to find the exact part. I have no financial interest in this, but I found this company as an example of someone claiming to do this:

https://www.rossmanngroup.com/boards/forum/tools/22118-bga-rework-a-brave-new-wo rld

https://www.rossmanngroup.com/board-repair/

Apple said replace the entire board. Need a better solution?

We will repair your existing logic board for a flat rate of $325-$425 in 2-5 business days. You only pay the repair fee if we can fix your board.

This guy seems to do the complete job including disassembly and putting it all back together, although I'm not sure what happens if it can't be repaired. Would it be put back together again or returned in pieces?

Some of these parts are custom made for Apple, so nobody isn't going to be selling them. Mostly the issues would be something like a solder joint that's broken or marginal, and they might just do something as simple as reheating the package to get the solder to re-flow. Or maybe if that can't be done, "re-balling" the packages and then reattaching them.

I've heard of production prototypes going through rework. I think I also mentioned non-production prototype boards that use ZIF sockets. One of those sockets is thicker than a current MacBook (including the display) so I doubt they're going to be using them.

On the used sites there is this one MacBook-2015-Logic-Board-c-5849.html&pltid=9ts7e9b8n98sbt7ka89qt73v76 and this one http://www.powerbookmedic.com/xcart1/home.php?cat=821 that I know of that are reliable . That is if you just want the part and do the labor yourself . Those parts are from used MacBooks but are warrantied to work . Sometimes you can catch some good deals .

It's unlikely you can find one for such a recent machine. Apple does not sell parts. Until they become obsolete a repair requires a part exchange in order to prevent a market in parts for a non-obsolete model.

Another example of apples degrading quality, sad but true in my experience with 40 laptops and desktops. The older system ran and ran, the next generation is disposable as paper towels IMO.

There 3rd party vendors who repair items to the component level. Cost will be probably $200-400

As for recommending one, I can not. But I'd look at a track record and who warranty work.

There is a software apple has that can tell you which components are bad, but most repair people don't have it...***. Most of the Techs without the tools they need can only point to the board, which is much more costly.

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mdbechtel wrote:

I have consistently had excellent experience with all 5 laptops, a Mac Pro, and iPhones during the last 10 years to the extent I never saw the need to pay for Apple Care. I have also always upgraded hardware and repaired my laptops (i.e. refinishing heat sinks or replacing fans) myself. It had been my strategy to sell my older high functioning machines while their value was still high to fund the next machine. I need that for the software I run.

Sadly, this is increasingly less possible since Apple has made design choices that compromise repairability. Furthermore, it appears the company is actively opposed to affordable means for their customers to repair and extend the life of their products, and I'm not referring to the iPhone controversy.

http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/05/18/fair-repair-act-proposal-in-new-york-u nder-fire-by-apple-lobbyists

I know it's frustrating. However, as an engineer in the electronics industry and as someone who has been using electronics and looked "under the hood" many times, what we're seeing now generally makes sense. A lot of the functions that used come from a separate CPU are merged into a single chip these days. There are a ton of design decisions made to increase general reliability for the expected useful life, to lower costs, and make a more compact device - but where ultimate longevity may be sacrificed. They're taking the lessons they've learned making iPhones, iPads, and other small devices that generally can't be upgraded, and using that to make a ridiculously thin notebook computer by squeezing out every last bit of space that isn't needed.

These forums have lots of people coming to diagnose issues where a connector of some kind failed. So going to permanent connections generally improves the reliability. I remember with my 2007 white MacBook, sometimes the hard drive wouldn't operate, and I could trace it to the connector being separated. It was really easy to pull out the hard drive (through the battery compartment) but that was also a possible failure point. The manufacturer doesn't necessarily have an easy time with all these soldered components. When they do a final system test (including a boundary scan test for connections) if one small component on a board fails, it typically makes sense to scrap the entire board, because it's too much work to try to remove a package and place a new one, not to mention that it might not be reliable. I've heard of "BGA rework", but it's typically for very expensive prototype boards where getting a new board is difficult or there isn't enough time.

If you look at an old computer such as an Apple II, there are expansion cards, and the main board is populated with dual-inline chips (mostly TTL) in sockets that anyone with a chip puller could extract and pull. Back then it might be able to diagnose a single chip failure and replace it with an equivalent part. However, that was also a source of failures since there had to be a solder connection to the socket and the socket itself could be a possible failure point. My first computer was an Apple //c, and by then they had miniaturized a lot of the parts by combining them. Most of the parts were directly soldered to the board, which actually made it more reliable at the cost of ease of repairability. However, it could be repaired with someone handy with a soldering iron and a solder remover. It also didn't come with expansion slots (used serial ports) or any factory-authorized means of expanding RAM (but it had 128 KB), although there were some aftermarket companies selling RAM through some strange rig that sat on top of the board.

