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2011 MacBook Pro not booting

Xbfryfd

Xbfryfd

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 24, 2016
33
39
I have a 15 inch 2011 MacBook Pro and the other day while I was using it in GarageBand it froze up. I figured whatever that happens and shut it down, closed the lid and plugged it in. Well then the yesterday I went to boot it up and at first it showed a blue screen with lines going up and down. I turned it back off and tried again and I got to the boot screen, but about half way through it stopped and went to a blank gray screen. I reset the PRAM/NVRAM, tried booting into safe mode, recovery mode, reset the SMC, and tried booting from a bootable usb with high Sierra. None of these ended up doing anything, most of the time just getting to around 50% and going to a blank gray screen. At one point I was able to do internet recovery but again it did not work. When using the bootable usb, it got to the loading screen and very slowly the bar was moving. It got to 100% but after probably 18 hours it was still just sitting there with the apple logo and the loading bar at 100% so I turned it off. I heard people saying this may be a GPU issue. If so, how do I go about fixing it? Thanks for any help!
 
Xbfryfd said:
Well then the yesterday I went to boot it up and at first it showed a blue screen with lines going up and down. I turned it back off and tried again and I got to the boot screen, but about half way through it stopped and went to a blank gray screen.
Click to expand...
Classic GPU failure symptoms.

Are you using a HDD or SSD?
 
No way to fix the problem unless you disable the Radeon GPU, find a repair shop to try and reflow the GPU chip, get a replacement logic board, or replace the MacBook.
 
Audit13 said:
No way to fix the problem unless you disable the Radeon GPU, find a repair shop to try and reflow the GPU chip, get a replacement logic board, or replace the MacBook.
Click to expand...
How would I go about disabling the Radeon GPU?
 
Xbfryfd said:
I tried doing the method without linux, "Or try the simplest way - No needed ArchLinux - Only MacOS:" and it still didn't work, booting either from the ssd or from the usb installer. So should I try going the linux route then?
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, I have never had to do this.

I had a late 2011 15" a couple of years ago and had the problem fixed by replacing the GPU chip.
 
Xbfryfd said:
I tried doing the method without linux, "Or try the simplest way - No needed ArchLinux - Only MacOS:" and it still didn't work, booting either from the ssd or from the usb installer. So should I try going the linux route then?
Click to expand...
Same thing happened to mine in 2017....I tried almost everything and couldn't get it to boot. Really needed a machine at the time so I bought a 2017 MBPro. As I was researching the problem it became apparent that replacement / re-soder of the AMD GPU wasn't a viable path. Replacement , if you could find it AND were willing to pay the cost would give you the same (albeit aged) failure prone board. I didn't get to go thru all of the methods in the thread as I bought a new machine but one did look as if it would work ....but required a working battery. If your battery is still working I suggest trying all of the methods in the thread. My 2011 MBPro...maxed out...was a great machine. I still hold Apple and AMD responsible as I would have not purchased a new one in 2017 were if not for a defective chip.
 
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