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    Macbook Unibody 2009

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by jook33, Dec 8, 2013.

  1. jook33

    jook33 Notebook Evangelist

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    Hi, I had a question regarding an issue with a macbook, a family member gave me their macbook because the screen "broke," pretty much was just sitting in their closet, however when i went to test it, it wasn't exactly broken, it was just very very very dim, external monitor worked fine too, so because it is dim, i am just guessing it is a inverter cable+board and probably not the screen it self? Could it be any other part? I figured if it is a few possibilities i might as well purchase all the parts at once since it takes a while to open up the laptop and replace screen hardware.

    edit: i also can see pretty well if i hold a flash light to the screen when it is on.
     
    jook33, Dec 8, 2013
    #1
  2. ajkula66

    ajkula66 Courage and Consequence

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    A 2009 unit should have a LED-lit display IIRC and the severe dimness is unlikely to be related to anything apart from:

    a) LCD itself going bad

    b) A blown fuse/controller chip on the logic board.

    c) Digital output channel from the GPU going bad.

    In other words, you might be in for more than you've bargained for, but since it's a freebie it's definitely worth fixing in my opinion.

    Good luck.
     
    ajkula66, Dec 9, 2013
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  3. jook33

    jook33 Notebook Evangelist

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    okay, didn't think it could be that serious haha, i read up on similar cases/watched vids and those are the only parts that yielded to be a problem, but are any of the following testable with a meter?

    i got all of christmas break to fiddle with it, so i guess it will be a fun learning experience.
     
    jook33, Dec 9, 2013
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  4. KCETech1

    KCETech1 Notebook Prophet

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    It's a pain in the butt but here:
    MacBook Pro 13" Unibody Mid 2009 LCD Replacement - iFixit

    now keep in mind that breaking the glass face on these is pretty common and even worse so since it is older and the adhesive tends to dry and com apart harder over time it may be better to just get a full assembly if you can find one as Apple must have decided that user replicable panels was a bad thing.

    Backlight failure on these was not too uncommon and you can get the panel itself for about $150 USD last time I had looked.
     
    KCETech1, Dec 9, 2013
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  5. jook33

    jook33 Notebook Evangelist

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    this is the pro, i have the normal macbook, i heard that the inverter was the main cause of this type of damage from opening and closing, considering it mostly sat on a desk during it's useful life.
     
    jook33, Dec 9, 2013
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  6. KCETech1

    KCETech1 Notebook Prophet

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    it is the pro but the disassembly is the same procedure more or less
     
    KCETech1, Dec 10, 2013
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