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flyboy6060

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 29, 2015
2
0
I have a 2008 15inch Macbook Pro. It will occasionally start up but about 95% of the time it won't turn on. Once turned on it will stay on (until I turn it off) but if I let it go into sleep it will not turn on again. If I power it off it won't turn back on again also (except for the 5% of the time that it does). I have tried all the normal items like the SMC reset. I have brought it to 5 apple genius bars (I travel a lot) and everyone says they have no clue. Yesterday I opened the whole thing up and took a look. I blew out everything with compressed air and I took the hard drive out and replaced it with an older one (I wanted to put the SSD one I had it there in my wife's computer) and when I got done putting all the things back together (keyboard, 30 screws etc) it started right up. Then, of course, it won't start up again. Any ideas as to what to replace? I have been told a new logic board by a couple of shops but I decided to just buy a new macbook pro (which I am typing on now with) but I would love to fix that one! Thank again in advance!
 

snaky69

macrumors 603
Mar 14, 2008
5,908
488
I have a 2008 15inch Macbook Pro. It will occasionally start up but about 95% of the time it won't turn on. Once turned on it will stay on (until I turn it off) but if I let it go into sleep it will not turn on again. If I power it off it won't turn back on again also (except for the 5% of the time that it does). I have tried all the normal items like the SMC reset. I have brought it to 5 apple genius bars (I travel a lot) and everyone says they have no clue. Yesterday I opened the whole thing up and took a look. I blew out everything with compressed air and I took the hard drive out and replaced it with an older one (I wanted to put the SSD one I had it there in my wife's computer) and when I got done putting all the things back together (keyboard, 30 screws etc) it started right up. Then, of course, it won't start up again. Any ideas as to what to replace? I have been told a new logic board by a couple of shops but I decided to just buy a new macbook pro (which I am typing on now with) but I would love to fix that one! Thank again in advance!
That generation is affected by a graphics card issue. My bet is that is your issue.

The only fix is a new logicboard.
 

cambookpro

macrumors 604
Feb 3, 2010
7,189
3,321
United Kingdom
Someone I know recently had the same issue on a 2.4 GHz late 2008 15" MBP. I couldn't get it to consistently start up, and like yours it would stay on for a bit but when it would shut down it was unlikely it'd turn back on.

In the end they just bought a new MBP (13" rMBP base with 256GB storage) and have written the old one off. It got over seven years of use which isn't bad.
 

flyboy6060

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 29, 2015
2
0
Thanks guys for your help. I take it that it probably isn't worth buying a new logic board. I would do it myself but the part is pretty expensive I think.
 

LucniKonik

macrumors newbie
Jan 30, 2015
6
1
Prague, Czech Republic
Let it inspect by someone who does BGA repairs - maybe it could be fixed through this type of repair, which is typically cheaper than new logic board.

i am in the state of considering repair on second logic board, to have a "backup" in case my logic board fails :)

My Late 2007 15" "precious" I bought as a wreck, because former owner was "very neat-handed" and the computer was dropped on the floor, which resulted in cracked display and damage to lower structure. Logic board, harddrive, superdrive were not damaged; so I bought via eBay another MBP with dead logic board a and combined two laptops into beautiful one :)

Here in Europe are BGA repairs done for about 80-130€ (about 100 USD average), new logic board (mostly refurbished) is sold from 200€ up, so the repair is about half the price of new or refurbished logic board :)

I let repair customers laptop (old IBM Thinkpad R50p) and the repair man tested it and said, that the GPU is dead, so the repair itself was for 50€ and new GPU chip was 60€; the result is, that the laptop is now working for more than one year without any fault.
 
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