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Macbook pro early 2008 died!

T

Thonz

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 7, 2011
10
0
Hi everyone,

First post, long time reader.
Two days ago my early macbook pro. (last aluminium model, 2,4 ghz) died.
When I press the on button, it turns on for a few seconds, and then off.
I don't get a video feed, but the disk check is there, and everything spins up (fans, HD) and the sleeplight turns on.
When I hold down the power button, the laptop stays on a bit longer, and the sleep light flashes quickly.


When I remove or incorrectly connect the ram, the laptop stays on, but beeps loudly.

Please tell me it's not the logic board! :S

Here's a youtube link showing the fault:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H41adlHGLWY
 
I can't do that this week. I'm just too busy :s
Also, they charge money to check it out, right?
 
Thonz said:
Hi everyone,

First post, long time reader.
Two days ago my early macbook pro. (last aluminium model, 2,4 ghz) died.
When I press the on button, it turns on for a few seconds, and then off.
I don't get a video feed, but the disk check is there, and everything spins up (fans, HD) and the sleeplight turns on.
When I hold down the power button, the laptop stays on a bit longer, and the sleep light flashes quickly.


When I remove or incorrectly connect the ram, the laptop stays on, but beeps loudly.

Please tell me it's not the logic board! :S

Here's a youtube link showing the fault:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H41adlHGLWY
Click to expand...


Have you tried resetting the power management (remove power adapter and battery and then hold power button for more than 5 seconds).

Also, try resetting PRAM. Hold command - option - P - R keys, push the power button, and wait for 2 chimes. However, if you are getting no chime at all then this is unlikely to help.

Two simple things to try that may or may not help.
 
thanks for your reply,

I tried it, and the problem still persists.
 
I don't think they'll charge you to run a test on it. I'd take it in when you have time.
 
Have you tried one stick of RAM at a time? I know you mentioned "no RAM" or "incorrectly installed RAM" but not sure if you have tried one at a time.

I once had this sort of behavior with a bad memory stick.
 
I tried that. I've got apple certified 1GB and 2GB sticks. I also put my old HD back in. (I had the momentus XT 500). Still nothing works
 
Thonz said:
I tried that. I've got apple certified 1GB and 2GB sticks. I also put my old HD back in. (I had the momentus XT 500). Still nothing works
Click to expand...

Hmmm... not sounding like a simple fix :( Could be logic board which is not what you want to hear....
 
yeah, but I don't get the chime, so it does not turn all the way on.
 
I can't remember if mine (which had the nividia failure) chimed or not... But I do remember that if you held down T on startup, and plugged into another mac via firewire, then Target Disk mode worked (which allowed me to realise it had booted fully but without any display).

I noticed on your youtube video that your sleep light flashes a bit. On second thoughts now it seems like a logic board failure of some kind... :(
 
I had the problem with the graphics card on mine. Can't remember exactly what happened when I tried to turn it on though.

Could be a goner. 3 years is still pretty good for a laptop, but I'd expect more from Apple.
 
I just had the same issue!

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1091043/

i can guide you if you want help and dont have apple care left.

its the logic board. 100%. and its also the thermal paste, the reason its shutting down instantly is the precaution it takes not to overheat. and ofcourse the logic board and nvidia chip is fried.. but its easy to fix. look at the above link on how i fixed mine. or search for "baking logic board in the oven" on google, theres tons of info. theres a guy running a blog on the subject, i just followed his instructions and it worked right away!! its funny, i see a new thread on this subject every day now, i think we can expect a flood of macbook pros from 08 breaking down. the CPU in these run very hot, even with newly appleid paste. and it cooks the components. way to go apple..

heres the blog btw.

http://russell.heistuman.com/2010/04/27/cooking-the-books-or-baking-my-macbook-pro-logic-board/

and last edit... someone needs to make a macrumors guide on this. and someone should punch apple in the back of the head for this.
 
Last edited:
robgoblin said:
... someone needs to make a macrumors guide on this. and someone should punch apple in the back of the head for this.
Click to expand...

Amen.

BTW, that's my blog post referred to above and your symptom is exactly what mine has done (2008/ 2.5GHz 17" MBP A1261). Apple says since they can't boot it up, they can't generate error codes to see if it qualifies for the Nvidia recall. So, basically you're hosed if your AppleCare is expired. If you do allow Apple to do the repairs, there's a good chance that they will only charge you $400 rather than the $1100 for a new logic board if you've never tampered with your board or spilled anything or dropped it. The good news is baking is cheaper than even a $400 logic board.

