Apple uses spite to force planned obsolescence.

hi today I want to discuss something that really annoys me when it comes to a lot of Apple's products and this has nothing to do with the functionality of them from either a consumer or a professional standpoint or how it is you use them rather this has to do with servicing them overall Apple tries to get you to purchase a new device instead of repair your old one and I'm not just talking about their own internal practices with their own internal repairs I'm also talking about with the information that they do give out or the lack of information they put out and on rare occasion how they actually go above and beyond to make it impossible to service their products when there is absolutely no benefit to the product when they do that no security added to the end-user nothing there is it is pretty much just a middle finger to the people who actually want to service their existing product rather than purchase a new one I'd like to go into that a little bit in this video I like to show you how it is we use some of the limited resources available to actually make these products work again for a considerable amount less than what Apple will ask and I like to start with an a 1278 MacBook Pro so this is a very very common issue that it's experienced on this model where sometimes you'll notice that when you plug the charger and it's fast but when you unplug the charger the computer becomes really really unusable slow so let me just show you what I'm talking about here on the camera it may be a little bit difficult to see because I have the cameras at the facial focus so let's just see if I can get it to focus on the screen here so that you can actually see the cursor so see when I go to move the cursor how it's not really responsive how the mouse is moving but it's kind of it's it's lagging in response to how I'm touching it not only is it lagging from the moment that I touched the touchpad but also when I start moving the mouse it's kind of it's jittery it's not really like making a fluid movement it's like moving you know kind of just kind of that really slow now this is very commonly caused with a sensor failure so the way these machines work is they want to measure a bunch of different things going on with the computer it wants to know how much current how much amperage of much power is my CPU using how much power is the charger using how much power is the battery using what voltage is this point at at this time how hot is my CPU how hot is the graphics chip how hot is the area near the trackpad if one of these sensors is reading bad value or something that's out of specification it will either turn off the computer or it will make the computer one at the slowest possible clock speed that it can in order to prevent what it would perceive to be as damage if it's running in in this improper State so that what's doing here is its clocking down the machine and make it run really really slow so that it doesn't damage it if it perceives that something is wrong now what I've run here is something called the is an apple apple service apple hardware test and what it says right over here is P bus sensor so P bus sensor is reading below the low points that's vp0 our P bus sensor now just to be clear here this is a test that if I were to go into an Apple Store they're not gonna get me if I'm gonna call up Apple they're not gonna give it to me I can't get this test from Apple the only way I can get it again just just to be a hundred percent clear here we do not nor have we ever redistributed any of this stuff we've never aw we've never distributed it and we have never uploaded it what we did to get this is we googled Apple hardware test the first result on Google pops up I click a little download button and then I download the test from that website I don't think that that website really is a great relationship with Apple if you ask me yeah but the point here is that this is not something that you can really they want you to have your hands on so I get this Apple hardware test and it tells me the exact sensor that failed I'm gonna show you again I'm gonna show you later on in this video how I use that information to repair what's wrong with the machine now let me show you what's going on with the newer machine so there's no test available you cannot find this online you cannot get it from Apple there's nothing available all you get with the newest MacBook Pro Retina is this so this is again another machine with a sensor failure so the fan is running really loud all the time as you can hear if I put it to my face and let me show you what it is that it says all you can do is hold down D to get this diagnostic test which is not much of a diagnostic test so it says over here there may be an issue with the system management controller and there may be an issue with the camera so it says reference code pfm zero zero six now again I don't know if you're able to see that there may be an issue with this camera there may be an issue with the system management controller now I'd like to talk here about why this is is complete crap so they're not telling me what sensor is failed again the sensors are read by the SMC this here reads every single one of the SMC sensors and says what fails what that thing does over there is it says you have a problem good luck figuring it out so let's just google and see what that code means because maybe maybe I'm wrong maybe Apple are in jackasses maybe they're maybe I'm just missing how nice they were and maybe they're they actually have a proper code so that I can figure this out so if I were to Google if I were to Google pfm 0:06 looks like I already did this already from that browser tab and I click let's see is it gonna tell me what sensor failed is it gonna tell me what the problem is pfm 0:06 contact Apple or take your computer to an Apple authorized service provider of blah blah blah determine which service and support options are available this is crap you know why this is crap because what you know what happens and you have this problem when you have this problem and you take it to an Apple Store they offer you some tier 3 or tier 4 repair which is $750 and they do not give two shits of a what your computer is actually worth what they're charging you to fix it is seven hundred and fifty dollars sometimes more for the higher end retinas now here's the problem you see this machine over here this machine over here is from 2011 2012 run 2011 so the problem here is that that computer is worth between six and seven hundred dollars when it works nobody in their right mind is going to spend seven hundred fifty dollars to repair a computer that is 600 to 700 dollars particularly when the problem with it is nothing to do with the data so if somebody really needed the information on this computer they could take that drive pop it in a little $15 enclosure and put it in another machine just fine there is no reason to spend $100 more than the machine is actually worth and market value to repair it so they may seek to bring it to somebody else who wants to repair it like me now if I don't have access to the diagnostic tools because you've taken all of them away you don't produce them anymore and you leave them only for internal use again go to an Apple Authorized service Vidor that means that you are pretty much stuck you within the monopoly of Apple spending $750 to repair a device that again may be worth 600 or 500 or $400 what they've done is they've taken away your choice to choose who it is you want to service your expensive product that you paid two or three or four thousand dollars for at