this macbook came to my desk not functioning – no apparently corrosion and liquid damage anywhere on this board that i could see.

it would just not work at all – one of the simplest solutions for this computer (2014 macbook air a1466) would be to replace the power daughter board. this solution did not make a change.

so the next path to the solution was to begin to test the power lines. and i eventually came to PPBUS_G3H was out. one the areas to closely on this board (820-3437-b) at was the QFN28 charging chip ISL625 9AHRTZ – U7100.

soooooo looking closely! what do i see?! corrosion – all tucked away all by it’s little corner of it’s world – hiding – in plain sight (if you know just where to look).

let’s pull it off. and see how it looks afterwards. ohhhh – that area looks nasty.

let’s clean it off and look again. whoa – the pad for pin 2 of U7100 is missing! this is for the CHGR_DCIN line to C7105. no wonder it’s not firing up…

let’s look closer – yep – it’s gone – need to rebuild it.

we start by scraping away at the trace to expose the copper underneath the motherboard masking.

next – to rebuild the pad. i use some very fine copper wire. keep in mind that this wire is as thin as a human hair.

the wire is held in place with a motherboard mask resin – then portion of the mask is scraped away to form a new makeshift pad.

once i feel good about the pad level, it’s time to replace the charging chip with a fresh one.

and now to plug in the charger and see what happens…… fingers crossed!!

whoo hooo! it’s alive!!!! if you liked this post and have some questions about one of your own devices, please contact me and let’s discuss it!