Beating Apple’s Secret Lid Angle Sensor Calibration With Custom Tool

September 26, 2023 by Maya Posch 33 Comments

Among the changes made by Apple to its laptops over the years, the transition from a Hall sensor-based sleep sensor to an angle sensor that determines when the lid is closed is a decidedly unpopular one. The reason for this is the need to calibrate this sensor after replacement, using a tool that Apple decided to keep for itself. That is, until recently [Stephan Steins] created a tool which he creatively called the ‘nerd.tool.1‘. This widget can perform this calibration procedure with the press of its two buttons, as demonstrated on [Louis Rossmann]’s YouTube channel.

This new angle sensor was first introduced in late 2019, with Apple’s official reason being an increased level of ‘precision’. As each sensor has to be calibrated correctly in order to measure the magnetic field and determine the associated lid angle, this means that third-party repair shops and determined MacBook owners have to transplant the chip containing the calibration data to a replacement sensor system. Until now, that is. Although the nerd.tool.1 is somewhat pricey at €169 ($179 USD), for a third-party MacBook repair shop this would seem to be a steal.

It is however unfortunate that Apple persists in such anti-repair methods, with recently [Hugh Jeffreys] also calling Apple out on this during a MacBook Pro M1/M2 teardown video. During this teardown [Hugh] came across this angle sensor issue by swapping parts between two otherwise identical MacBook Pros, indicating just how annoying this need to calibrate one tiny lid angle sensor is.

Continue reading “Beating Apple’s Secret Lid Angle Sensor Calibration With Custom Tool” →

Hack Lets Intel MacBook Run Without A Battery

February 17, 2023 by Lewin Day 31 Comments

A long time ago, a laptop was a basic thing, and you could pretty much run one just by hooking up a power supply to the battery contacts. A modern MacBook is altogether fussier. However, when [Christophe] was stuck in the midst of a 2020 lockdown with no parts available, he found a way to get his damaged MacBook up and running without a battery.

The problem was brought about by a failing battery in the MacBook Pro 13″ from mid-2018, which swelled up and deformed the laptop’s case. Parts were unavailable, and the MacBook wouldn’t run at full speed without a battery fitted. That’s because with no battery present, the MacBook would send a BD_PROCHOT signal to the Intel CPU, telling it to slow down due to overheating, even when the chip was cool.

To get around the problem, [Christophe] used a tool called CPUTune. It allows fiddling with the various CPU settings of a MacBook. He deactivated the BD_PROCHOT signal, and also the CPU’s Turbo Boost feature. This ended the worst of the thermal throttling, and enabled semi-normal use of the machine.

It’s unclear why Apple would throttle the CPU with the battery disconnected. [Christophe]’s workaround got him back up and working again in the midst of a difficult period, regardless. We’ve seen some other great Macbook hacks before too, like this amazing save from serious water damage!

Thanks to [donaldcuckman] for the tip!]

A Dead Macbook GPU Shouldn’t Stop You, With This BGA Soldering Hack

June 28, 2020 by Jenny List 42 Comments

On some 2011 Macbook Pro models, there is a tendency for the Radeon GPU to fail. This should mean game over for the computer, but surprisingly salvation is offered by its having not one but two GPUs on board. The Intel processor also has a GPU, and Apple use a pile of logic in an FPGA to switch at will between them. The community have produced fresh FPGA code to revive a dead Mac on its Intel GPU, but at the expense of losing brightness control. [Ayilm1] has brought back the brightness with a clever BGA reworking hack that gains access to a brightness control line present on the Intel BD82HM65 Platform Controller Hub chip but not used in the Macbook.

We’re used to impressive soldering work here at Hackaday, and we’ve seen our share of wiring direct to the balls on an upturned BGA chip. This is a similar idea but at another level, as a section of the top insulation on an in-place BGA is removed to expose the microvia above the ball carrying the required signal. A tiny wire is soldered to the exposed pad and taken to a piece of copper tape stuck down to provide mechanical strength, and a piece of enameled copper wire is run from that to the other side of the PCB where lies its destination. It comes with FPGA code to take advantage of it, but even for non-Macbook owners, it’s an extremely impressive piece of work. It’s not the first fine-soldering Macbook fix we’ve seen, either.

Thanks [lightpink784] for the tip.

Bringing The Best Laptop Ever Made Back To Life

February 7, 2017 by Brian Benchoff 60 Comments

Eight or nine years ago, Apple was on top of the world. The iPhone just revolutionized phones, Apple was still making computers, and these computers were actually repairable. Of the late 2008/early 2009 MacBook Pro, iFixit said, “What an incredible machine. We are very impressed by the ease with which the new MacBook Pro came apart. This machine should be a joy to work on”. Apple has come a long way since then.