your initial time of purchase and that's wrong in the car industry you you can't do that anymore like if I go to Apple and I say I have a million dollars I want to buy a diagnostic a piece of software they won't offer that to me for any amount of money but in within the auto industry there's been a lot of new laws coming up over the past two or four years where car manufacturers they cannot keep independent mechanics from having this you can be in a position where you buy a car and the only person who can service that car is the dealer that's and it should be for every single other type of device as well you cannot charge insane amounts to sell these products than insane amounts to repair them and say that nobody else can fix them and again here's the other thing that that's kind of wrong with this and here's where it gets ironic and hypocritical so this is telling me how to fix the motherboard so the motherboard is the problem with this computer and the motherboard is the problem with that computer so what this is doing is it's telling me how to fix the motherboard now the software that will tell the person using it what sensor on the board is wrong so they can fix the motherboard is only available at Apple or Apple authorized service providers here's where this becomes really ironic and really hypocritical so the only people who can have access to the proper diagnostic tools that actually tell you what sensor failed in the motherboard so that you can fix the motherboard or Apple but Apple doesn't fix motherboards they replace them the Apple authorized service provider when you bring it to the store and has that error code it will say on their service manual in the screen replace MLB what that means is replaced main logic board so you're giving you all you're limiting the diagnostic software to people who will be using this diagnostic software to say I'm not fixing this what the so again a repair shop like mine that's actually set up with a $7000 rework station and another two or three thousand our inspection and rework setup over here so that we can actually repair these things you're not gonna give me the tool I need to fix the motherboard but you're gonna give the tools that are required to repair motherboards to people who do not fix motherboards whose internal policy it is do not repair the customer's motherboard what the and again this is just where it gets into into a really spiteful territory where you are going out of your way to make it difficult for you going out of your way to provide the consumer with less options so they are forced to buy a new one or encouraged to buy a new one again if you're gonna tell me that my $650 device will cost 750 to be repaired and there were no options because you have limited those options because you have taken them away by starving the independent service centers of what they need to actually repair them properly I'm probably just gonna buy a new one I'm gonna go and buy a refurbished MacBook Air for eight hundred nineteen dollars because again why am I gonna spend 750 to fix something when I could pay 819 to does buy another one from you and the machine that I have is worth six hundred bucks there's no point so we are on the high end of pricing just just to make it clear we are in the middle of Manhattan if I want to walk a few blocks and buy a bottle of water it's three bucks if I want to live upstairs where the you know there's this probably ants roaming around and the building looks like and this do the floors do this and the apartment is not much bigger than this office except for the fact that it is a shower that's gonna cost me twenty six hundred dollars just to give you an idea of how expensive it is that is the cost of living in this area and even with the cost of living being so insanely high in this area we charge 325 plus tax to repair this problem which again a lot of people consider high but you got to consider the area you have to consider that in my area everything is expensive and that price is half the price at Apple so we're charging half what Apple would charge so if Apple or an apple authorized service provider even in the middle of nowhere where you can get a beautiful apartment for 350 bucks a month even in the middle of nowhere where you can have a bottle of water for 75 cents it's 750 bucks whereas here in the mecca of ripoff in the middle of Manhattan we're charging half the rate and again all around the world there are people charging much less than Apple it's a year look like places in other countries when they're charging a hundred nine bucks to fix this entire issue and that's the other thing to talk about here are the other countries there are areas of the world where there are people that I talk to and they're like okay Apple said if I want this done I need to go to an authorized service center the AG closest Apple authorized service center is a six hour flight that would cost me $900 do you have an alternative solution and they'll say no you have to realize there are a lot of areas of the world there are no Apple authorized service centers but there are no retail Apple locations well your only option is third party so if you offer no options to third parties but again I'm a you then how are people supposed to have these products serviced one of the things that you have to think about here is that one of the the pros of Apple products since they are everywhere now and since their products are simple again you'll see two or three new Apple products released a year in terms of laptop and cell phone whereas Samsung and HTC and blend all these other brands in a soos and a Sorento shiba though they will out a hundred products in a year whereas this is only one or two is that many repair shops stock parts for them anywhere pair of shops know how to fix them because they they're they're ubiquitous they're everywhere you see this product everywhere and since there's only one or two of them it's really easy to stock parts for it again if I want to fix Apple phones I stock two or three screens and I'm set I want to fix HTC or Samsung phones or I want to fix Android phones I got a stock like 40 or 60 different things a year so while a lot of places will be able to offer 20 minute turnaround on Apple products they'll offer longer turn around than everything else so a selling point of Apple products even with the you that you're getting giving everybody now is that if you need third-party support if you need warranty if you need out a warranty support because you've broken something that support is there much faster than it will be for a lot of other brands but you don't and imagine what would be able to be like if you offer that help to all these service centers and you know that that's something that you really should think about while you're giving this you to everybody and again this is not just with the laptops it's also with cell phones let's talk about the iPhone 5s for a second we're good there's no reason for this outside of pure spite to make these policies so with the iPhone 5s you know how they made a difference from the five if you're not really a tech savvy user so on the on 5's you don't have to type in a passcode to login on the iPhone 5s you can simply swipe your finger and when you put your finger there and touch it it knows who you are and it opens the phone well if you were to place that home button for any reason outside of Apple this feature will never work again you will never have touch ID and this is a very common thing you may wonder how often you have to replace the home button well how often if you had a power button stop working on your iPhone how