Chosen Solution
My problems started about 5 months ago when my left Shift, option, and control keys stopped working. I thought maybe it was due to some moisture (I possibly had spilled some water, but nothing of extreme amount). I tried resetting SCM and NVRAM but that didn’t work. After the keys stopped working, High Sierra was giving me pinwheel of death. Tried resetting again parameters again nothing changed. Figured I’d do a clean install. Reinstalled OSX to Mavericks and tried re-installing High Sierra. Same problem after the re-install so I decided I’d just stick to Mavericks as there was not a problem using it. Now, about 4 months after using Mavericks, out of the blue my fans kicked on high and kernel_task went up to about 300%. Basically unusable at the moment. Very sluggish and whatnot Installed Temperature gauge pro and none of my temperatures seem too high. Ambient around 35-30C. Also installed to keep fans from running max at all times. Ran AHD and got the error code 4SNS/C0000008:Ts0P–124 I’ve also ran Etre Check 3 times, but nothing came up. Just “you should upgrade OSX to the most recent update”. Now after doing research for the last few days, I’ve come to hear that it is because of a temperature sensor originating in the track pad. I opened my Macbook pro to find the bottom case had some moisture, but not pooling. There were slight areas of moisture in the computer but nothing that I can remember spilling directly onto the computer would have caused this. I cleaned that up. Next I removed the battery and took a look at the track pad. There was some additional moisture and could see tiny droplets in and around the track pad. I cleaned it as well. I cleaned the connectors with rubbing alcohol but nothing changed. I’ve heard that it can also be due to a faulty webcam sensor. I pulled that and still the same problem (high fans, skyrocketing kernel_task). I one-by-one detached the cables from the WiFi/Bluetooth, webcam, hard drive and even the track pad from the logic board and booted up. Still the same problem. My understanding is that first the track pad connected was giving me the error, but now that I’ve disconnected it, shouldn’t the problem cease to exist? My only other test to do is to turn the computer on without the keyboard plugged in using the power pads and see if the logic board itself is messed up. I’m figuring this might be the case because I still haven’t been able to take the logic board out fully and I’ve disconnected every cable imaginable to make the problem go away (even the track pad with the “broken” sensor) I’ve done a full cleaning of the fans and the underside of the logic board and cleaned up any moisture/dust I’ve seen. Please help, I just want to have my MBP back to what it was. Should I change the trackpad and hope that works, even though I’ve unplugged it from the logic board and still have the problem? Also, FYI, I live in South Korea and don’t have the ability to skip on over to an official Apple Store. Thank you, T.L
Hardware test seems to point also to Optical Drive and Power Bus sensors. If you spilled something 5 months ago and you still found traces of moisture, imagine your Mac must have had quite a bit of liquids around in the beginning and it’s been working for months in a humidity saturated environment, not good for electronics, anything might have gone bad meantime. If you had a microscope you’ll probably see some corrosion here and there. You’ve done quite a bit of troubleshooting, but you didn’t mention having removed the logic board. I’d recommend to start from there, clean everything thoroughly as suggested in this guide, cross your fingers and restart troubleshooting by disconnecting parts anew. You won’t need to use power pads as your Mac starts by itself when magsafe is plugged in with battery disconnected. MacBook water damage - The definitive guide
I ended up removing the logic board and found to apparent water on the board itself. I found a lot of dust. The logic liquid indicators were white so not sure if it didn’t touch it or whatnot. However, after removing the logic board, I proceeded to remove the keyboard layers that fit over the underside of the keyboard and was met with moisture, so somewhere along the lines I must have spilt something. The liquid indicators were both red under the piece of adhesive that holds the backlight layer in place. Further inspection revealed brown liquid and some particular hotspots where hair/dust had managed to get in, but I think I found the problem for the keyboard not working, in case the shift/option/control keys. The liquid was most likely heated up and turned brown with some corrosion taking place. I think I can replace the keyboard no problem. I should also mention the trackpad moisture sticker was red when I removed the battery. I ended up buying the TG Pro. Temps seem stable and at a cool degree, but the temperature sensor diagnostic shows the message something along the lines of “ These sensors may not be working properly: Power Supply” So perhaps I need a new logic board considering the PSU sensor is faulty, however, I might replace the trackpad too as that seems to be the initial error. Ive removed the optic drive as it doesn’t work anymore for a few years now, probably due to water damage, and who uses them anyways these days? im not sure I have access to many of the parts described in the water damage guide, but I’m left with two different errors: TsOP 124 from the AHD and Power Supply sensor from TGPro, both of which didn’t show up on the alternate programs.
