So the customer tells me the laptop just stopped charging, it’s still running with 5% battery left but can’t charge. Apparently no liquid spilled on it, so lets have a look. Power meter shows the power adapter is only supplying 5v and not negotiating to 20v like it should which makes me think something wrong with the CD3217B13 chips or something preventing them from working properly.
Clean, it has a little layer of dust that you would expect at the ago of one of these M2 machines from 2022 but not a sign of liquid ingress anywhere, USB ports were a little dirty but not corroded at all. So annoying because I’m going to have to open the boardview and read the schematics and use my brain and figure out what’s going on, hang on, hang on lets check the other side first.
Also amazingly clean except one tiny little fraction of a drop of corrosion right on the capacitor in between the CD3217B13 power management chips for each of the USB-C ports.
I can’t even describe how strange it is for such a small fraction of a drop of liquid to get so far inside the machine with no trace of liquid anywhere else, seriously how? only explanation I can think of is a tiny bug that had an upset stomach and either vomited or went to the toilet right on that capacitor and probably vaporized himself, fun fact that tiny little square chip to the right is an ESD protection chip that is supposed to protect from over current, over voltage etc. That capacitor fizzing away right next to it probably set it off and it protected the laptop because after cleaning it up and replacing that capacitor and cracking one whole edge off that ESD protection chip. The laptop has worked and charge fine for 5 months so far.
If you need replacement CD3217B13 chips or that little ESD protection chip that I beat up i have them in stock for one trillion dollars each.