2017 MacBook Pro 15" A1707 which was in a House Fire

 

We collected this MacBook from a customer in Brighton who unfortunately lost all of their possessions in a house fire.

 

A battery cell had popped with the heat and the MacBook was liquid damaged from the water used by the Fire brigade to put out the fire.

Testing the logic board, it was dead and only pulling 5v from the USBc Charger. This is an indication of an issue with one of the 4 x CD3215 controller chips attached to each USBc socket. All of these controller chips have to communicate with each other perfectly for the MacBook to request 20v from the charger and turn on.

Removing the logic board we found corrosion on one side of the logic board, especially around one of the CD3215 chips. We removed all of the damaged components and removed the CD3215 which had corrosion underneath. 

All components were replaced with new and a brand new CD3215 chip was fitted.

The Logic board was now requesting 20v from the charger and turning on.

Unfortunately the 15" MacBooks after 2016 do not power on fully without a battery so we could not test it any further.

We fitted a good replacement top-case with good keyboard, Touchbar and a Low-Cycle original Apple Battery.

The MacBook Now powered on and started the customers MacOS.

Unfortunately it was clear that the water had seriously damaged the screen rendering it unusable. The screens are over £700 for this model making this a non viable repair for the customer.

We have experience replacing LCD Panels in the 13" Models which are much less valuable and the customer gave us the go ahead to attempt repair of his LCD Panel.

The screen was removed and we carefully removed the Glass MacBook Logo and LCD panel Intact. We could then clean the Mirror at the back, replace the Diffuser Perspex and 4 or 5 polarising & diffuser Sheets. We then used Tesa tape to reseal the LCD Panel into the screen assembly.

The screens are manufactured by machines when new and as we were servicing it by hand there is a high chance of dust and marks appearing on the inside of the LCD. Luckily we got away with very minimal damage and the screen looked 98% better than it did before. 

 

We estimate an official repair would have been around £1800 for this repair, we managed to get it fully working for £450.