often have you had the volume buttons stopped working on your iPhone how often if you at the home button not get responsive on your iPhone it's really a very very common and widespread flaw that the buttons will go bad now even if your button doesn't go bad from regularly use maybe it goes bad from some type of liquid damage how many people that are watching this video have been Apple and heard that they had liquid damage when they had never had liquid inside the machine a lot of these people actually did have liquid they just didn't realize it with the cell phone this is very common you could go running you can go for a jog with your phone in your pockets you could listen to music and the sweat from your body well if it's seeping into your pocket well actually get into the home button and it will corrode it so that it doesn't work anymore and this is a common problem so if you go to have that problem fixed outside of Apple because you don't want to pay whatever apple's rate is the problem here again apple with water damage they will tell you 200 or 300 bucks and swap out the phone you may not really be willing to spend $300 to have your phone fixed of all you have is a little home button problem you want to go to an unauthorized center who's just gonna give you that five to twenty dollar home button charge you 20 to 70 bucks to put it in and be on your merry way the problem is again when you switch that outside of Apple that function will never work again they tie the home button in the Flex than in there they tie that part to the actual motherboard of the phone so if you try to switch it you're it can only be programmed at an Apple Retail Store there is absolutely no reason for this there is no good functional or security reason at all for that to be tied to the phone that is purely a you to third-party service centers and that is again a you to you if you want to fix your own phone this has been made worse with the iPhone 6 so in the iPhone 5s if you wanted to get that fixed outside of Apple okay I don't have touch ID but at least my phone will work with the iPhone 6 what they did is they made it to that when when you change the home button outside of Apple not only do you lose your touch ID but your phone will die it will become a brick if you ever update it so if you would if you want to run an iOS update if you want to upgrade to a newer version of the operating system because updates are coming out all the time you will get error 53 error 53 pretty much means you're you are never getting your data you are never using this phone again it's done for your phone is screwed and that's what happens when you try to update the OS if you've changed your home button now what really makes this absolutely disgusting is that there's no information about this so let's say you as a user just want to replace your own home button there's no warning on Apple's website there's no warning in the software that says hey you're about to upgrade your phone but I'm gonna your phone a high hell because you change your home button that's just something you should know before you hit OK in the update but they're not gonna tell you that it's spiteful that's wrong it's but for some reason we live in a world where they are allowed to get away with this and this is okay and it's not okay and they shouldn't get away with it and we shouldn't put up with it as end-users but for some reason we do because so many people like their products so let's go into how we can fix this enough talking and let's get to actually getting something done so it says that the VP 0rp Bus sensor is reading below the limits so let's see how when the diagnostic information is available let's see how it is we solve that problem so I'm gonna go over here to this command I'm gonna try to find that so let us try to find that here let's find the schematic again that's also something that I have to Google to finds because and you can't buy it from Apple you can't get it from them they don't want you to have that information they want you to buy another one they want everybody servicing their products that get screwed over so that again they they can be the only one to service their products or ridiculously high prices so that you don't have them serviced so let's switch over to here and let's go P bus P bus voltage sense enable and filter so let's see what this area looks like here because I'm gonna guess that that is something to do with it so I'm gonna close the machine right now and I'm gonna unplug the battery I'm gonna take the motherboard out of the machine and I'm gonna put it under the microscope so I want you to actually see what it is I'm looking in I want you to see what's going on with it so let's look at what's going on in the q 5300 area and also and let's see so SMC P bus V sense I'm gonna see what's going on in that area so well I'm gonna do is I'm gonna open this board view software over here and the board view software so let's see so we were looking at what components looking at Q 5300 Oh Q 5300 why on the right board I may be on the wrong motherboard here yeah I'm on the wrong motherboard okay let me open the right motherboard so that it don't look like a complete idiot okay Q 5300 all right so that's here by the way one thing that know is that the reason you don't see this discussed is because most people who do this and who know these things they they're afraid that if they discuss this openly that they'll get in trouble and they don't want to get in trouble they don't want to rock the boat they just want to continue making their living and just move on and I wish sometimes it would probably be best if I had the discipline and also the the good sense to do that but when I realize that I'm being and that there's something in the world that is not the way it should be and that not only am I getting but other people are getting that consumers are getting that other people who do what I do are getting I just feel they need to talk about it because that's that's how you that's how change happens I I kind of I want to be a part of the change that I want to see in the world so it says that q50 300 is over there so when I look at this area this looks like so for those of you that are not familiar with component-level motherboard repair those of you who are watching this video who may not necessarily really look under a microscope but electronics everyday just to give you an idea what's going on here you see these probe points over here these are called Pro points either test points where you can measure but these are also points over here where with one component is leading to another on the board so see this is a chip this chip has a leg and that leg is going to lead over to something else but already now the healthy ones are gonna look something like this see this one over here it's nice and shiny it's nice and shiny there's no problem with it and the ones that have been screwed up in some way are going to look like this that looks very screwed up so we're gonna see what's going on here and we're gonna try to fix it and see if we can get rid of that sensor issue so the first thing I'm gonna start by doing any when you look in the area you also see some other stuff that looks kind of corroded and that's also related to the to the voltage sense so let's go move over here because this is you 5410 all right so let's see on the schematic over here alright so lets you 5410 you fifty four ten so this is another four another sensor and as you could see that that thing look like junk so what we're gonna do is we're gonna try to fix this and we're gonna try to fix this in a practical way so when