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Help - MacBook Pro 17" (Late 2008) Black Screen of death

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ericyoung

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Well, finally bought a Mac, after being a lifelong PC man, and not happy!

Bought the last generation MacBook Pro 17" (so I'd have the replaceable batteries and extra firewire connector) a couple of weeks ago off Ebay for £1000 and was initially stoked - it's as new, not a mark on it. Only about 4 battery cycles old. Was running fine and was enjoying learning how a Mac works.

Closed the lid on it last night - it went to sleep with the nice pulsating front LED. Got up in the morning to find it completely unresponsive. WTF.

Completely black screen (no graphics visible, so don't think it's just a backlight thing), no backlight on keyboard, no response from keyboard, capslock LED doesn't light, no light on power button. Front LED constant dim when laptop lid open, constant bright when closed. No power on USBs, no external display output. The hard drive spins up, but no chime, and the DVD drive accepted a DVD which span up and down but is now stuck inside!

As the keyboard seems completely dead, I 'm thinking the keyboard presses I've tried to reset PRAM, SMU etc aren't working anyway.

Looking on the web, it now seems it's a very common problem with various symptoms and numerous anecdotal fixes, none of which seem to work with mine.

Anyone else had this happen?

So much for Mac reliability! Grrr...

Help!
 
I guess you don't have AppleCare?
 
Power Button...

Power Button...

Did you try to push and hold the power button for several seconds (as in 4-6 sec.)?

You should hear a click and the HD stops spinning. Wait 10 sec. and push the power button again to turn it back on.

Hope this helps.

Good luck!

- Jan
 
Had it for a week and played with it only a few hours over several days, but all was good, so hadn't even got round to thinking about Applecare etc!

Yes, tried the power off, power on routine - no go. :-(

I did do an automatic Apple software update which included an SMC update, but it was working fine after that I believe, although it possibly may have been the first time I put it to sleep by closing the lid after the update. Not sure.
 
I also have the unibody MBP 17" anti-glare. From all the bad info on error stricken MBPs, I must say I initially hesitated buying it. But it has proved to be a great catch. The screen is amazing. And when I am not hooked up to my 24" LCD I no longer feel afraid of doing a first color correction. This was just not an option with earlier MBPs. It is calibrated with eye one, which recommends the light of the screen being turned down 6 steps in 1.8 gamma mode (5 steps with 2.2 gamma mode). I actually get 7 hours of continuous surfing and writing text in battery save mode with this set up.

Jan Balster said:
Did you try to push and hold the power button for several seconds (as in 4-6 sec.)?

You should hear a click and the HD stops spinning. Wait 10 sec. and push the power button again to turn it back on.

Hope this helps.

Good luck!

- Jan
Click to expand...

However, the tip of holding down the power button doesn't work on these new machines that have the battery built in. Instead it requires a new trick that I had to do recently – I couldn't get any audio out from the mini-jack (no, it didn't help my problem but now it seems to be gone anyway). I talked to Apple Care and they told me which keys to push. Unfortunately I don't remember which ones but I guess you could google it.

The other thing is that it is not too late for you to buy Apple Care, even if you bought your MBP on Ebay. As long as you do it with in one year after the computer was first sold from the store. The apple care 3-year service is also not individual but instead follows the computer/serial #. A good thing if you want to sell it.

Best wishes,

Calle
 
Power

Power

... and do that wired to power. You Battery must be empty by now, since the light stopped pulsing.
This issue is known. Check to see that your Mac OSX software is up to date. That might help, if the issue returns.
 
this is an nvidia problem, graphics chip gets too hot and dies. I had this happen and Apple
fixed it after everybody and their brother threw a hissy fit.

Take it into an apple store and just tell them the problem, they have extended the warranty for this problem. Mine died about a month and a half after warranty
 
This does sound like the nVidia overheat issue as Paul mentioned. Factory warranty on the computer is 1 year, so if it's not a year old, then you'll be covered through AppleCare. If it is more than a year old, you will still be covered if it is the nVidia GPU issue. Apple has extended the warranties for an additional year for that issue.

Take it in and see what they say. I recommend pulling the hard drive and cloning it first. The Apple techs often like to wipe the drive and do a fresh OSX install after any significant system repairs.
 
This may sound strange, but I had the same problem. Then I realized I was using my wife's 60w charger, which looks identical to my 85w charger, and it wasn't getting enough juice to wake up. (P.S. It takes a lot of balls to admit this on a public forum lol)
 
Thanks for all the suggestions guys!

Will take it in to see if it's the Nvidia problem - bit puzzled why it affects the keyboard though!
 
I think it affects the keyboard because the system isn't posting the EFI or activating the keyboard interface.

Most likely it's the nVidia GPU issue, bad RAM module(s), bad logic board (can be damaged if the nVidia GPU cooks itself) or possibly a battery/power issue.

Things to try if you haven't already and they will probably try when you take it to an Apple Store before checking it in for service are: Swap the battery (if you have one to swap to). Try operating the system with one RAM module, if it doesn't work, then try using just the other. Install a known good module if you have one -- not recommended that you pull it out of another working system though. A fried logic board could have fried the RAM too and may damage another module you install.

Let the Apple technicians sort it out. That's what the warranty is for. And it's a lot easier to diagnose when someone has their hands on the unit as opposed to all of us taking stabs in the dark at it here on the forums.
 
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