At this point the current MPB is an "appliance" that the manufacturer has designed such that it can't be tinkered and to some degree can't be repaired. If you look at the board of a new Retina MacBook, most of the major components are in BGA packages that have to be baked to get the solder balls to flow.

Retina MacBook 2017 Teardown - iFixit

I suppose the most frustrating thing for many is that the SSD can't be replaced given that any SSD is bound to wear out. Well physically it can, but getting it to work is another matter. As far as this 2017 MacBook example goes, it has two 128 GB NAND flash packages and a 128 MB flash package. I'm not sure exactly what's the latter is used for, but my guess is that it's the firmware, including possibly the SSD controller firmware. Getting that firmware right is the tricky part, as the SSD controller would be keeping track of all sorts of things (such as wear leveling, self-diagnostics, etc), and just substituting new flash packages isn't going to cause it to reset to like-new status.

I've said in other posts that perhaps in the future we'll see something like 3D XPoint from Intel/Micron. That's kind of fills a niche between flash and RAM. They're suggesting that future systems might be able to use it in place of either depending on the situation. However, it certainly could be used for what's currently hard drive/SSDs storage. However, the big thing is that endurance is supposed to orders of magnitude higher than even SLC flash, which it would have to be if they're calling it a RAM replacement for some purposes.

mdbechtel wrote:

Thank you very much y_p_w. I always greatly enjoy learning from professionals. I had wondered about the reasoning for the change to soldered memory cards. I also certainly appreciate how greatly I've benefitted from excellent design and engineering by Apple to get that Macbook down to less than a kilogram and perform so well. I also appreciate Apple acknowledging a manufacturing defect with my laptop's display, so that was replaced free of charge outside the warranty. It is too bad it appears I'm stuck with a bad logic board. At the same time, the techs at the Genius Bar exhausted their full set of diagnostic tools and methods and found no errors after the display was replaced but the problem returned. They stated the only thing left is to replace the logic board even though it tests ok. Therefore, I have no guarantee that this expense will even solve the problem. I can afford gambling with a $400 refurbished board, but not a $700 to $800 repair at the Genius Bar. I honestly can't be certain of the Apple estimate as I heard it over a month ago when we thought the problem was solved, but those numbers are what I recall being quoted.

I'm more a chip/silicon guy, but anyone in the business absorbs some stuff through osmosis. I've spent limited time in labs trying to debug systems, so don't ask me to set up an oscilloscope or a logic analyzer (although I spent some time with an HP 16500C). I'm really just a desk jockey designing and testing at an abstract level on a computer.

However, I've been in meetings where we were talking about manufacturing. Some of my own work has been in technology that tests stuff deep within a chip and to test the integrity of the bonding wire/pin/solder/board trace connection. I'm not really that involved in the production part of all that, but I've discussed it before. It's actually remarkable that something that ridiculously complex with literally billions of things that could go wrong is essentially perfect coming out of the box. Well - memory is actually one of those things where you can test it first and enable redundancies if needed to make it work.

I remember the first time I heard about BGAs, the first thing I was thinking was "how do you fix it if something is off? Other packages have all the pins on the outside, and people I worked with could desolder with a soldering iron and a solder remover that ***** away the melted solder. If you've seen BGAs, it's just little balls of solder on the bottom of the chip package. The whole part has to be heated (in an oven or with directed heat) enough to melt the solder, and if it's close enough, the chips should "self align" where the melted solder aligns with the metal contact on the board. Removing it is not easy, and the equipment to do it is extremely expensive. Here's a video showing this:

BGA Self Alignment Jovy Systems - YouTube

I like how they have that dramatic music while it's otherwise like watching paint dry.

I heard that for many assembled production boards, if something didn't work the most likely thing was to just scrap it rather than spend too much time testing it and trying to resolder a part. The testing is generally used to throw away a part, although they might analyze the failures to try to figure out if there's some common point of failure that could be improved. A lot of prototypes I've seen went on a special rig with a "zero insertion force" socket that just clamped onto the solder balls. It was remarkable how many early prototype parts didn't work even after being tested, so we weren't going to solder it to a board.

Sorry if I'm long winded. Sometimes I just like talking shop even if nobody is listening.

we can't recommend a repair outside of an Apple Authorized Repair Center. You should ask on another forum if you are looking to do this outside of what Apple recommends for repairs.