Fans not kicking on, and other issues

"I had the same problem with a MacBook ""liquid spilled"". The unit was always going to sleep but pushing the space bar I was able to wake it up for 2 or 3 seconds then sleep again. Strangely the MacBook was working fine when connected to an external monitor (no sleep issue) but main LCD screen was black (no video, no backlight). After replacing a few parts with no success the logic board was repaired in an Ontario electronic shop (I'm in Canada) for $200.

You may try to take apart the machine and clean the logic board and internal component to avoid corrosion then reinstall and test. If it doesn't work then the logic board is probably bad."

Try plugging in a external keyboard and mouse to bypass those problems. Also if you can hook up an external monitor that may help with diagnostics. Lemerise is probably right about the logic board but with that well written question we have to keep you around.

"Thanks for the replies from everyone.

Here is the update.

I used an external keyboard/mouse and monitor. This did work. I can navigate around, click on things, everything seems fine.

Because it has been a while since I worked on this, I zeroed the hard drive & reinstalled the OS so I am starting from a 'clean slate'.

Disconnected the keyboard & monitor, restarted - back to square one.

Upon restart I get the Apple logo with progress wheel. About the time the progress wheel should stop/go-away, the screen goes black.

Anyone have any ideas on this?"

Most certainly your keybord/topcase is dead. Liquid doesn't do them any good and can cause all sorts of weird behaviour. You will have to change it. Apple, in some cases, at least here in Germany, insists to replace the whole upper case. That's not neccesary, you can buy sole keyboards from 3rd party suppliers on eBay and the like. But as you're having trouble with the trackpad you might have to change the lot.

"Update

I'm not very sure about this.. Think that the narcoleptic solutions is less plausible now.. Very good writeup by the way..

When it works with external display all the time, and with the internal at startup I feel that your solution might just lie between the GPU and the internal display.

My logic is that the GPU isn't used before the final phases of the boot (this is an assumption). Then, when the GPU tries to send it's signal to your internal it get some sort of error that causes it to crash. Maybe a short somewhere? A short fits your story about a tea entering the machine...

The reason that it does not crash when it's on the external monitor is that the fault lies after the signal for the external is separated from the signal to the internal.

Then again this logic could be applied to any number of things that is not activated until the final phases of the boot and is not activated when using an external display.

But I can not stress enough that this is very much based on assumptions... Do not shoot me if the problem is something very different... ;)

Not very plausible me thinks

Digging up this thread.

To me thins sound like the narcoleptic MacBook syndrome.

You can read about it here:

How do I diagnose a narcoleptic Mac?

When the tea was sucked into the machine it might just shorted out the ambient light sensors."

"I posted my solution to a few similar problems, I'm pasting the same info from my other answer.

Give this a try.

1) open the mbp up and look at the logic board

2) look at the IR/Sleep ribbon cable. (Use iFixit reference guide for logic board installation)

3) Make sure it's plugged in ALL the way. (mine was very loose, nearly unplugged completely)

4) Once the cable is in place, simply reboot :)

This fixed it, so far, seems permanent!

Let me know if it works for you."