Chosen Solution
I found my MBP shut down this morning. I tried turning it on, but only got the dead battery symbol on the display. I plugged in the charger and the green light lit up. Pressed the power button, and got the dead battery symbol with a lighting bolt underneath. Left it to charge for a while. When I came back the symbol was still a red empty battery with bolt. The charger was stone cold. I took the MBP to the store. They plugged in their charger and we got the exact same result. Green light on the charger. Not amber. So it seems the charging system is fried and I need a new computer. Is it possible to bypass the charge circuit and hook up my bench power supply to the battery, fooling the MBP into thinking the battery is full? Is there a fuse for the battery that I can check? I just need to power up the MBP long enough to retrieve my data.
I got the computer back today and it’s back up and running. The tech unplugged the battery connector, plugged it back in, and it started working again. I don’t trust the machine though so I’ll still get a new one. I’ll throw this thing in the closet for emergency use.
Theres two ways you could get around things: As long as the rest of the logic board is good you could just get a replacement battery and plug it in by passing your systems battery by just unplugging yours and plugging in temporally the replacement (returning it paying the restocking fee). But that assumes the logic board is still working enough to get your data. The second way is getting a OWC case which is designed to hold your Apple SSD. Then you have everything available! And you have a spare drive as well. This in my mind is the easiest way! OWC Envoy Pro As far as getting a bench power supply other than hooking it up at the MagSafe port it can get complicated depending on what happened with the charging logic and/or power rails. Frankly, there are people who have the skills to fix your logic board! If your system is still in good shape mechanically then it might be worth fixing.
