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Sell your MacBook

John

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John
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  • Beeping and a black screen generally indicates a memory issue. Make sure you have RAM installed. If you do, try powering on with one slot empty, and if that doesn't work, try powering on with the other slot empty. If it works with one slot empty,…
    in Beeping when I turn it on Comment by John October 2018
  • Hi! 17" MacBook Pros need 85W chargers in order to be powered on with a dead battery, so the first thing you need to do is verify that you have an 85W charger and not a 60W. If you happen to have a 60W charger and a bad battery, you're never …
    in 17" MacBook Pro won't power on at all Comment by John September 2018
  • Thanks for the post! With A1181 backlight issues, you have to look at the complete chain of hardware components that could be involved — screen, inverter cable, and board. Each will show certain symptoms. If you power on and immediately see a fla…
    in White MacBook flickering backlight issue Comment by John September 2018
  • Yes! It's a retina Pro, so the RAM is embedded and not changeable. But everything else I stated still applies.
    in Dead MacBook Pro 15" Comment by John September 2018
  • Don't scrap it! First off, what laptop do you have? If you know the year that will help, or I can look it up by the serial. You can find the year by Googling "applecare serial number lookup" and plugging the serial into the Apple page. …
    in Dead MacBook Pro 15" Comment by John September 2018
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    in Hard drive not recognized Comment by John September 2018
  • Hi! More information on specifically what you have tried would be useful. I don't know by what method you are trying to recognize the drive. I don't know if you are migrating data from a previous drive, if your previous drive has died, etc. If y…
    in Hard drive not recognized Comment by John September 2018
  • Hi! Yes, I am potentially interested. Please check out the "contact" link on this page, or click on the "Sell Me Your Broken Computer" button from anywhere within this site. Enter the relevant info, and I will get back to you …
    in Mac laptops for sale Comment by John September 2018
  • Wow, that's an old laptop! There is not a reliable method of fixing the problem permanently. In these laptops, the GPU comes un-seated from the board, and when you squeeze the left side, you are literally pressing the chip against the board so it …
    in iBook G3 bad video Comment by John September 2018
  • I would not recommend using an OS that Apple doesn't allow you to install. There is a reason Apple cuts you off at a certain point -- generally, the laptop's GPU is not capable of running the new OS efficiently, and you're going to suffer from seve…
    in High Sierra on A1181 white Macbook Comment by John September 2018
  • Hi! This is a big topic, but the primary thing to keep in mind is that the Air sacrifices a lot of processing power and overall functionality in order to give you a thin, light computer, so if you don't specifically need a thin, light computer, you…
    in Air or Pro Comment by John August 2018
  • Good luck, and let me know how it goes!
    in EFI password Macbook pro 13' early 2011 Comment by John December 2017
  • Thanks for the post, and sorry for the delay! I'm less familiar with software issues than hardware -- my answer to OS problems is generally to wipe the drive and reinstall. :-) But I am curious how long it's been since you've done that, since peo…
    in kernel_task consuming a lot of memory Comment by John November 2017
  • Thanks for the post! These are big topics, so I'll just do an overview. Personally I specialize in Apple laptops. Tablets and phones aren't really designed to be repaired, so they are relatively difficult, and they are plagued with locking issues…
    in General Information. Comment by John July 2017
  • Interesting! Yeah, I've run across cases where a blank password is not a good password -- in newer OS versions, if you go into the Security settings system preference panel to do various things, it will not let you unlock the lock icon if your pass…
    in Password for sudo commands? Comment by John March 2017
  • Hey Aaron! Good to hear from you! I'm not an expert on verbose mode, but I don't think there's anything on 2010s that can't be wiped (I think that started late 2011-ish?) Verbose mode was often set to "on" with new boards from Apple so …
    in Password for sudo commands? Comment by John March 2017
  • Probably, but I'm a little paranoid and unwilling to risk it. I don't want to ship 100s of laptops potentially connected to my ID in some way. :-)
    in Workflow for HDD testing, imaging Comment by John November 2016
  • Exactly -- my boot drives are either Snow Leopard or Yosemite. I do get some older machines that won't boot to Lion, so Snow Leopard is preferable (and it boots way faster than Lion). And then on the upper end it's very rare I get a laptop that ca…
    in Workflow for HDD testing, imaging Comment by John November 2016
  • Hi Aaron! Thanks for the post! I do most of that the low-tech way, so I might not have a great answer for you. :-) From visiting a lot of recyclers, I've gotten the impression that the larger hardware/software systems that securely wipe 20 drive…
    in Workflow for HDD testing, imaging Comment by John November 2016
  • I looked into it and you're right -- I think the requirement for El Capitan has more to do with the GPU than anything else, and both speeds have the 9400M. I've probably never tried to install it on the 2GHZ version and was just assuming. Good to …
    in What's the correct adhesive for the battery compartment cover? Comment by John November 2016
  • Great, it's good to hear it worked out! 3rd party batteries do vary quite a bit in quality, but as you've found there are decent ones out there. Do you mean you have the early-2009 2.13GHZ? The early-2009 2GHZ only has a 667MHZ bus (instead of 80…
    in What's the correct adhesive for the battery compartment cover? Comment by John November 2016
  • Don't feel bad -- a battery can start to bulge very quickly, and it's not necessarily a gradual process or something you would have noticed previously. I've seen MacBook Pros with batteries so bad that the whole laptop case expands like a balloon a…
    in What's the correct adhesive for the battery compartment cover? Comment by John November 2016
  • Interesting. I would just glue it back with superglue and clamp it down while it dries. Or just buy another battery -- you can get them on eBay for $20. Thanks
    in What's the correct adhesive for the battery compartment cover? Comment by John November 2016
  • Thanks for the post! So this is an A1181 white MacBook? I'm a little confused as to what you mean by "battery compartment"? Is this the round battery lock? Or the outer casing of the battery itself? The batteries don't usually come ap…
    in What's the correct adhesive for the battery compartment cover? Comment by John November 2016
  • Hi! Thanks for the post, but I don't see a question...please edit the post with a question if you have one! Most firmware updates for Apple products happen automatically, so try to do a software update.
    in mac mini a1176 Comment by John October 2016
  • If you did everything correctly then that would be fairly unusual, but in that case the most common issue tends to be either that RAM is not being recognized by a bad slot, or that you are dealing with bad RAM, and so the change in the amount of RAM…
    in EFI password Macbook pro 13' early 2011 Comment by John September 2016
  • Again, I need to confirm -- when you hold down the option key while powering on, what do you see? The padlock icon?
    in EFI password Macbook pro 13' early 2011 Comment by John September 2016
  • Hi! Thanks for the post! Just to be clear, when you power on holding down the option key, do you see a padlock icon? If you do, the procedure in the video should work -- remove or add a RAM module, and IMMEDIATELY reset the PRAM three times in su…
    in EFI password Macbook pro 13' early 2011 Comment by John September 2016
  • Cool! With 12-packs of toner going for $79 on eBay, there's not much reason to worry about toner re-filling.
    in Laser Printer printing gunk after refilling Comment by John May 2016
  • Hi! Sorry for the delay. Also, I am relying on Google Translate, so I may be misunderstanding your message. Are you saying you get nothing on the screen (is it black with no image?), the keyboard is not working, and it will also not power off the…
    in Powerbook G4 17" não liga Comment by John May 2016