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I have an early 2011 MacBook Pro i5 13-inch. It has had charging issues for a good six 8-9 months, but is now in a completely unusable state. The issues started with the MagSafe not immediately charging the laptop and needing to be fiddled with and plugged out and back in a few times for it to be recognised. After a while this got pretty severe and then it just stopped charging altogether. But my charger was a 3rd party one and also in a very bad state with a frayed cable, so I put the laptop away for a couple months. I then bought a new charger (also 3rd party) and it started working again. Occasionally needed to be fiddled with to be recognised like before, but it mostly worked for a good month or so. Now though, no amount on unplugging and replugging helps. The green light usually comes on for a second or two and goes away. Sometimes it stays longer - 30 seconds to a minute, and the laptop even begins to boot up, but eventually it stops charging and the machine dies. I bought a replacement DC-In Board and tried to get a 3rd party repair store to fix it. They said the issue was recurring even with the new part and returned the laptop to me with the old part, without charging me. They suggested that the issue was probably with the logic board but they couldn’t tell without a diagnostic which is a bit expensive. Are there any other simple, cheap fixes that I could try? How can I make sure it is a logic board issue? The laptop has served me well for 7 years and still runs like a champ (when it runs) thanks to some upgrades I did on it (SSD + RAM). So I would very much like to save it. But if it is a logic board issue, I don’t think it makes sense to invest the money (roughly the equivalent of a Chromebook) on a laptop this old already and likely to develop more issues soon. Any advice appreciated. Thanks much!
Sorry to say many 3rd party chargers are not that good and in some, they can hurt you and your computer! Counterfeit Macbook Charger TeardownLacking safety features, cheap MacBook chargers create big sparks I would start off getting a real Apple MagSafe charger if you really want to salvage your system. Review this Apple T/N on what unit you’ll need: Find the right power adapter and cable for your Mac notebook. You really need to make sure the power source is reliable. Next you’ll need to do a bit more diagnostics using this free app: CoconutBattery You’ll need to run it twice once with the power adapter plugged in and a second after you’ve disconnected it. Take a screen snapshot of the main window and paste them both here for us to see Adding images to an existing question As to the investment of fixing Vs getting a Chromebook. I would make the investment! The MacBook Pro Unibody system which is what you have are the most durable laptop out there even today! It’s also quite repairable! Given what you’ve already invested in the upgrades and the fact it’s not a slouch of a system still able to run the current MacOS and apps. FYI: I’m using a 2011 system which I upgraded to a 2012 logic board right now.
