MacBook Pro has been acting a little weird

[Yttims7036]

Hey guys, new to the forum.

I have a mid-late 2009 15" MacBook Pro. As of late, every time it starts up, the desktop will show, and then the screen turns black for +/- 3 seconds. After that, the desktop will show up again, and one of two things will happen:

1) It works perfectly fine, or more often than not,
2) The dock refuses to show up, Finder freezes, and I have no choice but to do a force-restart. Once it boots back up, it always works completely fine.

Also, my computer's screen has been going black for +/- 3 seconds even when I'm well in to using it (i.e. it's been on and in use for at least an hour).

Any idea what's going on?

Thanks in advance, everyone.

 

[CASLondon]

Hey guys, new to the forum.

I have a mid-late 2009 15" MacBook Pro. As of late, every time it starts up, the desktop will show, and then the screen turns black for +/- 3 seconds. After that, the desktop will show up again, and one of two things will happen:

1) It works perfectly fine, or more often than not,
2) The dock refuses to show up, Finder freezes, and I have no choice but to do a force-restart. Once it boots back up, it always works completely fine.

Also, my computer's screen has been going black for +/- 3 seconds even when I'm well in to using it (i.e. it's been on and in use for at least an hour).

Any idea what's going on?

Thanks in advance, everyone.

I don't have any special insight, but I'm going to state the obvious and say you should make a bootable clone asap, reset the SMC/PRAM, try a hardware test (on the install disk), and try a clean install of the OS and migrate your user back in, and see what happens.

Worst case scenario you have a logic board/GPU kind of issue, next worse step a going bad LCD, or maybe its just a cable inside, or maybe its software based and these early steps will make it go away

 

[Yttims7036]

I don't have any special insight, but I'm going to state the obvious and say you should make a bootable clone asap, reset the SMC/PRAM, try a hardware test (on the install disk), and try a clean install of the OS and migrate your user back in, and see what happens.

Worst case scenario you have a logic board/GPU kind of issue, next worse step a going bad LCD, or maybe its just a cable inside, or maybe its software based and these early steps will make it go away

I backup with Time Machine multiple times a day; will that do as far as a bootable clone goes?

Thanks for your help!

 

[Irock619]

I backup with Time Machine multiple times a day; will that do as far as a bootable clone goes?

Thanks for your help!

Yes although I'm not sure if TM copies the OS. Reinstalling the OS is super easy anyhow.

 

[T5BRICK]

I backup with Time Machine multiple times a day; will that do as far as a bootable clone goes?

Thanks for your help!

Time machine doesn't make a bootable clone, but you can boot from your restore discs and select the "restore from time machine backup" option and it will do the trick.

I don't believe that the 2009 models had the same graphics card issues as the 2007/2008 MBP, but there could still be a hardware issue. I'd try running the extended Apple hardware test looped overnight to stress the computer and reveal any problems.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1509

 

[CASLondon]

I backup with Time Machine multiple times a day; will that do as far as a bootable clone goes?

Thanks for your help!

No, Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper do bootable clones. Time Machine will let you migrate your stuff back in on a clean install, but a bootable clone is a one button restore more or less, and you can bring it to any similar mac and boot your system as per before if there is a perm hardware issue on your machine.