(sigh) fried my 2015 MBP

[JayKay514]

Got the iFixit kit to replace the battery in my Mid-2015 Retina MBP, which was a workhorse. I did the full disassemble as their instructions recommended so I wouldn't get acetone on the motherboard; as many know, it's a real pain to unstick the glued-down battery cells.

Finally reassembled it, plugged it in, heard a small crackle, then smelled smoke. Also, the caps lock key was lit up for some reason.

I have no idea what I did wrong - I put all the parts back in the same way they came out, there were no screws left over, but getting the MB back in did require a bit of effort as the first time, the screw holes didn't line up, so maybe I flexed something or shorted a ribbon cable.

Going to take it to MicroCenter tomorrow to see if there's anything salvageable in it. Thankfully I had already removed the SSD and put it in an external enclosure so there's no data loss, and the SSD I had put in it was blank with a new OS install - it'd be nice if that wasn't fried, at least. I've got newer M1 and M2 Macs now so it's not a huge deal for work, but it's a bummer.

I had taken the MBP to the Apple store before to look at the battery, which said it needed service - it was only holding about an hour's charge - but they basically waved me away saying to come back later.

I really should have had a pro do this, in retrospect; at least if I get a future M2 laptop the batteries on those are much easier to replace.

 

[Thirio2]

Sorry to hear your experience. I am about to start a similar project on my mid 2015 15”, except I am just going to remove the swollen battery, not replace it. If it works acceptably on the charger I will use it that way, if not I will remove the SSD and put it in an enclosure for one of my other Mac’s.

 

[Jhonjhon236]

Sorry to hear your experience. I am about to start a similar project on my mid 2015 15”, except I am just going to remove the swollen battery, not replace it. If it works acceptably on the charger I will use it that way, if not I will remove the SSD and put it in an enclosure for one of my other Mac’s.

Just FYI it will severely throttle and perform terribly without a battery.

 

[ignatius345]

What a drag. If it's any consolation literally any of the Apple Silicon MacBooks will feel massively faster than your 2015 MBP.

 

[JayKay514]

Sorry to hear your experience. I am about to start a similar project on my mid 2015 15”, except I am just going to remove the swollen battery, not replace it. If it works acceptably on the charger I will use it that way, if not I will remove the SSD and put it in an enclosure for one of my other Mac’s.

Thanks. I think salvaging the SSD is likely the best use case. Be careful if your battery is swollen!

 

[JayKay514]

What a drag. If it's any consolation literally any of the Apple Silicon MacBooks will feel massively faster than your 2015 MBP.

Yeah. I've got an M1 MBA and an M1 Mini and they're both great. About the only thing I miss is the extra ports.

 

[Audit13]

Sorry to hear this happened.

I did not want any liquid near my MacBook so, for my 13" mid-214 Pro, I used a piece of nylon string, slipped it beneath the battery, and pulled the string left and right in a "sawing" motion to slice through the adhesive.

Yes, I love the extra USB ports as well which is why I used a 3rd party battery from Amazon to make the MacBook usable to another year.

 

[Thirio2]

Thanks for the tip, I hadn’t thought of that. I don’t want to spend much since the computer is so old.

 

[okkibs]

At least it had a good 8 year long life, there's nothing from the main logic board that can be salvaged, but if the screen still works you can give the device away to someone who needs to replace their smashed screen. (I wouldn't charge anything for it since you can't be sure the screen works.)

I did not want any liquid near my MacBook so, for my 13" mid-214 Pro, I used a piece of nylon string, slipped it beneath the battery, and pulled the string left and right in a "sawing" motion to slice through the adhesive.

I did this as well and it worked well as long as you do it slowly and patiently, took about 20 minutes for all cells. The battery should be discharged as much as possible and if it gets punctured accidentally and catches on fire this should be done entirely outside and never in your home as it burns too hot for regular fire extinguishers to put it out and the toxic fumes will settle on and thereby destroy all furniture.

I will use it that way, if not I will remove the SSD and put it in an enclosure for one of my other Mac’s.

Be aware that there are no compatible enclosures except a single one from OWC that's really expensive, like over $100 which is more than what you'd pay for a brand new much faster SSD. So make sure to backup your data while the Mac is still working and you can still access the SSD. Apple always makes sure their parts are as incompatible as possible...

