I have a Macbook Pro a1260 (2008) that is getting horizontal lines at bootup and during OS X install, but only some times. Other times it works great and screen is beautiful. I have tried using the external DVI port and I get the same on the 2nd screen. Is it the logic board? Why would it work find some times and not others? Any ideas/suggestions that I can try?
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Macbook Pro Acting up....Horizontal Lines
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Given the description, sounds like a failing video card. That's one of the ways hardware acts when it starts to have issues... fails some of the time and works some of the time. Is this one of the Santa Rosa MBPs? It sounds like almost the right age for it. The Santa Rosa chipset model is known to have a flaky video card. At one time, Apple was replacing them for free. I don't know if they are still doing that or not.
Given that the corruption also occurs on external monitor, that leads me to believe this isn't just an issue with the connection to the LCD screen on your laptop.
Given that the corruption also occurs on external monitor, that leads me to believe this isn't just an issue with the connection to the LCD screen on your laptop.
The 8600GT in that model is notorious for failing. There is no other fix than a new logicboard.
Unfortunately for you, the extended warranty on it ended dec 7th, 2012.
Sounds like the famous Nvidia 8600M GT failure right there. I had a 2007 SR MBP that I sold in 2013 because I was afraid of that happening. It affects both the Mid 2007 MBP and Early 2008 MBP since they use the same defective GPU.
It's on the logic board so it isn't easily repairable. There are companies that will reflow the solder for you however since that's where the problem lies (it cracks from heat/cool/heat/cool). I did manage to fix a few temporarily by using a heat gun and reflowing it by melting the solder and getting rid of the cracks, but they will inevitably come back some number of months down the line.
I did do a lot of preventative maintenence on the one I had though, including replacing the thermal paste with some AS5, and lubricating the maglev fans and using fan control. Anything to keep it cool. But it's pretty much past that point now.
Any money would be better invested towards a newer Mac, even a used 2013 model or so.
It's on the logic board so it isn't easily repairable. There are companies that will reflow the solder for you however since that's where the problem lies (it cracks from heat/cool/heat/cool). I did manage to fix a few temporarily by using a heat gun and reflowing it by melting the solder and getting rid of the cracks, but they will inevitably come back some number of months down the line.
I did do a lot of preventative maintenence on the one I had though, including replacing the thermal paste with some AS5, and lubricating the maglev fans and using fan control. Anything to keep it cool. But it's pretty much past that point now.
Any money would be better invested towards a newer Mac, even a used 2013 model or so.