Chosen Solution
I can’t remember spilling anything on it and this Mac is somewhere around 3-4 years old. Model number A1466 So here’s the story. One time I was on my Mac (at the time running macOS.) and suddenly it just shut down without warning while on the charger and not like hibernate and save your data, it completely turned off. Confused, I booted it up again only to see “no hardware” and no WiFi. But I had Bluetooth just fine. I tried reinstalling Mac, resetting network settings, calling Apple (“bring it in!” Obviously) so then I eventually was able to connect using a USB to Ethernet adapter but only that way. (It was so slow at 10mb/s it was a wii connect adapter!) but after a while we lost that adapter and I ordered a new airport card. Same problem even with airport card replaced. So It sat in my room gathering dust for 3 or 4 months. Then we bought a USB WiFi adapter from staples. It is not compatible with Mac OS I fed up with all these problems, I install Windows 10. And it works fine (not the airport the WiFi usb) it’s kind of annoying sticking out. In between then and now I replaced the clutch on the MacBook successfully with no issues. Skip forward a bit to today. I opened my Mac to see if I could try to fix the airport card, which still does have Bluetooth, and notice the colorful screw holes. I’m pretty sure that is not normal. I got some halfway decent photos.
Sorry if there are duplicates. this is more of a question for @oldturkey03 or @mayer thanks!
Looking at all the pics, there is discoloration around many of the holes, also in the pic with the screw driver, upper left, toward the middle, see the discoloration on the board, it looks like it is faded, and the IC chips near it and the other one to the right looks like they are faded. That’s is what is weird because there is no deposits in the connectors or near the capacitors (caps would discharge and would show signs of burns) that are clustered together. The discoloration looks like the copper plating has come into some sort of disruption and had overheated or cooked like a high moisture content. That’s weird that there is several spots that has this.
I think it’s the socket contacts rusted, you may scrape the contacts clean.
