2008 Macbook A1181 restore or scrap ?

[Chris Webb]

Hi everyone,
This is my first post after joining yesterday so hopefully I'm posting this in the correct section.
I'm Chris, a retired field service engineer who spent the past thirty seven years travelling all over the world installing, servicing and repairing all kinds of scientific and medical equipment.
I'm currently trying to get an elderly Macbook back up and running but have run into a few problems and am hoping someone might be able to point me in the right direction.
The machine is a July 2008 Macbook (one of those white plastic ones) and when it was given to me I was told that occasionally the screen would go black but shutting the top down them opening it up again would usually get the screen back again. I should be so lucky !
I obtained a Magsafe 1 PSU and fired up the machine. It fired up OK but although the power switch worked none of the keyboard keys or the touch-pad functioned. I repaired the thin silver (pcb to keyboard) ribbon cable and that got all the keys and the touch pad working. Success, that was easy. Too easy.
The following day while I was enjoying my first ever experience of owning and using a Mac it happened. The screen suddenly went black.I carefully lowered the lid then raised it up and the screen stayed black ! I've experienced this problem on several Dell laptops as well as numerous Samsung netbooks and it's nearly always been a faulty screen to motherboard ribbon cable or a poor connection. The Mac ribbon cable looked tired so it was replaced. The screen stayed black. The fan worked and the hard drive was running and when I shone a torch on the screen at an angle I could very faintly see my Mac desktop. Everything now pointed to the inverter or the leads. The inverter was replaced with a known good one and the leads were checked out.
Limited success as it now fires up, the 'sleep' white light briefly appears front right on the base then the screen briefly shows a reasonably bright white screen, a black Apple logo appears in the middle of the screen and occasionally (if it stays on long enough) a 'progress bar' appears under the logo but then the screen goes black again and I'm back almost where I started. Closing the lid down until it's almost shut causes the 'sleep' light to come on and raising the lid makes it go out again so I'm assuming the 'lid shut' reed switch isn't stuck ?
Any help or suggestions as to where I should look next will be hugely appreciated. I have been unable to find any service or repair manuals for this model Macbook. Thank you for taking the time to wade through all this and apologies if it's been posted in the wrong place.
Regards to all,
Chris

 

[chscag]

Welcome to our forums.

Looks like you've done considerable trouble shooting and repairs. Having owned that same 2008 white MacBook many years ago, I'm more or less familiar with some of things that can occur.

More than likely the backlight is failing. Changing out the inverter board was a good first start but that particular model MacBook uses an older fluorescent tube as backlight. Modern Macs use LEDs.

Changing out the tube is more work than it's worth. It's best to just change out the entire display since the tube is embedded within the display.

Parts are not going to be easy to find for that model since Apple considers it obsolete. Best place to find parts might be on eBay. You may be able to find a non working model that you can cannibalize for parts.

Good project for you but my advice is don't spend too much time or money on it.

Here's a web site that you can go to in order to obtain instructions and step by step repairs with illustrations.

www.ifixit.com

Good luck and keep us posted.

 

[Chris Webb]

Thank you chscag for your good luck wishes, forum welcome and www.ifixit.com address details. All appreciated.

The cause of my dark 2008 Macbook screen turned out to simply be a broken connection to one end of the backlight tube. Unable to resolder but I've managed to fit an almost identical light tube that I'd salvaged years ago from a similarly ancient laptop. A lot of fiddling about but it now fits and it works !

The display now stays on and shows the Apple logo in the centre with a 'progress bar' under it and a little circular rotating symbol which seems to indicate the system is waiting for something or loading something. At this point I had to leave it for today but at least I'm a bit further forward than I was yesterday.

To be continued . . . .

 

[chscag]

That's quite an accomplishment - replacing the backlight tube. Whenever a backlight failed on those models, Apple would replace the entire display.

Here's a hint: While you're digging around, it's a good idea to replace the SATA cable that connects the hard drive to the logic board. That particular cable is very fragile and is often the reason the dredded ? appears on bootup.