I say practical way what I mean is that we don't again this machine is worth 650 to when it works I can't replace that board so what I have to do is I have to fix the one that's in front of me so I'm gonna show you how it is we do that and that yes it is actually possible to do these things at the when you hear them say that you know all the people who are doing this are full of it or they're putting back together things that don't work and all that kind of false information I'm looking to prove that wrong with this video because I again I'm not somebody who graduated college I actually I failed out many many times I failed at at chemistry I had 70 averages throughout most of my uh most of my high school career I don't have a very steady hand so I'm particularly bad when it comes to any type of micro soldering I'm really not good at it and in spite of this I am going to repair this problem in front of you in real time with my camera audience and you'll see that everything works just fine so if I can do it then I'm confident that all of these other technicians out there who were much better than me that all this stuff can do it as well and if they can all do it then we should have the ability to to fix these products we should have the information available that we need so that we can actually do our job so that we can offer value to the end consumer so that they don't again just get bent over by Apple all right so I so I'm going to get some of these all right so we're gonna do here is remove these effected components so those resistors look like they're gonna be good and honestly that transistor over there looks like in spite of what it looks like it's going to be good the problem is that it's where it's going on the bottom doesn't really give me a lot of confidence so let me turn on my air filter here in my hot air station get some noise going on I usually have the microphone closer to my mouth even though it sounds bad and the reason for that is more gain more better signal-to-noise ratio so less of this and more of me speaking I do use a lot of tools to remove that noise but the best way to get it out is to have lessen the source which I do by having the microphone in my mouth I'm just trying something different with this video to see if if it out if we have the better audio quality from the mic being further away makes up is more important than the noise so I'm gonna remove this component here let's get the camera set up so you can see a little better I'm going to need a little bit more heat luckily my Maya this hack ofr 801 ha de re workstation that I have here gets really really hot so even on these yeah gtfo the only reason I don't trust that is because it's directly attached over here to an area that I don't particularly trust so I'm going to do is I'm gonna add some flux and some solder you just get the proper tip and again this is this is not even one of the more complicated issues too many of the people who are advanced in border pair this is a very simple and very common issue all right so we're gonna tin that a little bit it's gonna make it easier for me to run a wire later so I'm gonna replace that little transistor and that transistor is part of the enable circuit which is actually going to turn that sensor on the whole idea is that sensor does not have to be on all the time it should only be on when the machine is in an Esso state so an Esso state means that the machine is actively on and working as five state means that the computer is hibernating or off as three means that the computer is sleeping or in suspend and Esso is when the computer is on if you don't understand what that means you can look up our state's as OS 3 s 5 and you'll see a lot of excellent explanations online from computer engineers on what the different power states are and they'll explain it a lot better than I am with my very oversimplified explanation but the whole idea here is that the sensor should only be on when the computer is in an Esso state and that's what this is responsible for Friday ain't gonna say this is the prettiest thing in the world here yeah as I said no one have the best soldering hands but yeah okay now what I want to do is I want to see where that why with edge runs to over here so that's going to something and I don't really trust that nasty looking link so I'm gonna switch back to the screen capture here so that we can see what that is so that's P boss s oh the sense I believe all right it cut off over here because window scaling sucks but if you don't have Windows 8 and window you don't have that shitty scaling enabled it'll be easier so let's see so it's gonna show me where this another piece of the software that's useful it shows me where all these different points show up in the board that's supposed to be going to the other side of the board to this resistor over here so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna run a wire to that resistor so I'm gonna take a wire and I'm gonna run that wire to the other side this is this and this is this is important because a lot of people will say well you know Apple has the right to not really want people running wires across their products so when we went to talk at the Senate building to the assembly people on the Senators about the right to repair bill one of the things that was being discussed was you know whether or not we really have the right to do this whether or not Apple intends for us to do this and one of our arguments is well why should why should it be there uh you know why should it be up to them again their their option what they're telling me is that the right thing to do is to spend $750 to replace the board because that's what needs to be done and if you ask the average consumer would you rather have a wire that you cannot see run on the inside of your product to fix it and half the price versus paying the manufacturer full cost to fix it but not have that wire you're gonna notice that a lot of consumers choose to have the wire run because they don't want to pay because they don't find it worth it they simply would not go for the repair and that's the consumers choice not anybody else's it's not Mike it's not up to me to make that choice for the consumer nor is it up to Apple to make that choice for the consumer it's up to the consumer to make that choice for themselves I have no right to tell somebody what it is they should do with what they own if what it is they're doing is not harming other people all right so we're gonna solder that wire on right now so this is a really small piece of magnet wire that's insulated it's a very thin piece and we're gonna put it right over here and the unsteady hand thing really screws with me it's very very difficult for me to do any of this work but what are you gonna do I wanted to see it flat with the board's that's why I kept going over it the wire needs to be laying flat with the motherboard it's very important that the board is here you don't know why you're doing something like this because then if you want to break it off you just break it and it's attached by this one point then it goes point but if you have it flat and you try to break it off then you have to move the in this entire wire versus moving it from that one little point so that's why it's really important to have the wire laying flat with the board so if you're doing this type of work very important have the wire running flat with the motherboard so now we're gonna go over to the area where the resistor is on the other side so let's find that resistor again on the board view let's change the board view so that it's where it's supposed to be for me