2007 15 inch MacBook Pro With Bad Battery, Bad Logic Board, Unreliable USB Ports - Good News Story?

Question

I'm posting this to put it out there just in case someone else has had similar experiences. My MBP is a 2007 with the Intel Core 2 Duo 2.15 GHz processor running 10.6.8. I've had it since 2009, and it has been a flawless machine for me until recently.
In the last two weeks, the mouse would no longer respond to touch - it felt mushy instead of clicking. The machine also was extremely sensitive to any touch on the top of the computer. Lastly, and most frustratingly, the USB ports would randomly stop working upon waking the computer up. I use it in clamshell mode a lot, with a mac keyboard and a kensington turbo mouse. Often, the mouse would not work upon waking the computer up. Rebooting was the only solution and I was doing a lot of rebooting. This is my everything computer - work and personal - so I wanted someone to look at it.
I took it into a local business that specializes in Mac repair since it was vintage. After a day, the tech called me and said that the battery was split and that my other issues were probably logic board problems, and the logic board would be hard to find and expensive to replace. He said I might be able to use it without the battery, but that obviously would be a pain. The tech felt such pity for me that he did not even charge me the diagnostic fee.
I tried using it without the battery and the machine was extremely jittery in its response, plus the mouse button would still not work. I put the bad, split battery back in, and it did respond better (though not the mouse). I have just enough knowledge to know that electronics can behave very strangely when their batteries are bad and this one was especially bad. Against the tech's advice, I spent $69 for an Anker replacement battery from Amazon. I put it in, and all of my problems have gone away - including the mouse which now clicks just like it did 5 years ago when I bought it. It might be total coincidence, and I'm certainly not saying to anyone that if you have similar issues with your older, but much beloved MBP, that this will do the trick, but I did want to get this out there because $69 for a new battery is a lot better than >$1200 for a new machine (if you do not currently have or want to spend the money).
I do a weekly time machine backup and I will be really sad when this computer finally gives up the ghost, but since I've gotten a lot of good information from these forums, I wanted to pass this information along in the hope that it might help someone in the community.  The two Steves have my undying admiration and respect.

Answer 1

I'm posting this to put it out there just in case someone else has had similar experiences. My MBP is a 2007 with the Intel Core 2 Duo 2.15 GHz processor running 10.6.8. I've had it since 2009, and it has been a flawless machine for me until recently.
In the last two weeks, the mouse would no longer respond to touch - it felt mushy instead of clicking. The machine also was extremely sensitive to any touch on the top of the computer. Lastly, and most frustratingly, the USB ports would randomly stop working upon waking the computer up. I use it in clamshell mode a lot, with a mac keyboard and a kensington turbo mouse. Often, the mouse would not work upon waking the computer up. Rebooting was the only solution and I was doing a lot of rebooting. This is my everything computer - work and personal - so I wanted someone to look at it.
I took it into a local business that specializes in Mac repair since it was vintage. After a day, the tech called me and said that the battery was split and that my other issues were probably logic board problems, and the logic board would be hard to find and expensive to replace. He said I might be able to use it without the battery, but that obviously would be a pain. The tech felt such pity for me that he did not even charge me the diagnostic fee.
I tried using it without the battery and the machine was extremely jittery in its response, plus the mouse button would still not work. I put the bad, split battery back in, and it did respond better (though not the mouse). I have just enough knowledge to know that electronics can behave very strangely when their batteries are bad and this one was especially bad. Against the tech's advice, I spent $69 for an Anker replacement battery from Amazon. I put it in, and all of my problems have gone away - including the mouse which now clicks just like it did 5 years ago when I bought it. It might be total coincidence, and I'm certainly not saying to anyone that if you have similar issues with your older, but much beloved MBP, that this will do the trick, but I did want to get this out there because $69 for a new battery is a lot better than >$1200 for a new machine (if you do not currently have or want to spend the money).
I do a weekly time machine backup and I will be really sad when this computer finally gives up the ghost, but since I've gotten a lot of good information from these forums, I wanted to pass this information along in the hope that it might help someone in the community.  The two Steves have my undying admiration and respect.