Dead MacBook Pro

[ashleykaryl]

My daughter has a new MBP that is barely 2 months old and she was using it normally on Sunday evening when the screen suddenly went black with a white Apple logo. On a couple occasions it's been possible to login if the computer has been off for about 8 hours, but it only lasts a couple of minutes before the black screen returns.

She has brought it home for me to look at and I'm really struggling here. Occasionally I can see the backlight on the screen, so it's dark grey, but no other activity or sign of life. I've tried resetting the SMC, PRAM and entering recovery mode. I've also tried to run a hardware test, but I don't seem to be getting anywhere.

When we first tried this evening a prohibitory sign appeared on the screen and flashed intermittently with the apple. At one point I managed to see the caps lock light turn on for a while, however that's gone as well now.

It's feeling very much like something serious has gone wrong here and I wondered if anybody has any suggestions that may work. It was running Sierra without issues and we upgraded to High Sierra a couple weeks ago.

 

[Naimfan]

Take it to Apple.

That sounds like a hardware failure.

 

[ashleykaryl]

Yes I'm inclined to agree. I was going to try burning an OS to a USB stick and connecting via a thunderbolt adaptor to see if I can start it that way. But it's really feeling dead. Very disappointing on a new machine that was so expensive.

 

[simonsi]

Will it boot of the Time Machine backup if she has one?

 

[ashleykaryl]

It's not allowing me to select any drive, whether boot up, external or recovery. The only sign of life I've found so far has through something I found on Youtube.

After pressing the power button for 10 seconds, then plugging in the power cable for 10 seconds, while continuing to keep the button pressed. Afterwards quickly remove the power cable, wait a couple seconds and press the power button once. Right now I can hear a repeated pinging sound from the computer, but nothing else.

 

[simonsi]

Apple service then.

 

[ashleykaryl]

Yes I think so. I've dealt with some sick Macs over the last 20 years and fixed a Mac mini earlier today, but this one looks really dead.

 

[ashleykaryl]

I've just heard back from Apple and they are installing a new logic board on the MacBook Pro.

 

[Naimfan]

I've just heard back from Apple and they are installing a new logic board on the MacBook Pro.

Glad it's being taken care of!

 

[ashleykaryl]

It should be ready on Monday or Tuesday and I was told they would attempt a data migration, but I suspect I'll end up doing a clean install after all the issues.

My original Mac Pro had a series of problems and went in for repair twice. On the third occasion when it went wrong Apple eventually agreed to replace it with a new one and that machine has worked perfectly now for the last 6 years. If there is any kind of further problem with the MBP I'll push for a replacement, because premium priced products should be much more reliable.