to actually aim now let's find that little resistor so that I can see what side is both solder juice comes out of the right side of this resistor over here now that is going to be because we have this this okay so we're going over here so that's where my wire needs to go so let's run the wire and we're going to run it along the board nice and flat to run it around something and it has to go right over here so I'm gonna try and cut this to perfect length okay now I'm gonna tin the end of the wire it's the way I'm gonna be tending the ends of the wire is I kind of scrape at it with my iron so I put a little bit of flux on the ends of the wire that I'm gonna put some solder on my iron and then I'm actually gonna scrape hard against my table right at the end of that wire so it's going to break through the the insulation so right at the tip I'm going to have portion of my wire where it can ducks electricity from the other end of the board and I'm gonna saddle that end to my resistor that could have been tens better actually I'm not happy with how that was Tim ultimately what I get paid for is figuring things out I do not get paid for manual dexterity if I got paid for soldering or small hand movements or anything of that nature I would be bankrupt out of a job homeless done for because this is not something that I am good at why would I do what I can I'm trying to get it to its flat with the resistor but this is easier to do when I have another pair of tweezers that is not kind of broken off and nasty ideally I would have had the insulation running all the way up to that but such is life so I have the wire running there now we're gonna try to observe for any type of other damage on the board after I just get that wire situated exactly where I want it I actually have a little bit of slack and I don't want any slack so I'm gonna move it in I'm gonna chop off the end all right let's moved in so the wire now has no slack it's very tight running along the board not tight enough that it's gonna break things and for those of you gonna troll and pretty much sums right while I was working there I was scratching this this is a pro point for a component that's not even attached so I mean ultimately that that doesn't matter worth of one bit so alrighty good to go that's the other cool thing about am tech 559 flux you can actually use it for a while before it burns away so as you can see I kept reheating there without applying new solder so that's my jumper wire let's jump a wire number one for a problem and it's going from there here route it around mr. screw hole alright now let's take a look at the other section right next to it you have this this is also for a sensor what is this see that that doesn't look very good doesn't look very good indeed that doesn't belong on this motherboard so we're gonna take that off because that looks like junk so let's see if that trace is and that pad is savable come on don't be stubborn good flux okay wait for the irony heat up doing here is I'm kind of running the solder over it without actually touching the board right now just that the old crusty corroded old lead-free solder gets sucked up on on the balls that I can apply let it solder so that Center pad is gonna be a problem let's blow away the flux that just got on the board look you always clean that off later do some etching here so I'm doing them scratching away that protective surface and now I wants have scratched away the protective surface I can add some flux because flux will help clean and also help status thick and run some side or along there that's too much that of flux but if I care at the moment and do this all right now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna make myself a little bit of an extended pad so I'm gonna cut up a piece of battery wire this is the wire that actually came from the end this is a different wire it's much thinner than the wire that I was using before this is the wire that comes from the inside of a battery not the inside of a battery but it's the wire that attaches the battery to the computer I open up one of the individual strands and I take a piece of wire Ingle little piece and then I lose it because it's really tiny so I'm going to go ahead and cut myself off another one and let's run that little tiny piece of wire can I hold it thing steady for more than a second not even close who are we kidding so that's gonna be my pad right there it's crappy as it looks so let's just get rid of the excess of this wire there's still excess of the wire move away some flux so I can see I lowered the temperature of the hakko so that it wouldn't melt the solder so it would move the wire away all that's doing is it's moving away a chunk okay now I'm gonna take this move it around here again so this here is my pad I know it's it's it's really it's lame it's incredibly lame but it will have to do because it's missed the thing is missing you push that down now that's still not soldered to where I'm happy but what the thing is I wanted to have something that was heavy sitting on top of it so that that wire wouldn't move and I touched it with my iron so one of things understand about soldering is that the solder and the component and the wire all that's gonna follow the heat it's gonna want to follow the heat source so if there is this much wire attached to this much trace and I put this you junk and tip on it and I touch it that wire is gonna stick to my tip and run away but if there's something to hold it down like my chip there's a chance of that not happening so I'm going to take my finer solder wire over here and let's just turn this around make it a little bit easier to work on you should always focus on the comfort of you and not the comfort of the device nobody cares that the device is comfortable and we're gonna make sure that is a good connection the thing is well you can try but the things in the way maybe I'll turn it a little bit remember on the other end that wire is actually attached to the trace the pad was going to that was death not a fan of solder blobs they're so nice try nice try no thanks that thing is really a pain in the ass see where it's sitting it's right in the way okay that's good see that now one of the way that the things that you can it will help you and to ensure that that is perfectly soldered on there there's a really good microscope I'm confident that all those AAS Peas all those Apple all those Apple authorized service centers that are saying that I can't have this diagnostic tool I'm confident they got a 950 dollar microscope sitting on their desk for inspection oh yeah it's nobody else qualified to repair these products but them right because they are the only ones with their tools last time you worked in them with ASP and they had this microscope huh last time you saw a $7,500 soldering station as an ASP good to go all right so I feel like that this is ready for the testing phase so what I want to do is I'm going to put it back in the machine I'm gonna turn off this really noisy rework station and air filter because it drives me nuts listening to it so the airfield that rework station will turn off in a second and what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna see if it passes the Apple service test now so with any luck this will pass the Apple service test will pass the sensor test that it was failing before and we won't have an issue with it being really slow because again the computer is worthless when it's that slow but when it works quickly when the sensor is operating properly this is then worth again six hundred fifty bucks so if we can fix this machine for half the price that