MacBook – Replacing MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012) logic board

hardwarelogicboardmacbook pro

As in the title, I have quite an old MacBook Pro. I bought it in 2013, and recently on some apps or webpages, at random times, my screen is glitching on the top side. I tried checking to see whether it's a screen issue or not, but when I tried to connect it to an external display, the glitch still appeared.

So I made an assumption its a graphics issue meaning a logic board issue.

My questions are:

What will happen when I change to a new logic board? I mean I am a custom PC user before, but I never tried to change a motherboard / logicboard on a laptop before. Will it have an issue with the software?
Can I replace my logic board with higher version of my current logic board?

ie.

My processor right now: 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5
I want to get: 3.1GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 processor (I'm not sure this type is compatible with mine since it's the latest core for "old" MacBook Pro in the site, but I hope you get what I mean)

Best Answer

The only logic boards guaranteed as compatible with the Mid 2012 13" Unibody MacBook Pros are either the 2.5Ghz (core i5) as you have now or the 2.9Ghz (core i7) unit also used for this model.

The cost of replacing these depends on where you're based, where you purchase from, and whether you buy a new, used or refurbished logic board.

Before considering such a replacement you should also consider whether you feel comfortable doing this yourself or not? You can review the MacBook Pro 13" Unibody Mid 2012 Logic Board Replacement page which details the tools required and steps involved. If you feel comfortable doing this, then you can decide whether or not purchasing a replacement logic board is an economical exercise or not.

Without knowing your location, I can't really recommend a retailer to purchase one from. However, most users who undertake this themselves will purchase replacement parts online from places such as eBay and Amazon, or from some specialised online retailers such as iFixit or We Love Macs.

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It's because, by default, Mac OS X boots in 32-bit, excepts some recent models.

Quoted from Apple KB Mac OS X v10.6: Macs that use the 64-bit kernel :

This Mac uses the 64-bit kernel by default in Mac OS X v10.6 : 

 - Mac Pro (Mid 2010)

These Macs use the 64-bit kernel by default in Mac OS X Server 10.6 :

 - Xserve (Early 2008) and later
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 - Mac mini (Mid 2010)

These Macs support the 64-bit kernel, but do not use it by default : 

 - iMac (Early 2008) and later
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MacOS – Macbook Pro Early 2011 15 inch, Mountain Lion Booting issue

From the tests you made we can eliminate a list of potential culprit candidates:

memory: hardware tests
internal disk: use in target mode but you might be tougher on this test: in target disk mode fire Disk Utility and perform some (ex.: 4) Verify disk one after the other.
OS: re-install by an Apple service center

Here are the remaining candidates:

motherboard
graphical cards

Receipe to kill other culprit candidates

If your problem is just due to a graphical chain problem, your system might be correctly booted, but you can't notice it. To check this probability, you will have to set your Mac so as to be able to remotely verify that it is alive or dead.

Connect the bad Mac to a good one with an Ethernet cable,
Boot the culprit Mac, even if it does just show you his blue screen,
Open a Terminal on good Mac, and get the broadcasting IP address. The following command will display it:
```
    ifconfig en0
```
behind the keyword broadcast (3rd line). You may also get it at first with a slightly more tricky command:
```
   ifconfig en0 | sed -n 's,^.*broadcast $.*$$,\1,p'
```
Let's say that it is broacast_IP (most probably it will be 169.254.255.255).
do a ping broadcast to see how many Mac are alive:
```
    ping broadcast_IP
```
if this command reply you with 2 different IP addresses, then you can conclude that bad Mac is alive and its graphical chain is dead.

On the other hand, if you only get a reply of your good Mac, then bad Mac is really dead, and the last culprit is the good (i.e. motherboard).

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Receipe to kill other culprit candidates

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