Macbook pro early 2011 chimes with black screen after PRAM reset

[Johanfromtheinternet]

Hey guys,

I was given an old early 2011 MacBook pro 15 inch which had been laying in a closet for a few years doing pretty much nothing. It had been discarded because it was too slow for the owner. It didn’t have a disk so I put it an old HDD from a 2012 model I had laying around and installed High Sierra yesterday.

Everything was doing alright except I had some weird wifi problems (the SSID would show, but I couldn’t connect), also the keyboard and trackpad were completely dead except for the backlit.

So I was looking for some solutions to these problems and decided to reset PRAM. When I did this everything went normal; I waited for the second chime and after that… darkness. Ever since this happened everything appears to work (fans spin, HDD seems to boot the OS, I hear the chime, backlit and apple logo light both work), but it just stays dark on the screen. Since the keyboard is dead that complicates things a little since I need to use an external keyboard, but before resetting PRAM everything worked well with that keyboard; I also get some beeps when I press random f keys (like I would normally) so it’s connected to it.


Any tips on getting some more life out of this machine? I also have a dead 15 inch 2012 model laying around so I could potentially swap some parts if anyone has an idea, but everything with the display was fine so I’m thinking some software problem caused this.


Things I’ve tried to do that didn’t work:

• Try to just log in typing my password.
• Reset SMC
• Reset PRAM again
• Try key combinations to get into (internet) recovery mode
• Disconnecting ram sticks / disconnecting the hd

 

[Madonepro]

start up with option key only, keep it held until 'select your hard disk' appears

 

[Johanfromtheinternet]

start up with option key only, keep it held until 'select your hard disk' appears

Thanks, but still nothing :/

 

[Audit13]

Could be a dead GPU that's causing the issue?

Tried removing the ram and listening for beep errors? If there are no beeps, I believe there are problems with the main logic board.

 

[Johanfromtheinternet]

there

Could be a dead GPU that's causing the issue?

Tried removing the ram and listening for beep errors? If there are no beeps, I believe there are problems with the main logic board.

I do get the bleeps. It might indeed be board problems; any of you have the technical know how about the likelihood of a PRAM reset triggering the death of a dying board? It's just so frustrating knowing that before I did the reset, the screen was just fine. It looked as good as my mid 2012 working macbook pro..