Blog

MacBook Pro Charging Board Replacement

This article gives a look at another repair carried out in our Dundee shop. This time round we’ll be showing the replacement of a charging board for an Apple MacBook Pro computer (model: A1226). We’re replacing this board because it also includes the headphone and mic audio jacks. The customer reported that she was having problems with these- sound was neither going in nor coming out of her Mac’s audio sockets. It’s obviously a nuisance if you can’t hear anything over the external speakers nor use an external microphone.

Normally we’d expect (e.g.) the headphones to show up in the Sounds Options section (via System Properties) when they were plugged in, but this wasn’t happening here. Intially, the most likely cause appeared to be that the sockets (or something close to them) were damaged. However, it turned out that the charging board (which includes these connectors) was faulty itself, and needed entirely replacing. You can see this process below.

As always, this isn’t a complete guide or giveaway to the entire process, but it shows the basic steps of what a successful repair to the MacBook Pro’s broken audio connectors involves.

Similar Repairs for Other MacBook Family Laptops

Although this repair was carried out on an A1226 MacBook Pro, we can carry out headphone/mic repairs on other models. It should be noted that many newer models in the MacBook family don’t have a separate charging board (i.e. the jacks are connected directly to the motherboard).

In the case of the A1226, we estimated that simply replacing the charging board would prove far less expensive for the customer than any attempt to repair it. Had the problem required replacing the far more expensive motherboard itself, we may well have recommended a repair. As always, we attempt to gauge which is likely to be the most cost-effective option for our customers- but at the end of the day, it’s always their decision.

An Apple MacBook Pro. Initially it appears that there’s a problem with the audio (mic and headphone) jacks.

We open the case to get at the charging board, which includes the audio jacks.

Having carried out some diagnostics, it becomes obvious that it isn’t a physical problem with the jacks, but that the charging board itself is damaged.

Here you can see the old charging board- including the audio jacks- after it’s been removed from the MacBook Pro and replaced with a new one.

The new charging board has now been fitted.

Done! All that remains is to test the sockets and run our usual comprehensive selection of diagnostics.