Apple is asking then it is worthwhile and again on price if you're outside New York City you don't have a lot of incentive tea again a lot of the incentive to use us I will I will admit is that we are local and we are fast and we we do the job so if you live in Brooklyn or Queens or the Bronx it may make sense to have us do this if you live in the middle of nowhere you can probe a hundred percent honesty you can find people who will fix boards for less money than we're asking because again yeah if you have to think about cost of living you have to think of cost of running a business not just cost of living the cost of running a business in New York is really really high compared to other places just rent cost of living expected salary based on the cost of living you know there's and there are a lot of little taxes and gotchas and all sorts of things in New York City so prices here are going to be more so if you live outside of New York you can probably find somebody who does this and one of the reasons I'm really convinced that I'm getting boards from all around the world when we're in the most expensive spot is just there are not enough people doing this there need to be more people doing this and there would be more people doing this if the proper resources were available the only reason people are sending their motherboards to the most expensive city in the world to fix it is because again it's just total lack of availability so we are going to boot this and I want to see and after this boots if we have a working people tidge sensor microphone starting to drive me nuts this thing actually this SM 35 actually has a much nicer looking headpiece than the DPA 40 66 the problem is it really kind of beats on your skull and you can make the DPA 46 as tight as you want you can set that thing a head crush and it's just made in them I don't know what it is DPA is doing it sure is not but the 4t 66 it you can have that thing set to dis crush your skull on you and you'll still never feel it whereas this thing even at a loose setting it's just just bothersome but that is the difference between a $650 microphone and a $90 microphone so I really cannot complain so let's see what happens when I run the test so I'm gonna run the Apple service test right now and let's see what I get so we still have some failure for some other stuff and we'll actually look into that but see where it says P bus vp0 RP bus over here yes of vp0 RP bus test that this here has passed so let's see which one failed because let's figure out what failed and let's also fix that problem as well so the one that fails over here is one that's called IC zero are computing combined cores reading above alarm points so IC 0 are computing let's see what that is again we want to give back a proper device you want to give back something income hundred-percent working not 90% working that 90% working is what the places will do so let's go and look that up before I look that up let's turn the AC back on because it is the middle of summer in New York and it is friggin hot in here alright I need my AC for to work once the AC turns off I stopped working so IC 0 our computing let's look at that thing again just to see if we get any hints so we have you 5400 and let's see what that or that is so that's by the LCD connector let's see what this looks like because we have an error as related to computing sensor and the only one that I can find for that is in that area by the LCD connector that's again that's another one that's really really common I'm going to put a paper towel on the table because that's going to protect the machine from anything there I clean the table very often but I still am I'm just kind of generally paranoid I like to keep these commissions in the condition and that people brought them or better so let's see what this looks like here and is there any real surprise that that sensor is not reading properly when again this is the chip that the schematic says is responsible for that sensor and look at it just look at it just look at it so let's get rid of that thing and replace it are we gonna replace it with one that is not disgusting to make this easier to replace what we're going to do is add some flux add some solder on the side of course that means turning on the air filter because I don't want to get any sort of nasty health problems as a result of breathing this in all the time so let it solder has a lower melting point that lead free so if you want to get make it easier to remove something you can just add some leaded solder so alright so let's try to get that thing off and replace it so that we can have a working machine right so we've removed the broken component so as you could see before the legs were actually broken off with a component completely add some flux again you want to suck up all the old nasty solder so we sucked up a decent amount already now we're going to replace that component and yes I'm not make people are actually calling at 10:48 on a Friday if you think I'm answering you out of your mind this one looks like I don't trust that let's get another one it's not nice the side of things that look like crap on a people's motherboards okay fresh solder and now time for a fresh chip right cells oh I suck at getting anything I sit straight alright so it's down I'm still not exactly happy with how it's down but I also realized my own limitations in that get in my attempts to make that perfectly straight I will probably destroy everything so some things must just be lived with very least we're going to secure it down there properly and of course we I created a bridge hopefully you guys will be smarter than me and not do these stupid silly things like creating bridges while you're working it is my fervent hope that you not only learn what to do from these videos but also what not to do and that you don't do really dumb things like what I just did right there that's the great thing about unedited videos is that the camera catches everything even you again me knocking the capacitor off of the board like an idiot god I love it alright so let's put that lets get another capacitor that capacitor almost made its trip to the sixth dimension that's what I liked my name for the place where all those things go when they disappear alright so now what I want to do is I want to try it before um before I go over cleaning this motherboard ultrasonically cleaning it to get rid of all the flux and the junk and the crap first thing we got to do is see if it actually works because there's no point to cleaning it before we see that it turns on and functions so I'm going to turn it on I'm gonna go back to that test and I want to see if it passes and if all the sensors work this time if this thing doesn't pass I haven't done my job and now we wait I have this stuff on an SSD because I don't have the patience to wait I don't like waiting for hard drives I hate waiting for hard drives I'm sure many of you guys do as well that's why you all own Apple products because Apple products at this specific point in time that I'm filming this video not when I'm uploading it but when I'm filming it you guys apples got some of the fastest SSDs inside of a consumer product key word consumer they're like you spend a thousand bucks on a laptop and this is the SSD that you're getting it is just ridiculous so as you can see here I have a perfect rating of past so all the sensors work so let's just ground I'm not sure how visible that's gonna be to you hold that's all right so we're gonna go over here and scroll so let's see which are the ones that were failing before can I scroll on this so and I have to