A1990 MacBook Pro Dead and Not Charging

newbm wrote:

Went to bed last night and this morning it was on 15% for no apparent reason.

If you could see the charge level, then what happened? This implies the laptop had powered on & booted if you could see a battery charge level percentage. This would have been the time to make a good backup if you didn't already have one.

Occasionally I'll get the thunderbolt image on a black screen.

Any further suggestion?

There is no Apple genius, no Apple stores and very very limited service people where I am.

Any DIY tips or links to helpful places are most welcome (I have done DIY work on prior MBP's)!

You can try disconnecting the battery (both the BMU screw and flex cable, but the flex cable connector extremely fragile & easily broken no matter how careful you are). Leave them disconnected for a minute, then reinstall/reconnect & try connecting the power adapter. Once the power adapter is connected, do not disconnect until after waiting at least an hour. I guess there could even be a slim chance that the battery flex cable became slightly dislodged, however, more than likely the battery has failed (especially if this is the original battery).

Actually it may be best to first closely examine each USB-C port using a bright light & a magnifier to make sure they are clean & undamaged. You want to check the contacts on both sides of the connector to make sure they appear clean. This is not easy to do. Even after 9 years I still cannot always see some of the damage to those ports by peering into them. If you believe any of the ports may have bad/dirty contacts, then try to use a USB-C port that seems to be in the best condition......especially on the other side of the laptop if it is a 4 port model. The goal here is to hopefully find & use the best USB-C port to charge the laptop.

Unfortunately running a USB-C Apple laptop without the battery at all is not an option since it degrades the system performance beyond anything remotely usable (older non-Retina laptops this was an option, even the non-USB-C Retinas might be able to limp along to recover data).

Pay attention to whether you hear the "ding" sound when connecting the power adapter. Sometimes you may not hear the "ding" sound right away. Sometimes it may take a few minutes. Other times it may take 15+ minutes.

FYI, working on these USB-C Macs is nothing like working on the older Macs. These newer Macs make the Retina laptops look like a piece of cake & a great design. It can be difficult just to remove the Bottom Case on these USB-C Apple laptops. Everything on these USB-C Macs are smaller, more fragile & easily damaged, and much more difficult to work on, plus much more time consuming even if a person works on them every day for the past 9 years. You will definitely want to review an iFixIt guide just to get an idea of what it looks like inside & what to expect (it still won't really prepare you for reality).

If you have access to a 96W or 140W Power Adapter, then you may want to try that as well. I have seen some of these power hungry i7 & i9 15" & 16" models not receive enough power with their factory designated power adapter (just using an Apple adapter video adapter with power passthrough is enough to pull power away where those laptops may be unable to power on with the factory power adapter).

[Edited by Moderator]

newbm wrote:

Success!

I left it over night and there was no life to be seen this morning, not even a thunderbolt. Today I took the back off and reseated the connector and after being plugged in for 2 hours it is now happily charging ... and a backup is being done.

Thank you again for your excellent advice.

Great job! Sometimes persistence pays off.

Make sure to keep frequent & regular backups from now on.

If your Mac battery won’t charge - Apple Support

A failed battery is one good potential culprit.

ship it to a depot repair — if you want to spend on a vintage Intel.

Past what you’ve already reviewed, and the battery itself, most hard-down fixes do get expensive.

But I’d replace this with an Apple silicon Mac, and not repair an Intel. Or would scrap it, and get a computer with better local parts availability.

All MacBook Pro models from the Retina 2012 models onward are SSD.

[Edited by Moderator]

Continued....

2) Aside from not being able to get it going, the other big problem is I didn't realise it was SSD and we always need our data. I've read horror stories about recovery options.

Assuming the issue is with the battery and not the Logic Board, then a professional data recovery service may be able to recover the data.

I don't recommend having Apple replace the battery since Apple may decide to wipe the laptop during the repair (Apple assumes the user has good backups & will no longer assist in saving your data.....probably due to the extreme difficulty, small chance of success, and the privacy & security concerns). An Apple Authorized Service Provider may be an option, but I don't believe they have any easy way of testing a known good battery easily (Apple doesn't allow the return of a battery used for testing these days so it is an all in scenario with the money regardless of success).

If the data was important, then backups of that data should have been made all along....right from the start of using the laptop. Unfortunately this is a lesson many people must learn the hardware. The more important the data, the more backup copies needed. Apple does provide Time Machine app with macOS, and there are third party backup options as well (sometimes it is good to have two different types of backups methods, makes it more likely that one of the two different methods will have your data).

FYI, as you have discovered, there are a lot more new ways to permanently lose access to the data stored on the internal SSD of the recent Macs due to all of the hardware, software, and security changes. Frequent and regular backups are absolutely necessary if the data is important (make sure to also include any important & unique data stored on external media....including the cloud).