Also, that model you have runs best with an installation of Snow Leopard 10.6.X. The original version of macOS was Leopard 10.5.X.

Keep us posted.

 

[Chris Webb]

The saga continues. It seems the system was waiting for the hard drive. The drive, if I listened really carefully, was making a faint clicking sound but doing nothing else. With nothing to lose I removed the drives cover and found the read/wite arm was moving forwards then hitting the edge of the disc and then returning before repeating the process. The drive was replaced but the only spare drive I had already had an operating system installed on it, Microsoft Windows 10.

To my great surprise the Apple system recognised the drive and has even managed to load and run it. Not everything works, there's no sounds for instance and none of the Windows drivers work but enough of it displays to show that it was the hard drive causing the initial problem.

I played about with it for a while then turned it all off only to find the next time ai turned it on it started bleeping at me. Three bleeps, a pause then three more blerps. Removing one of the two memory modules has fixed the bleeping but it now appears it mght be the module holder that's the problem as swapping thr modules around in the other holder indicates it's not a faulty memry module.

Looks like the logic board is coming out, again, for the module holder soldering to be checked. To be continued . .

Good advice about the hdd cable. Thank you.

 

[chscag]

Keep us posted Chris. Quite a project you're into!

 

[pm-r]

That's quite an accomplishment - replacing the backlight tube.

+1. And congratulations on your fix-it capabilities and I most interesting saga I must admit and you must have the patience of a saint to go along with your equipment knowledge and expertise. I wish you continued success.

I have one of those same models under my side desk somewhere that just up and died on my cousin last year, I never bothered to look to see what the problem was or might be as it appeared to be completely dead and no sign of any life at all.


- Patrick
=======

 

[Chris Webb]

Hi Patrick,

Thank you for your kind comments. Much appreciated. I'm finding my way with the Apple A1181 as I go. It's a surprisingly easy piece of equipment to dismantle if you do your homework first and read up as much as you can about the experiences of those who have tackled the job previously. I make lots of notes and take lots of pictures as I go but the main requirement is patience. Being retired means I have the time to be patient and take it one step at a time.

Now it's running, albeit very slowly with a 64bit Windows 10 installation on its temporary replacement hard drive, my next job is to replace the logic board to touchpad ribbon cable. I managed to release the locking tab without snapping it off but it's proving difficult to insert the end of the new ribbon cable into its touchpad connector. My next challenge.

I'm currently using a USB keyboard and a USB mouse to operate the machine. But it will be nice to use the keyboard again. To make life easier I don't have the DVD rewriter fitted yet and I've removed the speakers temporarily.

Bridging the two small 'power' pads on the logic board near the fan means I'm able to turn the machine on without the normal on/off switch. I also spotted two identical pads marked 'system reset' over on the far left of the logic board. Odd that I've found no reference to these in any documentation so far. Life would be so much easier if I could find a service manual for the A1181.

If you find yourself with a bit of time on your hands Patrick, have a look at your Apple A1181. Treat it as a puzzle to be solved more than a chore to be completed. It's a surprisingly satisfying way to spend a bit of time. Good luck.

 

[Chris Webb]

Well that was fun ! Trying to persuade the new narrow ribbon cable to slot into place under the touchpad. 45 minutes of my life I'll never get back but it's finally in and locked into place. The touchpad now works and so do the keys. It even turns on with the start button.
I tried all the 'ribbon cable fitting solutions' I'd read about but ended up simply bullying it into place with some plastic twezers.
A picture of The Beast running (more staggering) Windows 10. I'm looking forward to seeing the Apple homepage once again.
Next on the To Do list is find out why when I plug in a perfectly good memory module I get the three bleep memory error message.

 

[pm-r]

If you find yourself with a bit of time on your hands Patrick, have a look at your Apple A1181. Treat it as a puzzle to be solved more than a chore to be completed. It's a surprisingly satisfying way to spend a bit of time. Good luck.