use the stupid friggin bar alright I missed the ThinkPad I need my middle mouse button I'm lost without my middle mouse button so we had I see zero R that was messed up I see zero R so that passed see over here I see zero r IC 0 R that was the one that failed before and let's go and find vp0 R VP 0r I got a scroll down a little more regain the sensor reads with an operating range I have to hope I can find my way back to whatever focus I had to set to before it's not so as can be seen here I fixed my problem so we had a problem with the motherboard of the computer which is a piece of the machine that Apple says is not serviceable it's a part that they say that you cannot fix and not only did I show you exactly how it is you can fix it in under one hour of time but I'm also somebody who barely has control of my hands and I'm doing this very small micro soldering of connecting these interconnecting these tiny components of figuring out what's going on in under an hour it is it is absolutely possible to do this there is no reason that the only solution to these types of problems would be to pay the manufacturer of the product $750 to fix it particularly again when this machine is worth 650 with that newer retina that newer retina has a resale value of around 1000 to $1,100 the arguing can be made that you would be buying that computer for more than the cost of repair so the $750 option is an option that's worth considering and there I will contend that the $750 option is an option that is worth considering but awesome what I'll argue is that you should have another option and how many aspects of our life do we as consumers have literally one option for something there shouldn't be and there should be many options there should be so many people other than me out there doing this that it's ridiculous and there or not there are a handful of a few hundred people out there that do this and that's it and it's because you have to do the again you know to do this dumpster diving to find the tools dumpster diving to find the parts you know there are a lot of these small pieces where I can't simply go to mouse or digi-key and buy them my only option is to buy boards that have holes in them and take them off of boards with holes in them and that's just you know something I feel like doing again with the SMC chips with all with a lot of these small chips that go on these boards they come with programming and we can't program them so you have to rig and that's not gonna stop me don't get it twisted you you you make it harder to repair this product I'm not gonna stop fixing it I'm gonna find a way to repair these products whether they like it or not it's just a question of whether it's gonna be easy it's just a question of whether you're gonna make it convenient for the consumer it's a question of whether it's gonna take me four days to find the sensor that's wrong on that machine which I'm by the way I'm guessing it's trackpad because trackpad usually shares the bus with the camera and they said that the camera is something I should check so I'm gonna follow up on that but I'm 99% sure it's a it's something on the trackpad line pulling it down but I digress I'm gonna figure that out whether you make the tools available or not rest assured I will figure it out it's just a question of whether or not I am able to provide the best experience possible to the consumer and the consumer is here because they're clearly not satisfied with the experience that I had with you when you told them we'll be 750 bucks to repair a computer that's worth very little more than that they're already not gonna have a good experience with you at the very least you should allow them to have a good experience with me with your own product because will allow your product to have a more positive impression on the world so if I can fix that product in three hours versus two to four days the customer will be happier overall when they look at this Apple laptop versus looking at it and thinking man I was without this thing for two to four days and you know what I'm trying to get across with this video I'm not the ultimate idea here it's not a message of hatred it's not a message of anger even though in some ways I am irritated am i I am angry what I'm trying to do here is I want people to realize that this that is happening is wrong and I'm hoping that if enough people realize that it's wrong and enough people comment on why it's wrong and enough people think that it's wrong that third party repair centers cannot have access to Diagnostics it's wrong that third party repair centers will destroy your phone by replacing a five to ten dollar home button no joke again your finger is wet because you just wash your hands you accidentally press your home button you got to go to Apple and pay 300 bucks because they will not allow me to replace the button like I replace the home button on your phone and for absolutely no reason one day when you go to update it without warning the will die and like this is this is an injustice and I and what I want people to realize is that this is an injustice before it continues to get worse and worse and worse because the way we got ourselves into these problems is it happens a little bit at a time and a little bit at a time and a little bit at a time and Aries we don't really care we don't really notice but just a little bit each time and then eventually we get to a point where we're completely and I don't want to be at a point where we're completely I want to kind of try to turn back the clock I want to turn back and try the entrance you know some type of national solution for this entire problem before we get to the point where it completely screwed and if this doesn't wind up being a business where we're completely screwed well you know you're gonna see me installing a lot more security cameras and fixing a lot less apple motherboards that's about it for today you know and before before the I ended for today you know people always ask me so why is it that you're so interested in this new security business why are you so interested in installing alarms or installing camera systems when you when you when you're doing all the stuff with the motherboards and this is really it I buy a camera from from manufacturer they will support it they will tell me how to use their software if I have an issue with a DVR it's not like like I'm I don't have to go through a box of broken DVRs to service your DVR I don't have to don't like to like to find somebody who doesn't speak English and ask them if they have any of something that they've took off the back of a truck somewhere it's to get myself well you know a little door alarm because I can just buy it from the manufacturer who will support their product who are ok with me working with their product it's not like this business where you're constantly working against people who are actively seeking to destroy your profession who are actively seeking to destroy the actions you're taking this is why I am looking to move away from the business of laptop repair in general because again you're not working with people who support you you're working with people who are trying to you at every turn and in spite of working with people who are trying to me at every turn actually pretty good at it to the point of again 15,000 subscribers on YouTube a class being taught on and all sorts of cool stuff can you imagine what it would be like if we were supported by the manufacturer can you imagine how much better the content would be on this channel if we actually add support from the people making these products you know would be pretty cool

