Chosen Solution
Hello everyone, After a very small water spillage on the keyboard and immediate shutting down and left for 48 hours upside down drying, my mid 2010 White MacBook wouldn’t power on. The Green LED of the charger stays on (it normally switches to Orange). I opened it up and checked for corrosion - Nothing visible and the dust seemed completely dry. Dusted it out with a gentle brush and air spray, and I also changed the thermal paste (I overdid it for sure, I think i’ll have to clean it up and do it again). I tried resetting the SMC : no result. I tried starting it by short circuiting the two power pads - No result. Is this enough to say for certain its not the keyboard which is faulty? Just before leaving home to go to work - I gave it one last look, the Caps lock green LED was on. I haven’t encountered this symptom anywhere else. I would really appreciate some help. (I have the small machine that measures electricity with the black and red tips but have no idea how to use it.° Thanks a lot ! Tim from France Update (02/28/2021) P.S.: I’m now seeing that the lit caps lock LED is not so uncommon. But, haven’t got any closer to knowing which is bad the MagSafe board or keyboard to change in priority.
Sadly, I think your real issue is the water dripped onto your logic board and has damaged it! You’ll need to take the logic board out as the damage is on the other side as thats the side that gets damaged. in addition overdoing the thermal paste can also create issues I would make a detailed inspection of the logic board looking for any staining. You’ll likely need to clean carefully all of the TIM around the CPU and GPU/PCH chips as over doing it often messes them up!