Since you'd likely throw it away after (it's of no use in anything other than a 2013-2015 MBP/MBA) you might also want to wipe the data first so no third party can access the data after you throw out the SSD.

 

[Thirio2]

Thanks for the extra info. I will be sure to wipe the drive if I can’t find an inexpensive solution.

 

[Thirio2]

Well, I got the battery out using a plastic card since I didn’t have any thread strong enough for the job. I’m glad I didn’t spend money on a replacement battery since my track pad and keyboard no longer work. I didn’t think I ruined the connectors but must have. It works with wired keyboard and mouse and didn’t seem that slow, but it’s not very convenient. I guess I’ll wipe the drive and recycle the rest. I see what you mean about the SSD connector. Maybe an M2 SATA connector that might work with a Satechi hub? But since it is only 256Gb not really worth it.

 

[JayKay514]

As an update, I brought it to MicroCenter to see if they could salvage the SSD - they did get it out, and said it "appeared to not have been formatted," which was weird because I definitely had formatted and installed the current supported macOS on it, but whatever. They were kind enough not to charge me for that.

So apparently what they did find is that the trackpad cable, which passes over the battery, was melted (!) so there was definitely a short somewhere. I'm not going to attempt to guess what happened, but I'm glad that was the extent of it. MicroCenter took the rest of it for recycling, as it's not really worth anything except maybe as parts now.

I'm glad to be rid of it, to be honest, though it served me well.

The M1 MBA is nice in the meantime. If I need another "power" laptop in the future, I'm glad to see that the M-series internal designs are a lot more repair-friendly.

 

[JayKay514]

Be aware that there are no compatible enclosures except a single one from OWC that's really expensive, like over $100 which is more than what you'd pay for a brand new much faster SSD.

OWC have kits that include a new SSD (so you can repurpose the old one), but they also sell the enclosure separately as the OWC Envoy Pro 1A for $74.99 USD. It's just USB 3.2, but it's pretty speedy in my experience.

 

[okkibs]

As an update, I brought it to MicroCenter to see if they could salvage the SSD - they did get it out, and said it "appeared to not have been formatted,

Unless they randomly had the OWC enclosure on hand or put the SSD into another older Macbook they could not have tried it out. And it would have needed to be a Mac as it would indeed be unreadable on Windows.

they also sell the enclosure separately as the OWC Envoy Pro 1A for $74.99 USD. It's just USB 3.2, but it's pretty speedy in my experience.

For that money you can get a new 1TB SSD with its own enclosure. Those SSDs don't use NVMe so the speeds are limited to AHCI speeds no matter the enclosure.

 

[MBAir2010]

OWC have kits that include a new SSD (so you can repurpose the old one), but they also sell the enclosure separately as the OWC Envoy Pro 1A for $74.99 USD. It's just USB 3.2, but it's pretty speedy in my experience.

OWC also has used Macs for better prices than "e-gad-bays" and a nicer exchange and warrantee.

the late 2010 MacBooks were impossible to repair so your local shop needed to go through extremes to fix them.
I think I might switch logic boards on my mba2010 which needs no glue removal or a hair dryer.

 

[JayKay514]

Unless they randomly had the OWC enclosure on hand or put the SSD into another older Macbook they could not have tried it out. And it would have needed to be a Mac as it would indeed be unreadable on Windows.


For that money you can get a new 1TB SSD with its own enclosure. Those SSDs don't use NVMe so the speeds are limited to AHCI speeds no matter the enclosure.

I can see the clickbait thumbnail already. MICROCENTER CRITICAL SSD THEORY DEBUNKED!

All I said was that MicroCenter said they managed to salvage the SSD. They are an authorized Apple Service Center. I presume they would have some sort of sled to test SSDs. I have no reason to distrust them. Do you know something I don't?

Yes, faster SSDs and enclosures exist. What does that have to do with any of this? Does everyone have to have the fastest equipment, regardless of their needs? And by whose standards? Do I have to throw my SSD away because the Cool Kids said so?

If this SSD works, and it only fits in that enclosure, then that's what I have to use, don't I?