Channel: Louis Rossmann

Views: 3,091,634

Rating: 4.8583746 out of 5

Keywords: Macbook, Apple, planned obsolescence, Obsolescence (Literature Subject), Iphone, logic board repair

Id: NVAmnV65_zw

Length: 63min 41sec (3821 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 16 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Is there a "too long, didn't watch" to this?

[u/RememberOJ]

Isnt this the guy that thought Apple was going to force him to close his business and remove all his videos and then everyone downloaded them all from youtube and made a torrent for them all?

[u/havereddit]

Louis needs to learn how to edit his message down from 63 minutes to 3 minutes...

[u/[deleted]]

dude reminds me of jerry seinfeld.

[u/[deleted]]

[removed]

[u/CuddlePirate420]

It's not just Apple. I work in a third party calibration lab. We calibrate and repair industrial devices related to gas flow. Part of my job is writing custom software to automate certain procedures on the devices with digital interfaces. When new devices come out, we try to get them and add them to our service list.

Some of these companies will tell you everything you need to know. They'll give you their communications protocols, command list, cal procedures, sell us replacement parts. They'll even let us call up and talk to the techs who designed the thing. They just want the sell side, so it is in their best interest to make sure their customers know there is a good repair/cal facility for the product.

Other companies, not so much. They won't tell you anything. They'll give you no help, won't sell you parts, bad mouth you to competitors. Worst of them we had to buy some of their devices on eBay just to even test em because they refused to do business with us. They stored the data in the device in several different encryption methods. No other device of this type in the industry does this. Long story short, they went WELL out of their way to not only not help anyone else repair it but to also make it next to impossible to reverse engineer it. I reverse engineered it. Took me 2 years. At one point in the process, we pulled the patent application for the thing and learned some necessary info.

[u/larossmann]

Really, again? You want to watch this boring 1 hour long shit AGAIN????!! This was right here same time last year! :p cmon, find something interesting to watch besides this ahole!

[u/MaddieEsquire]

I can't believe I am seeing this post right now. It's... exactly what happened to me two days ago. I was infuriated at Apple for lying to my face and telling me it would be "impossible" to repair my corroded charge port after some coffee splashed on my phone. I repeatedly told them that I hoped to somehow fix my phone, and that I had thousands of photos of my kids that I don't want to lose. The phone had just stopped charging that morning, but worked great otherwise. They insisted-- three of them-- that I needed to replace it for $299 or upgrade to iPhone 7. I told them I'd go directly to Sprint.

The Sprint guy looked at my phone and quietly told me that the Cellaris shop upstairs in the same mall that might be able to help. I went to Cellaris, which installed an entirely new charge port for 30 bucks while I walked around for a bit. (It's been several days and charges up just fine, and I was able to back up all those photos, regardless.)

This is what Apple literally told me was "impossible". They are shamelessly lying to their loyal customers. Have they not gotten enough of my money for their overpriced products all these years? Unbelievable.

[u/internet_m0nkey_]

He said not to upvote this video on today's live stream. I did the responsible Reddit thing to do and upvoted.