Mac Repair Blog

mac repair blog- repairing common issues, water damage, fluid damage, no power, failed hard drives, broken screen

Mac Pro Repair Caught On Fire

When this Mac Pro 2008 with 4 hard drive bays came in, the customer told us they saw some smoke coming out from the front. So we thought maybe there was a shortage in the power supply unit. Or maybe some dust caught on fire inside, as it happens sometimes.

But after we pulled the DVD drives, it became clear it was a little more than just the dust catching a spark. It was more like one DVD drive half melted with all the cables around it. As well as black ash coming out of the power supply.

I’m still quite not sure where it started. My first thought was it began inside the power supply and then burned all the wires on DVD drives and spread from there. But now I’m not sure. It could have been the other way around.

Either way, since this was an older Mac Pro unit from 2008. The customer decided it was time to upgrade. They were going to go look for a newer mac pro on macsales.com where you can customize your mac with how much memory you want, what kind of CPU, etc…

Instead, we were able to find them a 2012 unit locally from the computer repair shop of a friend of mine. We went and picked it up the next day. Put customers’ hard drives into it. The newer mac pro booted up and after an operating system upgrade, runs like a charm without any issues.

Why not buy a new mac pro, you may ask, or get an iMac or something? Many people love these Mac Pros because otherwise, they are very solid computers. Plus the biggest thing people love is the hard drive bays. This Mac Pro can hold 4 hard drives at the same time. They are easy to take out and take with you or replace them fast in case a hard drive fails or fills up and you need to put a new one in. Having four hard drive bays, means you don’t have to have any external hard drives laying around with wires hanging all over the place.

Another benefit of having these Mac Pros is that they are capable of housing 2 CPU units. Which adds to the processing power of the computer and makes it fast. As well as they have 16 slots of RAM. Whereas 2010-2012 units can be loaded up to 64GB of RAM into them.

The downside to these Mac Pros is- they are getting old and are not much upgradeable anymore. Sure, they still are powerful and more than enough for most people. But even on a 2012 unit, which was the last year, Apple made it, before they went to the “trashcan” mac pro design. It is only upgradable to Mojave OS. And that also requires a Graphics Card With a metal plate on it.

Yet the good news for the Mac Pro fans is that in 2019 Apple started making them again. I am not sure why. Perhaps because trashcan Mac Pros weren’t so popular, even though they are REALLY good computers. Either way, Mac Pros cheese graters are back. But without the hard drive bays. They only support 2 SSD drives and perhaps a few additional drives if you get special housing for the front of the unit (Caddy).

New Mac Pros have been built to be really powerful. They support up to 128GB of RAM and have very powerful CPUs. So if you’re a video editor, who needs massive power that is probably something you might wanna look into.

As for our customer, who had a Mac Pro that caught on fire. They love 4 hard drive bays, wanted to stay with a Cheese Grater, and didn’t want to upgrade to a new Mac. This is what they have now. 32GB of RAM (can be upgraded to 64GB). 2 Xeon 6 core CPUs with SSD and 3 Hard drives in bays.

The best part is they bought it literally the next day and for less money. Instead of waiting for macsales to assemble it, ship it, and pay 2 times the money for it!

If you live in the Thousand Oaks area and have Mac Repair issues. Call us at 805-585-5535 and we help you solve all issues very quickly and give you all options possible!

or stop by at 3339 Kimber dr. STE D, Newbury Park, CA 91320

A1990 Macbook Water Damage Repair – Case Study

When it comes to Macbook Water Damage Repair, the outcome of the repair can not always be predicted. Depending on how much water, coffee, tea or fluid was spilled on a macbook and where the fluid went will determine the outcome of the macbook repair.

Another important part is- it also depends what you did with the macbook AFTER the water was spilled on it. Because most people think they can just take a fan, or put it in rice and after one hour the issue will fix itself. Then they try to turn it on and they burn something on the logic board. People get this kind of bad advice on the internet and then they have to pay extra to repair the macbook.

