Repairing intermittent wifi/wireless on a 15" Macbook Pro 2011

From reading a couple of articles on this site, you may have noticed that although I may be critical of some Apple goods, in general, I am a fan. However, there are some times that I am extremely fustrated when their hardware breaks, such as when my MacBook Pro 15" wifi decided to start acting abnormally. For reference, it have a Macbook Pro 15" Unibody Early 2011 (Released February 2011 2.2 GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7 Processor, thunderbolt, Broadcom BCM94331PCIEBT4AX wifi/bluetooth card)




The issue
After a while of use, the wireless internet dies. The signal strength indicator fan in the top right corner still indicates five full bars. Right Clicking on the icon and clicking on "Turn wi-fi off" makes the fan icon go blank as it should, but the previously connected to network remains in the list check marked, which it shouldnt. All other wifi networks in the area disappear from the list. The status at the top of the drop down box says "Wi-Fi: looking for networks".
Right clicking on the icon and clicking on "Turn wifi-off" makes the icon go blank, as it should. Right-clicking on the icon and clicking on "Turn Wifi-On" does not enable the wifi. The fan icon stays blank, which it shouldn't. The previously "connected to" network remains check marked, but there is no connection to the internet.
Putting the laptop to sleep with the lid and waking it again results in five faded bars, but now no wifi networks can be found, and there is no connection to the internet. The issue occurred round once a day at the beginning. By saving my work and rebooting the laptop, the issue has been manageable. However, it became unmanageable when it occurred more and more often to the point where I had to save my work reboot my laptop every 1-2 hours of use.

What I tried to do to repair the issue

1. Reboot the laptop. A temporary solution is to reboot the laptop, in which the wifi performs as it should until the issue occurs again.
2. Use a USB dongle. A semi permanent solution was for me to buy a Ralink usb wifi adapter, that worked fine but was not ideal. It felt a bit ridiculous and cumbersome to have to use a $10 usb adapter to repair a Macbook Pro that cost $2000.
3. Connect to a different wifi network. This did not work. The issue occurs when connected to other wifi networks, such as my parents one at home. This hinted that it was not a wireless router issue.
4. Reset PRAM, NRAM, etc. This was only a temporary solution, as was just simply rebooting the laptop.
5. Deleting my Airport settings files. Again, this was only a temporary solution, bus so was simply rebooting.
6. Wiped the harddrive and installed Mountain Lion. The issue remained, even with a clean installation with no restoration of my old settings from TimeMachine. The issue was the same when I installed Lion, and Mavericks. I even noticed the same issue once with the wifi when I booted off just the OSX installation disk. As such, I believed that the the issue is hardware related.
7. Visual inspection of the hardware. I took off the bottom cover of the laptop to see if there are any visually obvious loose connections, but there are none.
8. Took the laptop to an authorised Apple Repair Center. They did nothing. As it was an intermittent issue, they said that the wifi was working fine when they ran their DVD of hardware tests. As far as I know, they don't do any long-term tests, even though I had requested them to do so. They blamed the wireless router (which I knew was not an issue, see above) and mu wifi settings (which I also knew was not an issue, see above).
9. Replaced the wifi card. This did not work. I bought a new Broadcom BCM94331PCIEBT4AX for around $35 off eBay. Following a guide on ifixit, http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Unibody+Early+2011+AirPort-Bluet ooth+Cable+Replacement/5887 I replaced the card easily enough. It was just around 10 screws in total, easily manageable in an hour if you take your time. Unfortunately, the issue returned again after a few hours of use. 
10. Replaced the motherboard, and the screen. I assume means that the wifi antennas got replaced. This did not work. On an unrelated issue with the graphics card, Apple agreed to replace the motherboard, LVDS, and LCD screen out of warranty (really good of them). Unfortunately, their authorised repair center took nearly 6 months to do the repair (again, they were a bad representation of Apple). Unfortunately, the wifi issue returned once again after a few hours of work.

What repaired it in the end
Finally, in a last ditch attempt, and as it seemed to be the only part in the laptop not replaced (including software), I bought a replacement wifi/bluetooth cable off ebay for around $30. This worked! It has been going strong now for nearly three weeks with no drop in wifi. It was pretty expensive for a simple black ribbon cable but I am glad that it worked. There was no visual damage to the old cable, but I suspect myself that the bottom cover may have pinched the cable against some edge near the motherboard, thus causing the intermittent drop-off in wifi.