Thanks Chris, but actually if I get some spare time I have my youngest son's 2015 MacBook Pro to try and sort out and why it only will boot to about 90% of the progress bar and then goes to a black screen, or may try rebooting repeatedly but never completes properly to a full boot mode.

A nice unit otherwise, or was when it was working.

No reason at all why it suddenly stopped working as far as I know.

Anyway, again congratulations on your patience and success and it sounds like you have some of my persistence and stubbornness in there as well.

PS: I'm sorry I do not have an Apple Service Source manual for that model, but you might have to try some of the Transmission type sites and do some searching.


- Patrick
=======

 

[Chris Webb]

I've had The Beast apart again to see if I could see any poor or broken soldered connections that I've read certain Apple models can suffer from but my particular logic board appears to have all its components securely attached.

It occured to me that the 'bad memory' error (when the left hand memory position is used) seemed to coincide with the Apple hard drive failing and the temporary replacement Windows 10 hard drive being fitted. Coincidence ? Meybe there's a setting that defaults to 1Gb that has to be adjusted ? Unlikely though as all my other non Apple laptops detect their memory capacity automatically.

I have an (Ebay purchased) hard drive arriving soon with the OS for 2007 - 2008 already installed. If the memory fault persists it looks like I might be in the market for a replacement logic board. If I can locate the correct one.

My wife says it would be simpler to just buy another A1181' but where's the fun in that

 

[chscag]

It occured to me that the 'bad memory' error (when the left hand memory position is used) seemed to coincide with the Apple hard drive failing and the temporary replacement Windows 10 hard drive being fitted.

I just happened to remember something that may help you on this one. There were reports of loose memory connectors and likewise reports of the memory connectors being too tight. (Take your choice.)

Several owners reported being able to adjust the connector by loosening or tightening the screws that held the connector to the logic board. They were able to then seat the memory module and it was recognized.

Since you're experimenting with that particular A1181 you might give that a try. No guarantee it will resolve the problem, but you have nothing to lose by trying. Let us know.

 

[Chris Webb]

Hi chscag,
Thanks for the heads up on that. I'd only read about the occasional dry joints and broken connections on the module holders. I'll check out your suggestion. Thank you.

During the Apple's most recent reassembly the logic board end of the 'inverter board to logic board' cable decided to disintergrate ! It was whole enough fortunately for me to be able to work out (using a continuity meter) the wiring connections from point to point. I had no spare linking cable available but I did have a spare but non working right hand speaker harness assembly and the four wire plug where it connects to the logic board is exactly the same as the plug that had just broken up.

With some careful measuring, cutting, stripping back and soldering I was able to fabricate a new 'inverter to logic board' cable. More substantial even than the original one ! I had to remove the input socket from the inverter board and solder my new cable ends directly to the board but it works. The Beast lives !

 

[lclev]

Wow! You have really tackled that 2008. I thought I had done a lot to the old white 2008 I bought it cheap off of eBay to just play with and learn. It's biggest issues when I got it was a failing HDD, bad battery and it would overheat. I replaced the HDD with an SSD, installed a new after market battery, re-thermal pasted the CPU to heatsink and gave it a good cleaning. The screen, trackpad and keyboard all worked fine.
It now runs Windows 10 in bootcamp and the stage lighting program for our church lights. Did not intend it for that but it works perfectly.

Lisa

 

[lclev]

Just for fun I took a picture of my 2008 running the lighting program in Windows 10.

Lisa

 

[Chris Webb]

Hi Lisa,

Well done on your servicing and updating. Great picture too. Your machine is certainly in much better all round condition than mine. Yours looks new !

Interesting that you fitted an SSD. Did you clone your original HDD or did you re-install your system ? I'm currently making do, for testing purposes, with an HDD with Windows 10 on it as I'm having problems getting either a suitable Apple operating system disc or a HDD with it already on. I even considered buying a 'spares or repairs' machine from Ebay but most people remove the HDD for 'security reasons'.