The best thing to do when you spill water on a macbook, is to shut it down immediately. Or better yet, disconnect the battery from the logic board. So it really doesn’t get any electricity flowing through the system.

Then you must open your macbook up and clean any possible wet spots on the logic board (from both sides), and anywhere else you see any wet spots.

Then you must inspect the logic board and all connectors for any existing corrosion. If corrosion is present, its best you remove it asap, so the corroded chips don’t fry next time you power the computer on. And then it is always a good idea to leave the logic board to dry for a little bit, depending where the water went and what components were hit by it.

if you do these things right away, you have the best chance of saving the macbook. And most likely it will continue to operate without any issues forward.

Obviously just by reading that, we both know you will most likely unable to do any of that on your own, without damaging something else in the process. This is why next time you spill the some coffee on your macbook, you need to shut it down and bring it to a macbook repair shop right away, so we can do it for you.

But if you are like most people, you will do nothing. Or you will go online and read some bad recommendations or stick your macbook into a bag of rice and hope for the best. And then you will plug it in and fry something.

Then you will have no choice but go to apple store and buy a new computer(cause they sure won’t help you fix it) Or you will have to find a mac repair shop near me and bring it in hopes of getting it fixed.

The problem with bringing it to a mac repair shop is that most shops don’t even know how to fix water damage logic boards. They usually make things worse, because they practice repairing water damage on your macbook instead of ACTUALLY repairing it.

If you bring it to Fastest Mac Repair and Pc Repair – the most qualified mac repair shop in Thousand Oaks, it will definitely be fixed one way or another. In some cases it takes longer, because we have to order chips to replace. In some cases it is quick, in some cases the logic boards are not repairable, because some major component on it (like CPU or GPU) is damaged and the board can not be fixed.

With this A1990 macbook water damage repair the repair was difficult. Someone else already tried to fix it before us. After we looked at it, we fixed the first issue where the water caused damaged. But macbook would still be shutting off after some time of being turned on.

Eventually we realized that the GPU was the issue on it and that can not be replaced easily where its cost effective. Therefore the customer had to make a choice to either buy a new macbook or replace the logic board.

They decided to replace the logic board. In the end water damage macbook pro was fixed and is working with no problems.

We repair all kinds of macbook water damage problems. a1708, 1707, a2251, a1990, a1989, a2338 and other models.

call us at 805-585-5535 or stop by our shop during business hours. we are the fastest and most qualified mac repair shop in Thousand Oaks area.

2017 Macbook Pro Screen Replacement Flexgate

If you one of the lucky people who owns a 2017 Macbook pro you might have run into a screen issue they tend to develop. Where the screen works when you open in a little bit on an angle, but if you open it all the way it goes black and won’t display anything.

This issue is called “Flexgate”. Yes it has a name, because this screen failure happened to so many people, Apple were hit with now two class action lawsuits. Both of which were denied by the judge. Last class action lawsuit on flexgate was denied in May of 2022.

The reason your 2017 macbook pro screen has failed is because of the flex cable that connects the screen to the logic board. Hence “flexgate”. In 2018 on the next model of Macbook pro, Apple made that flex cable a little longer, thus in a way admitting their own mistake regarding the issue. However not really willing to do much about it.

Now of course they say its a 5 year old computer and you can’t expect it to work flawlessly for 5 years, things break. And maybe that is understandable. But in reality, they weaseled their way out of fixing them few years back too, when they were failing fresh. People had literally yell and scream at the Apple Store for them to get it replaced as part of warranty.

The affected models for this macbook pro screen failure in large were macbook pro 2017 a1708, macbook pro 2017 a1706 model, macbook pro 2017 a1707- 15 inch model. And it also happens to newer models as well. Because the real issue is not the length of the cable, but the flex cable itself. It is thin as paper and it gets twisted all the time when you open or close the lid of the laptop.

The only way to fix this A1708 macbook pro screen issue with the flex cable is to replace the screen. We offer a1708 screen replacement and A1706 screen replacement usually as same day service. We usually have screens in stock or can get them fairly quickly.