Based on that info, I wasn't prepared to take the chance because it would be evident to any repair tech that I had gone in and removed the board (several times) as all the tape holding the attached wires and connectors had lost their adhesive and the stickers have begun to yellow. I've had to bake my logic board five times now but they've all been successful (if you don't count the fact that it's not permanent). But it works and I'm typing on mine now. The longest it has gone between bakes is a little over 4 months and that was after the 4th bake. I'm hoping for longer this time.

Another thing to note on the baking front is that it has a pretty good success rate. I'd be interested to hear if someone hasn't been successful in restoring their board, because I haven't heard of one case yet--yet I've heard of many success stories.
 
They need to change the logic board for you and they need to do it for free.

Apple is hoping us 2008 MBP + 8600M GT people will die off.
 
Merkava_4 said:
They need to change the logic board for you and they need to do it for free.

Apple is hoping us 2008 MBP + 8600M GT people will die off.
Click to expand...

Just to add some ray of hope to this possibility, one of the commenters on my blog post from UK who had the same non-bootable symptoms said that he was successful in getting the Apple Genius tech to get his logic board replaced for free under the Nvidia issue. Not sure how he did nor do I have all the details other than he was nicely persistent and firm (hint: getting pissed off won't help your cause). I intend to go back into the Spokane store and try to convince them once again--I just need to have a replacement ready (in faith) so I can go 5-10 days without a workstation.
 
Hey Russell! Your blog is a life saver!! You have no idea... THANK YOU SO MUCH!! I also havent heard of anyone that it hasnt worked for. It seems to be foolproof... mine is running fine, allthough its just been half a week. It hasnt run this fine since it was brand new. As for Apple, maybe if a large enough number of machines start breaking down, maybe they´ll issue some extended warranty for logic boards, but i think we´re just starting to see the tip of the iceberg. Its so sad the quality isnt better than this, cuz the MBP are amazing machines, i couldnt work on anything else...
 
Guess I'm going to bake my logic board.
It's kind of covered in dust. How to I clean it beforehand? Do I use rubbing alcohol or distilled water?
 
I just took a huge breath of air and blew it out.. :) didnt wanna tamper with any liquids.. but you could prob clean with alcohol. but im in no way an expert on this. I think Rheistuman is the expert here, consult with him! Anyway i removed the board and baked it for 8min at 200 C. dead middle of the oven. Just remember to keep track of where all the screws go. i took pictures.. and there are lot of cables to remove, all of them are on top of the board except for one on the left side, it attaches just underneath where the harddrive cable attaches. so be careful when you lift up the board to remove that cable first. you also have to remove the fans. anyway, look at the blog. and look at the info user puttputt gave me on my initial thread. hope this works and all the best!
Rob
 
I figure the thermal paste needs to be reapplied.
How should I remove it, and which brand and type do I need?
 
ye new thermal paste is needed! i did the squisch method, just put like a dot, half a pea size in the middle of the cpu gpu etc, you´ll see where it goes. and ofcourse clean all old paste off first. and then when you put the logic board in, you have to use all screws, it will press down on the heatsink and get applied evenly by itself. just ask for top of the line thermal paste at any computer store. not some junk from the hardware store.
 
I wouldn't call myself the expert--just the one who had nothing to lose and was willing to try it and then post about it. As far as thermal paste goes, I would highly recommend it, but strangely enough, it wasn't in any of the other sites that I had visited when I did my initial bake and so I reinstalled my board without re-applying the paste--and it worked. However, I strongly suspect that it is probably the main reason why I have had to bake the board multiple times. If there is a next time for me, I will definitely use the paste. And like robgoblin mentioned, make sure you scrape and clean off the old paste as thoroughly as possible before applying the new. I would definitely google it for videos first.
 
i can almost guarantee that the reason you have to rebake is the missing thermal paste, air is very poor conductor of heat, and too much paste creates airpockets that trap heat and eventually fry the components. thats what killed my mac. i run logic studio all day round and the cpu was almost always around 100 C. but now with new paste, (much less, and better quality) my mac runs around 75-80c when i really push hard with big audio applications, so i doubt im gonna have to reflow anytime soon. take a look at all the threads on thermal paste. apple REALLY screwed up there.. and thats one of the reasons we see a flood of crashing 08´s :(:(:(:(

edit
thonz, i suggest you install an app call SMCfancontrol and set minimum speed on fans to around 3500rpm, little bit noisier but it will def cool down the cpu!
 
IT WORKED!!

I baked the logic board for 7 minutes on ±185 C, and it came out beautifully!
I reapplied some arctic silver 5 thermal paste, and my mbp works again!

I hope I can keep using this machine for a looong time!

If anyone has got any questions, feel free to ask away!
 
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