[DocDawning] has a bit of a Mac hoarding problem, and frequently pays $20 for broken laptops of this vintage. Most of the time, the fix is simple: the RAM needs to be reseated, or something like that. Rarely, he comes across a machine that isn’t fixed so easily. The solution, in this case, is a deep dive into heat guns and thermal management. How do you bring a laptop back from the dead? [Dawning] shows you how.

Like the old XBox towel hack, the first thing to look for in dead electronics is broken solder balls. Of course, actually looking at broken solder balls is pretty hard, so you might as well just get out a heat gun and go at it. That’s exactly what [Dawning] did. With the clever application of an aluminum takeout tray to direct the heat flow, he blasted each of these chips with enough heat to hopefully melt all the balls.

With that, a working MacBook Pro was just a liberal application of thermal paste away. From $20 at the scrap heap to a working computer, [Dawning] did it. He successfully resuscitated a broken computer.

Hackaday Links: December 4, 2016

December 4, 2016 by Brian Benchoff 14 Comments

The Chaos Communication Congress is growing! Actually, it’s not, but there may be an ‘overflow venue’ for everyone who didn’t get a ticket. There’s a slack up for people who didn’t get a ticket to 33C3 but would still like to rent a venue, set up some tables, stream some videos, and generally have a good time.

Need to test a lot of batteries? Have one of those magnetic parts tray/dish things sitting around? This is freakin’ brilliant. Put your batteries vertically in a metal dish, clip one lead of a meter to the dish and probe each battery with the other lead of your meter.

Pravda reports the USS Zumwalt and HMS Duncan – the most technologically advanced ships in the US and Royal Navies – have turned into, ‘useless tin cans due to China’, with ‘Microchips made in China putting the vessels out of action’. Again, Pravda reports this, so don’t worry. In other news, someone found a few USB drives in a parking lot in Norfolk, Virginia.

Here’s how discourse goes on the Internet. Someone does something. Everyone says it’s stupid. We wait a few days or weeks. Someone posts something on Medium telling everyone it’s actually okay. Public opinion is muddled until the actual issue being discussed is rendered technologically irrelevant. For the newest MacBook Pro, we’re currently at stage 3 and ‘it’s kind of great for hackers’. Now if only we knew how to make USB-C ports work with microcontrollers…

If you have a Prusa i3, here’s a free gift: a Spitfire. The files to print a remote control, 973mm Spitfire Mk XVI are now free for Prusa i3 and i3 Mk 2 owners. Why? Because it’s cool, duh, and [Stephan Dokupil] and [Patrik Svida], the guys behind the Spitfire and other 3D printed RC planes, are also in Czech. Now all we need are Czech roundel stickers.

96 MacBook Pros: Most Expensive Server Rack We’ve Ever Seen

July 28, 2015 by James Hobson 114 Comments

Ever see a standard server rack stuffed full with 8-dozen MacBook Pros? Well now you have.

Now before the torrential downpour of anti-Mac comments come, this actually has a purpose. No seriously. Besides, what company in their right mind would spend that much money on a rack full of paperweights? Kidding.

[Steve] works for a company that designs electronics, and for a particular launch they needed to perform a lot of testing — using MacBook Pros. There are ways he could have emulated OS X on a much cheaper hardware setup, but the whole point was to test the product with Apple hardware. So he took a stroll down to the local Apple store and picked up two pallets worth. Continue reading “96 MacBook Pros: Most Expensive Server Rack We’ve Ever Seen” →

Reflowing An Entire MacBook Pro

December 31, 2014 by Brian Benchoff 58 Comments

[Sterling]’s MacBook Pro has a propensity to heat up at times. Some of this overheating is due to to what he uses his Mac for – gaming and making music. A larger part of this overheating is that this laptop is a consumer electronics device – it’s going to die sooner or later. One day in March, this laptop bit the bullet, and that’s where this story gets interesting.

Before the MacBook died, [Sterling] was logging temps between 80 and 90ºC, with a maximum of 102º. The simple fixes, compressed air, a laptop stand, and running the fans full blast all the time didn’t help. When the laptop died, [Sterling] was pretty sure some solder joints came loose. Sending the logic board off to a place that specializes in reflowing would take weeks. A more drastic plan of attack was necessary.

[Sterling] disconnected all the wires, connectors, and heat sinks and preheated his oven to 340º F. The logic board was placed on a cookie tray and stuffed into the oven for seven long minutes. Thermal paste was reapplied, heat sinks reinstalled, connectors connected, and the machine booted. It worked great for about eight months with temperatures averaging around 60 or 70º C.

Two weeks ago, the laptop died again. This time it was reflowed with a heat gun and ran for about an hour. The third attempt was the cookie sheet again, only this time [Sterling] added something. Speed holes. Or vents, or whatever else you want to call them.

Now there’s a noticeably increased airflow in the Mac, much better than before. Average temps are back down to 40 or 50º C, lower than they were with just a reflow. The jury is still out if this new addition can go the distance, but with any luck, this mod might make it through 2015.

Thanks [Doug] for the tip.