Call us at 805-585-5535 or

Visit us at 3339 Kimber dr. STE D in Newbury Park, CA 91320 to get your macbook screen replaced and for any other macbook repair service!

1502 Screen Replacement

1502 Screen Replacement is a very common repair in our business. To begin with its probably because these Macbooks were the first concrete retina screen models after a brief introduction of A1425 model. So a lot of people have them and a lot of people still use them. Because they were pretty good computers.

a1502 still has an old style keyboard with higher keys(unlike butterfly keyboard). They have a nice high resolution retina display. they come with 16GB RAM logic board and their SSDs are up-gradable to now at least 2TB of storage.

And for most part a1502 macbooks never really had any major issues other than failing batteries and occasional logic board failure on 2015 models.

For most part all the damages were human caused. That includes spilling coffee or water on the macbook damaging logic board, keyboard or a trackpad. Or dropping the macbook and cracking the screen on it.

Not surprisingly today, I still recommend people to buy a1502 macbook, if they want a little 13 inch laptop for travels or just to sit on a couch typing something. a1502 are durable, comfortable to use and have keyboard with keys that work and don’t get stuck randomly like they do on later macbook models.

Are 1502 replacement screens still available?

If you call most macbook repair places you will get quoted around $600 for a new screen replacement for a 1502 macbook. That is correct. New screens do cost that much for this macbook. Because their production has stopped. Not many people want to buy them anymore, so naturally price goes up for the product that is higher demand.

However at Fastest Mac Repair and Pc Repair Newbury Park, we buy and deal with used and refurbished macbooks. Therefore we are always able to get replacement screens for a1502 at lower cost, usually in pretty good condition. There is no need to spend $600 to replace a screen on 1502. Call us and we will get it done for you for half the price in most cases!

call us at 805-585-5535 or stop by at 3339 Kimber Dr. STE D, Newbury Park, CA 91320

Imac Repair Near Me Thousand Oaks

Imac Repair near me happens to be one of the most common searches on the internet. Despite the illusion that iMacs and other Apple products supposedly never break.

The fact of the matter is that iMacs, Macbooks, Iphones break more than any other devices. Most because of human error, but iMacs usually become faulty because of the way Apple designed them.

Imac SSD Replacement

The most common failure with iMac computers happen when the spinning hard drives that Apple installed into iMac computers till 2019 fail after 2-5 years of operation, almost like clockwork. Luckily today, spinning hard drives are old technology, since we have Solid State Drives(SSD) to replace them with.

SSDs are great for couple of reasons. They are 10-15 times faster than regular hard drives. They are lighter, they don’t have any moving parts and they seem to last longer. Although some of them do also fail now and then, but not very often.

Therefore, if you own an iMac older than 2020. Even if it still works, it is recommended to upgrade your hard drive to SSD as soon as possible.

Slow iMac Repair

In fact, one of the signs of failing iMac is they become slower. This is the first sign the hard drive is slowing down and is starting to fail slowly. Most people don’t think its a big deal and they wait till the last minute until it becomes so slow the iMac renders unusable and then they start looking for an iMac repair near me in order to fix the issue.

Nothing wrong with that, except that if the spinning hard drive inside the iMac starts failing it does it very gradually, but the longer it takes the worse it gets and many times people bring their iMacs for repair when it is slightly too late. Usually people bring them when iMac stops booting up completely or hangs on the loading screen with the bar getting stuck and not moving at all.

Too late means, the hard drive is already at the stage, where it is not performing at all, not booting or prevents the iMac from starting all together.

And that’s not really a big deal if it happens when you have a time machine backup. Cause then we just replace the bad hard drive with SSD and restore the backup and all is back to normal. However most people do not backup. No matter how many times I tell them to! 🙂

In those cases things get tricky and people’s files might be compromised, because they become harder (and more expensive) to retrieve from a faulty hard drive.

Don’t Wait To Get Your IMac Repaired If It Runs Slow

The best advice I can give( after repairing computer day in and day out for 10 years) is don’t wait if your iMac starts running slow. Usually you get a spinning ball.

