Early 08 MBP Won't Boot: Please Help

[legaleye3000]

All of a sudden, when I turn on the computer, it seems to boot normal with the grey screen, the apple, and the spinning circle below the apple. It then just freezes ....

I tried my snow leopard cd and it kernel panicked while trying to boot. I have Lion install on a USB drive and while booting it froze just like a regular boot. I have Windows 7 through Boot Camp and after choosing Windows, it was just a black screen.

I have snow leopard or lion running on an external drive too and when choosing that, it just freezes too.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

 

[yanki01]

tried removing the RAM and HDD?

 

[legaleye3000]

Can't find my friggin 00 screwdriver... I was going to check that. I have a spare internal hdd to check out. Also, I was goings to pull the ram chips one at a time and see if one is bad. If its still doing it, would you agree it's logic board issue=it's done...? Thanks.

 

[yanki01]

if it wasn't the RAM or HDD then that was my next thought.

 

[legaleye3000]

Do you know if my hdd in this MBP works in the latest models? Thanks.

 

[yanki01]

not too sure?

 

[legaleye3000]

Just tried replacing ram and hdd and it still freezes at the same point. The thing is, if I hold down the alt key, it will properly show all of my bootable drives. The computers I've seen with bad logic boards don't even seem to get that far.

Any other ideas? Thanks.

 

[legaleye3000]

Just tried holding command alt s and it took me to a prompt. When I typed exit it started to list text, as if booting, and then it froze. Safe mode, by holding shift, brought up a progress bar which then disappeared and then it froze again...

 

[legaleye3000]

Today, the computer just started working. Then while doing some file transfers and installing a software update, the computer froze. I forced the power off and rebooted and the problem started again...

 

[thundersteele]

Does the MBP come with a 8600 Nvidia graphics chip? These are known to cause problems and apple repairs them for free even if they are out of warranty.

I would take it to an apple store and see what they say. Chances are that at least they might offer you a discounted repair, even if the problem is not graphics card related.

 

[legaleye3000]

I looked into that, however, this is not one of the symptoms that would fall into the recall category...