Again, well done on your work and thank you for taking the time to add to the post.
Chris.

 

[Chris Webb]

Progress, at last. I finally managed to locate an almost identical old A1181 to my 2008 model. I found a 2007 one for sale. What difference could there be ?
A lot as it turned out. A completely different logic board type for a start. All different type connections but as I mainly wanted the hard drive the perfect condition screen was a bonus. Screen swapped over after changing the 2007 'inverter to logic board' connector to the slightly different 2008 item. The 'new' hard drive was fitted and the system fired up as it should. All manner of the previous owners personal information had been left on the drive so it was reset to factory settings. A few simple tines of typing and it was as new. Operating System wise anyway. I now find some apps 'Preferences' for instance generate a message advising me "they have quit unexpectedly" ! Also although my Internet network is found I'm unable to connect to it. I'm beginning to wonder if maybe I should have invested my time in a later model Mac. Something I could still get technical information on. That's all for today. At least it runs now !

 

[lclev]

Interesting that you fitted an SSD. Did you clone your original HDD or did you re-install your system ?

Sorry it took me so long to get back to you! I actually had to go look at what was on the MB to see what I had done. That is when I discovered that it had El Capitan on the mac side and it is a Mid 2009! I had forgotten mainly because we only use it to run Windows 10 now. If I am remembering correctly - and at my age that is questionable - I installed an SSD and used a bootable USB with the MacOS on it. Not sure what version it was - sorry! I went through a period of time where I was refurbishing 2007-2009 Macbooks. I had a young student that I was using the MB's to train. We also refurbed some Powerbooks just for the learning experience. It has been years and he has grown up no making more money than me working in the computer hardware industry. I keep telling him - I take donations!!

 

[Rod]

Chris, you have done amazing work, I hope you have gotten as much enjoyment out of the task as I have reading about it.

My first response to your question was "scrap" but, restoration can have its own rewards I know. Below is my 2010 MacBook which I revived from the dreaded question mark on boot. Nothing like the hardware issues you have faced and overcome I know, but the end result was a free backup device that even has a Disk Drive but unlike the 2008 version can run up to MacOSX High Sierra 10.13.6.

This means that it is capable of running most current applications such as Brave browser, my preferred email client (Spark) my password manager (Enpass) and MS Office 2016 for Mac. Just as importantly for me it also allows full iCloud access meaning all the above apps (and more) sync with all my other devices.

I don't wish to be a "wet blanket" I'm confident the 2008 device will be useful as well as good fun but it will be limited by the MacOSX it can run.


Here is a good article on the topic which offers an unexpected workaround as well as a good explanation of the issue. How to set up iCloud services in Snow Leopard
Do be a little wary of this site though, I don't entirely trust Cnet, I would not download anything from them, but the content is an interesting read.

I look forward to hearing how things work out, great work.
Regards,
Rod

 

[Chris Webb]

Hi Rod,

Thank you for your input and your suggestions.

The whole point of this saga was to keep myself occupied and it certainly achieved that !

The Beast now runs. It starts on the button, the display (removed from an Ebay donor machine) is clear and bright and at last I have a hard drive (also salvaged) with an Apple OS on it. I believe it's Snow Leopard. It works about 60% as there's a few things it won't/can't do. I can't for instance access Preferences and although it detects my wi-fi I type in the required details but it doesn't connect. With Preferences I get an immediate message advising me that Preferences has quit unexpectedly.

I did what I believed to be a 'Reset To Factory Settings' (where I added a few lines of script to the bottom of a page of text) which appeared to work until I booted into Safe Mode only to discover four other previous user profiles displayed along with mine. That was a surprise.

I'm also unable for some reason to boot into Utilities. Maybe the salvaged hard drive isn't as healthy as I'd been led to believe. I'd like to get a working Snow Leopard installation disc, format the drive and do a clean install. My next move.

To be continued . . . .