So, I own one of these. A tiny bit of history-I bought this from someone a number of years ago for $60. I think the kid who owned it had little experience with Macs. No programs were on the computer. When I opened it up, I was stunned at how CLEAN it was inside! It became my main computer for a while. I loved it. (Still do, in fact).
Then one day, it wouldn't boot. Long story short-the power supply died. Ordered one from eBay for $32. It worked for about two weeks, then THAT one died!
I did some reading. Apparently, Apple had outsourced the power supply manufacturing to a different company, which made defective power supplies. Hence, this seems to be a known issue. Hmmmm.
This was quite a few years ago, I have newer Macs now (including this M3 MacBook Pro I'm typing on).
I want to re-home this Mac. I'm trying to figure out what to do. I would like to get rid of some of the data on the drive and just leave the programs. But in order to do that, I need to get a working power supply.
BTW (and some of you surely know this) there is ABSOLUTELY NO wiggle room for your fingers when you are trying to remove/replace the power supply. One wrong move, and you'll rip a capacitor from the motherboard.
So-would recapping the power supply solve the problem? Were bad capacitors the issue with these power supplies? I wouldn't do the work myself; I have no knowledge on recapping. I'd have to find someone.
I just do not want this machine to end up in a recycling bin. But I have to get rid of the computers I have in my storage unit-which I have to get rid of eventually, since rental prices are going up.