It’s definitely your hard drive failing (otherwise iMacs are really good products). Bring it in for SSD upgrade and you will prevent bigger problems down the road! Trust me on that one!

Call us at 805-585-5535

We are open 10-5:30 Mon-Fri. Our address is

Fastest Mac Repair and Pc Repair Newbury Park

3339 Kimber Dr. STE D, Newbury Park, CA 91320

Computer Repair In Thousand Oaks

One of the common google searches in our area is Computer Repair In Thousand Oaks near me. It produces many results. But how do you know which one to choose.

Few common factors you want to consider when choosing a competent computer repair in Thousand Oaks are these:

1. How fast will your device be fixed?

Most computer shops in Thousand Oaks are so inexperienced they can’t tell you how long it will take to fix something. They will tell they have to look at it first. Or they don’t know how long it will take.

And while with some repairs, like “water damage repair” it may be difficult to predict how long it will take. In most cases even that shouldn’t take more that 3-4 days to repair. While for the most repairs it shouldn’t take more than a day. unless maybe some parts have to be ordered, which then may take 3-4 days to receive them also.

However most shops don’t know, nor can give you an answer because they simply are not good at fixing things, because they are either new or don’t have proper expertise to know how most laptops are built in order to give you a straight answer.

At Fastest Mac Repair and Pc Repair Newbury Park, you will get an answer as soon as you call and give us the details of your issue. You will get an answer how long it will take to fix within minutes. Or in some cases you will be told we need to see the device in order to give you a quote and time frame. no messing around here

We also carry most of the common parts in stock and only in certain cases do we have to order parts that need to be shipped. Most computers and macbooks are fixed in few hours or the next day.

2. How much does it cost to fix my mac or PC or an iPhone?

Again, what many shops will do, mainly due to lack of experience or some other shady tactics. They will tell you they need to see the device in order to give you a quote, because they want you to come into their place of business. And once you are there they will make it look like they are looking it up and then give you a quote with the hopes that you will not go anywhere else since you already have gone through the troubles of getting here. You will be reluctant to go look for other competitive options.

In reality, only less than 3% of devices need actually to be looked at, before you can give a person a quote on how much it will cost to fix them. That includes pc laptops that have physical damage, especially when the hinge breaks and it is hard to tell over the phone what is actually broken.

But in 97% of cases when you call Fastest Mac Repair and Pc Repair Newbury park, we will give you a quote over the phone in less than 2 minutes. With experience we JUST KNOW, most of devices and the cost of fixing them. There is no hesitation and no beating around the bush of any kind!

And plus we carry most of the parts on site also.

most other shops will take their time or make up all kinds of excuses on why they need to see your device in order to give you a quote. But that is just a lack of experience. In 97% of cases you don’t need to see anything in order to give a price for a computer repair!

3. Should I go to Geek Squad To Repair My Device Or A Local Shop

Often people get sold on the idea of going to a big name/brand store because they “trust” them better because that is what the advertising on television told them.

In many other industries that is a great choice. Because big brands have figured out distribution, products, customer service, warranties and other things very well. However this is not the case for computer repair, especially.

In fact big name brand stores like Geek Squad, struggle quite a bit with finding great repair technicians. Because there aren’t many of them available. Because those who are really great for most part don’t want to go work for a store with set hours for a meager hourly rate. When they know they can open their own little business get a customer and make the same money in couple hours. Instead of standing all day behind the counter all day!

That is why the repairs geek squad can do are very limited. They can only fix some basic software issues on site. Even then, they take way too long, because people they employ are often not experienced who are forced to follows cookie cutter instructions and aren’t allowed to think on their feet, which is what required in most cases when fixing phones and computers.

This is why geek squad doesn’t fix mac computers. They send them out to Apple. And most PC repairs are being sent out to their repair center in Kansas. Because the repair techs they hire also don’t know how to fix things on site for the lack of experience and other bureaucracy issues.

To sum up, if you want your device to be fixed fast and properly. Geek Squad is definitely a bad choice. People working there are usually inexperienced and are not very motivated to do things fast or whatever serves customer best. They are trained to sell you a two year service more than anything!

