Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Macbook Pro screen dead after opening case

G

Gastropod

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 29, 2010
3
0
Hi everybody - long time lurker first time poster here.

My friend has a 1st gen Macbook Pro (the model just before the unibody) which I offered to upgrade the hard drive in after he was complaining he didn't have enough space. I successfully did this to mine last year so I didn't think I would have any issues doing it again.

It was all fine until I put it all back together again and fired it up, and now the screen remains blank. I can hear the hard drive whirring away and the CD drive spinning when I put the installation disk in (which now I can't get out) but nothing seems to be working. I thought it might have something to do with the new hard drive I tried to install so I swapped it back out for the old one and I still have the same problem.

I was very careful dismantling it (and have done it many times before) and I can't see anything obvious internally that would be causing this problem. Does anybody have any idea what could be causing this? It's bad enough this is happening but it's even worse that it isn't my computer that it's happening to...
 
are you getting the POST chime when you hit the power button? have you connected to an external monitor to see if you have video? does the sleep light indicator come on when the computer is powered on? it sounds like a failed video card. does this happen to be the model mbp with the nvidia 8600m gt?
 
webgoat said:
are you getting the POST chime when you hit the power button? have you connected to an external monitor to see if you have video? does the sleep light indicator come on when the computer is powered on? it sounds like a failed video card. does this happen to be the model mbp with the nvidia 8600m gt?
Click to expand...

Thanks for your help. But after hours of trying to figure out what was wrong today thinking it was the display, all it turned turned out to be was the RAM that I installed at the same time wasn't working (which I completely overlooked as a possible factor until another friend pointed it out as a possibility). But this is where it gets interesting (at least for me)...

The new 2 x 2GB ended up to be the problem after it successfully powered on when I put the old 2 x 1GB sticks back in. So I tried both 2GB sticks one at a time to see if one or both of them were faulty (or maybe just the wrong type), but none of them worked on their own either. Then I thought I would try a combination of 1x1GB and 1x2GB, and loe and behold - It then registered as having 3GB of memory installed! :confused:
 
Consultant said:
First gen MBP motherboard has a limit with its chipset, in terms of RAM.
Click to expand...

Yeah I thought as much, I was just confused as to why it didn't work when I only put one 2gb stick in... I'm assuming then that Macs need to have both memory slots occupied to work?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back