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I have a macbook pro with water damage. Everything works besides the screen and I can use it with an external display. I am guessing its a problem with the logic board and not just the screen replacement, but I’m really not sure. Can anyone help me with this? Is this fixable or not worth it for the price?
If you shine a flashlight on the screen, can you see a really dim image? UPDATE F9700 is a 3A 32V fuse in a 0603 package and your backlight driver U9701 is a LP8550. Ignore the green rectangles
UPDATE Looks like there is something going on at the connector end. Hard to see but could be some damage. Give us a good clear shot of this area
Nonono! A1278 MacBook Pros do not have an inverter. These laptops use LED backlighting, which uses DC power. Older non-unibody MacBook Pros manufactured before 2008 use CCFL tubes which use AC power, and therefore need an inverter to convert from the DC output at logic board to AC which the inverter can use. Backlight power goes straight from the logic board to the display panel in your model of MacBook Pro. LED Backlight runs through the LVDS (display) connector, and operates at a high voltage so is a common point of failure due to corrosion or pin burning when subjected to water damage. You will likely need board repair, but you can try cleaning off any corrosion or burnt-looking pins, especially around the LVDS connector where the backlight voltage runs through. The fuse on these logic boards usually mediocre at protecting from short-circuiting and over-voltage, and therefore it is likely that the fuse is intact but there is an issue with other parts of the circuit, but you can check for continuity of the fuse by putting a multimeter on resistance mode and checking for ~0Ω by putting a test lead on each of the two sides. Do you know where the backlight fuse is? If not I can point you to the correct location.
In this image you can see where the LVDS (Display) connection to the logic board is damaged along with some other damage. If you watch this video by Lois Rossmann: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqaZpIDE… He’s going to all the trouble to completely change the connector. You’d have to have a new connector and be fairly skilled at micro soldering. However it may be possible to repair without doing that. First clean up the area with a stiff tooth brush and 90% Isopropyl alcohol blowing everything completely dry. Then you’ll have clean all the insulating sealing stuff from the traces coming from the pin to board connectors until they’re bright and shiny. I use an Exacto knif for this. Then bridge the corroded gaps with very fine non insulated wire. You’ll need to be fairly adept at micro soldering or very patient! Good luck.