4. 20 year old Computer Repair in Thousand Oaks business means nothing

Many computer repair shops pride themselves on being in business 20 years in order to impress you that supposedly they know something about computer repair business.

In fact, we just had one guy call us offering to buy his customer list after being in business for 20 years. he was closing the doors cause he couldn’t afford to pay rent. Yet he thinks his customer list was worth a sizeable sum of money!

The problem with guys like these is that they don’t really keep up with the technology after being 20 years in computer repair business. They still operate as if they are living in the 1990s, while technology is passing right by them at the speed of light.

They usually are slow to adapt, will take your computer or an imac (assuming they even know how to work on imacs) and sit on it for days telling you they are looking for a problem, when in reality they are simply not able to keep up with the progress in tech and are falling far behind on everything.

While the fundamentals inside the computers are still the same. There are many details that are always being implemented into new devices in order to make them slimmer, slicker, lighter, smaller and faster.

And if you are sitting on one device for 2 days, I can’t imagine you are learning much keeping up with the new trends. Not surprisingly, later we found out just in 4 years of being in business at this location. We are doing 4 times amount of business than the guy who was in business over 20 years.

This is probably one of those cases where the tortoise doesn’t win the race. If you don’t keep up, you get left behind quickly here. Apple innovates rapidly. PC market is copying apple and is not that far behind. Things change quickly. You have to stay on top of things otherwise you get left behind and can’t afford to pay rent on your location.

I’m proud to say Fastest Mac Repair And Pc Repair Newbury Park has crossed a 5 year mark at this location this August and we are going strong, because we keep up with innovations, do things fast (the fastest) and provide best (NO BS) customer service in the area!

So next time you are searching for Computer Repair in Thousand Oaks, give us as a call at 805-585-5535

or visit us at Fastest Mac Repair and Pc Repair Newbury Park at 3339 Kimber Dr. STE D, Newbury Park, CA 91320

and get your device fixed hassle free in quickest amount of time!

Why My Imac Is Slow

why my imac is slow is the question that many people ask themselves on daily basis. They buy a two thousand dollar computer, but after a while it start to run slower than it should. They even try going back to apple. But of course apple can’t really help them in most cases. Because of how Apple used to design these iMacs.

First of all, the reason most iMacs are slow, is not lack of memory (RAM), which is what most people want to do in order to fix the slow imac issue. Somebody tells them to just upgrade the RAM and they set out on a mission to get the RAM from amazon. Then call us to install it for them.

However… I have to say that there is nothing wrong with wanting to upgrade the RAM on your computer, if you really need to do so. You also need to know that upgrading the RAM will not solve your slow iMac problem. Why? Because it is not the lack of memory that causes it.

What causes your imac to run slow after some time, is a failing hard drive. Or sometimes, the hard drive doesn’t even have to be failing. The imac will still run slow. It is because hard drives are old technology. They were great for the past 20 years, when this was our only option after the floppy disks, cds, dvds, etc.

And now, luckily, we have Solid State Disks (SSD), that don’t have moving parts, that store data on chips rather than spinning plates. They don’t need any other parts reading the information. They just plug in, and read/write data to the memory blocks 10-15 times faster than a hard drive can. It is simply a matter of newer technology.

So if you want to fix your iMac and make it run faster. All you have to do is bring your computer to Fastest mac repair and pc repair in newbury park. And we will transfer your data and swap your hard drive with SSD. Then your iMac will run as fast as you expect it to run. Or even faster!

apple a1990 macbook pro screen repair

Apple A1990 macbook pro screen repair is quick and easy process when you come to Fastest mac repair and pc repair in newbury park.

We usually have the screens in stock and it takes less than an hour to do a screen replacement.

This A1990 Macbook Pro came it with a damaged screen because someone has closed the lid while their headphones were laying on the keyboard. It happens very often. And unfortunately, the way Apple has designed their Macbook Pros these days. The only way to repair this is to replace the whole screen assembly.