Update 20/01/2013 : I have re-opened the laptop to inspect the location of the ribbon cable (Figure 1). In (Figure 2) you can see the point on the rear of bottom cover (2) that places pressure on the end of the ribbon cable. You can see that there is a visible imprint on the plastic foil covering the back of where they are in contact. Due to the level of imprint and its location, I suspect that this causes excess pressure on the cable connector when the laptop receives knocks from the underside.

Figure 1: The faulty macbook wifi cable is shown in (1). The point on the back cover that I suspect may have been putting too much pressure on the ribbon cable is located at (2)

Figure 2: The point on the rear of bottom cover (2) that places pressure on the end of the ribbon cable. You can see that there is a visible imprint on the plastic foil covering the back of where they are in contact. Due to the level of imprint and its location, I suspect that this causes excess pressure on the cable connector when the laptop receives knocks from the underside. 

Repairing a charred/burned/broken cable on an Apple Magsafe charger

I have spoken in a previous blog post about some issues with Apple hardware design here. To briefly recap, it is of my beleif that in general, Apple hardware is very well designed. However, they often overlook functionality in favour of form, sacrificing important aspects such as durability so that "it looks nice". A good example of this is the Magsafe adapter. In a bid to improve aesthetics, Apple shortened the rubber strain-relief grommet that protects the power cable from fraying at the charger end, and the connector end to the laptop. The metal strands inside the cable gradually begin breaking from normal use until eventually, with only a few strands left carrying a large amount of current, the last few strands overheat resulting in a burning smell and the the connection breaking completely. After Apple received many complaints with regard to this problem with the original Magsafe adapter, they extended the length of the rubber on the grommet to improve the durability of the cable. However, in me experience, this wasnt enough: the cable still ends up fraying, and the hardening of the rubber in the grommet over time only aggravates the issue. They also introduces a replacement program, details of which you can find here. However, this does not cover anywhere outside of the United States.

In case you find yourself in a similar situation as I was, here is a short guide on how to repair the cable on your magsafe adapter, without having to fork out the $80 for a new one. 

First off, you will need a large pliers, a high wattage soldering iron (I used a weller 75watt), solder, some cable ties of various sizes, a drill and a small drill bit, some glue and a sharp knife. 

1. Remove the plug from the Magsafe adapter. 

Removing the plug from a Magsafe adapter

2. Apple have ultrasonically welded the two plastic shells that cover the adapter. They do this by vibrating the two halves against other at such a high rate to melt the plastic at the junction and thus sticking them together. This results in the Magsafe adapter being pretty difficult to open without making some messy cuts in opening it up. So here is a quick tip on opening them up: Flip open the cable tidy arms and insert the pliers into the gap. Then slowly and firmly open the pliers pushing the two parts of the case apart in the process.

Insert a pliers in the gap for the cable tidy 

Open the pliers, splitting the case open 

Voila! An opened magsafe adapter with very little tool marking or scratching to the plastic.

Opened Magsafe adapter

3. Now, bend some of the plastic and copper shielding back around where the cable meets the circuit board to reveal two large solder points. Make a note of where the black cable and the white cable are soldered into the board. To help you, the board should be marked "GND" near the black cable. 

Solder points for Magsafe cable. White is positive, black (GND, cable shield) is negative

4. Using a high power soldering iron, desolder the two points and gently pull the cable from the board. You may find it easier to solder the points by removing the shielding from the circuit board. I left it on here. 

Weller 75w iron

Cable successfully desoldered from Magsafe adapter

5. Taking the cable, use a sharp knife to make a cut after the break in the cable. 

Cutting the good cable from the damaged cable

The damaged part ad grommet removed from the cable

6. Now, using the pliers again, pull the old black wire, and the white wire out of the grommet.  You will be left with a hole in the grommet as shown below. 

Removing the wires from the damaged part of the cable

The grommet, with the outside insulation of the cable left

7. Now, drill a hole all the way through the grommet removing the old cable and some of the grommets plastic along the way. You should make the hole large enough to pass the cable through, as shown below. 

