Chosen Solution
Hi, My mid-2012 15” Retina MacBook Pro won’t start most of the time. After pressing the power button, the fans ramp up to full RPM, however the display remains black and I can hear no chime. From my research, this usually means that the mainboard is dead. However, the biggest difference that I have from the other cases I have seen online is that from time to time, the MacBook does actually start, and when it does so it works perfectly, until it is shut down and the issue happens again. I have obviously tried resetting the PRAM and SMC with no luck. Does anyone have any experience with a similar issue? The only thing I can think of is to try reflowing the mainboard, however if anyone has any other ideas I would really appreciate their help. Thanks in advance.
Well, maybe not “dead” but it sounds like the logic board is in great need of a repair. Hard to tell what maybe wrong without testing, the problem you report doesn’t make any bell ringing for a specific typical board issue. It maybe some capacitor or resistor going bad, but this on and off behavior doesn’t offer much to speculate on. Unless you’re ready to replace the board the alternative would be to find someone in Macs component level repair and cross fingers. I don’t see how a blindfolded reflow might help..it would rather increase the risk you will have to trash it.