The replacement process takes under an hour. and your A1990 macbook pro screen as new as when you first pulled it out of the box when you bought it!

We replace macbook pro screens for other models as well: A1708, A1707, A2179, A2337, A2338 and others.

visit us at 3339 Kimber Dr. STE D, Newbury Park, CA 91320

We are the fastest mac repair in Thousand Oaks area.

Macbook pro 12 inch a1534 battery replacement

MacBook pro 12-inch a1534 battery replacement is a very common repair we get. The reason is, all batteries fail at some point, sooner or later. No matter which device, no matter what brand, and no matter how big or small the battery is- eventually they all fail.

As they say, it’s a question of when… And all that depends on many factors. Battery cell quality, manufacturing quality, when the battery was made, who made it, how long it has been laying on the shelf before it was installed in the device, and also the manner in which it was being used.

One way to determine Apple MacBook pro batteries, as well as MacBook Air battery life expectancy, is by looking at the battery cycle count.

You can find it by going to About this Mac menu item. Then click on System Report and find the Power menu item in the left column.

On the right-hand side, you will see the cycle count for you your battery. new MacBook battery cycles start at 0 and they go up. How much they go up, depends on how much you use the battery. Most batteries start to go bad somewhere around 700-800 cycles. Even though we have seen batteries go to 1400 cycles and some fail at around 200-300. But the most common number to see when the battery starts to fail is around 700-800.

you can also download a tool called coconut battery which will tell you more info on the battery inside your MacBook, like when it was manufactured and how much of the charge capacity it holds, etc.

Replacing a faulty battery takes about 1 hour in new MacBook pros and MacBook airs. if you are in need of macbook battery replacement you can call us at 805-585-5535 or stop by our store – Fastest Mac repair and Pc Repair Newbury park, at 3339 Kimber Dr. Suite D, Newbury Park, Ca 91320

We keep most batteries in stock and can swap them out for you very quickly!

Slow Mac Mini SSD Upgrade

Most customers we have these days who complain about their mac computers being slow, first think they need to clean their computers up from viruses. Or reinstall their software. Or even buy and come to ask us to install some extra memory for them.

All those things are ok and in some cases necessary to do. But…

What many don’t realize. Is that the reason their computer is slow. It is only because they still have an old spinning hard drive in it.

Now this applies to all macbooks before 2013 (we don’t get many of those anymore, cause they are just getting too old to use in most cases).

It applies to mac minis before 2015. And all imacs before 2019.

When you have an old spinning hard drive in your computer as storage device. Where your mac stores your operating system, along with all your files. That data is being read at pretty slow pace.

Back when these were THE ONLY thing. They were great. Yet the also came in different speeds. 5400RPM, 7200 RPM and even 10000RPM (rotations per minute). they were an amazing piece of technology that helped store loads of data and changed computer industry, as well as music industry (when steve jobs figured out how to put one in your pocket and walk around with thousands of songs on it that you can listen to on your ipod).

However, these days, as technology progressed and flash memory devices emerged- USB sticks, SD cards, etc.

Manufacturers also started producing flash memory drives called SSD’s (Solid State Drives) to go into computers.

And if you will compare read and write rates of a SSD to a regular 5400RPM hard drive. They are usually 10-15 times faster.

So if your macbook or imac or mac mini is running slow. First thing you need to do is to find out, whether you still have an old hard drive inside your device. And if you do, that’s the first thing you need to replace, to see a major difference in how your mac operates. It will be like night and day. You will be literally amazed how fast your imac can run without doing anything else to it, except by just replacing old hard drive with a SSD.

At Fastest mac repair and pc repair Newbury park- we are really good at it and we can do it for you in a heartbeat!

we offer mac mini SSD upgrades, Imac 27 inch and 21.5 inch SSD upgrades, and also macbook pro ssd upgrades as well on those older units that some people still use.

call us at 805-585-5535 or stop by at our store at 3339 Kimber dr. STE D, Newbury Park, CA 91320

We are the fastest and most qualified mac repair in thousand oaks, ca area!