Drilling the outside insulation of the damaged cable from the grommet

Weaving the good cable through the now cleared hole in the grommet

8. After you have passed the cable through the grommet, it is time to prepare the cable for soldering back to the board. Using the sharp knife, remove about 20mm of rubber insulation from the cable. Further remove about 3mm of insulation from the inner white wire. Then tin the ends of both cores using the soldering iron as shown below. 

Removing some outside insulation from the good cable

"Tinning" i.e. applying solder to the exposed positive and negative cable.
 A good tip here is to twist the ends before soldering. 

9. Now, carefully solder both wires back to their respective points on the Magsafe circuit board. 

The ends of the cable correctly soldered into place
on the circuit board. 

10. Place the circuit board back into one of the plastic shells of the cover. If you have done everything correctly so far, the adapter should be able to charge your laptop as this stage. If you are comfortable testing the adapter while the cover is off, do so now. Or else continue with the guide. 

Placing the circuit board back into one of the covers

11. Using a small cable tie, wrap it around the cable as tight as you can just inside the plastic cover. This is done so that the cable cannot be accidentally pulled out of the adapter during use. 

Adding a cable tie to the good cable

12. Run the plastic grommet down the cable back into position in the plastic shell.

Placing the grommet back into the shell

13. Using some glue, make a small bead all around the perimeter of the shell. Use the glue sparingly, but cover all the edges where both halves meet. 

Adding glue to the edge of the shell

14. Press the second half of the plastic shell back onto the Magsafe adapter. Wriggle the two halves to get them into place properly, and then firmly press the two halves back together. 

Squeese the two halves together to make sure that the glue spreads. 

15. Using some large cable ties, wrap them around the Magsafe adapter and tighten them using a pliers. You will need the two halves to be very tight together as the glue dries, or else the two cable tidy arms can fall out.

Adding cable ties around the adapter to make sure that they glue together properly.

16. When the glue has dried, remove the cable ties. You should be left with a working adapter that hardly looks like it was opened at all!

The finished, now working, adapter. 

Unfortunately I accidently ripped some of the rubber off the grommet as I was drilling through it, so go easy on that drilling! I have also repaired a few adapters where the cable has broken and burnt on the connector end. This is a slightly more difficult repair, but I can make a guide if requested.  

A guide on what to check on an second hand iPhone before buying.

After trading in iphones and iphone repairs for a few years, I have often come across some phones in mint condition, and some right lemons. As such, ive compiled a list of a few things to keep an eye out for when you go to buy an iPhone second hand, in particular for when you are buying an iphone off a dodgy lad in trekkies in an even dodgier neighborhood.

Tools you will need to bring with you:

1. A sim card on a network that the phone will accept (if the phone is unlocked, you can bring any network sim card). 
2. A sim card removal tool, such as a paperclip or a thumbtack. 
3. Optional: A small torch
4. Optional: A second iphone, to enable a "wifi hotspot" with. 
5. Optional: A set of headphones

How to check if the iphone is functioning fine (these are in descending order of importance):

1. Put in a sim card (make sure its a micro sim card for the iPhone 4) ring someone, and ask them to ring you back. This tests the ringer, speaker, microphone, network signal, and most importantly, if the phone isnt blocked. 
2. Hold your finger down on an icon to move it, and move it all around the screen. If it springs away from you at the same point repeatedly, then the digitizer may be damaged.
3. Take a picture. This checks the camera.
4. Turn silent switch to speaker and then switch it back to vibrate. If the phone doesn't vibrate, then either the vibrator is bad or the switch is bad.
5. If available, check to see if wifi is working by making a search for networks nearby. If you have a second iphone, you could enable "hotspot" and see if you can find that.
6. Press the on/off button to see if it wakes and goes into sleep to ensure that the button is working correctly. 
7. Press home button to go to SpringBoard (the normal background) a few times to ensure its working correctly and isn't stuck.
8. Check the water damage indicators with a small torch: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3302
9. Plug in headphones, and ring someone, and have a quick conversation. This checks the headphone jack. 
10. Change the volume up and down. Check if the volume icon changes accordingly on the screen. This checks the volume buttons. 
11. Remove any screen protector or case. Look at the cosmetic condition. Look for scratches on screen, back, scuffing on the trim, cracks near earphone jack and charger.