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MacBook Pro Unibody bootup issue, videos included

MIDI_EVIL

MIDI_EVIL

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 23, 2006
1,320
14
UK
My Unibody MacBook Pro '2.53 Core 2 Duo 4GB RAM', has an intermittent issue with booting up. It seems to power up, but hold on black screen and sometimes never get to the grey screen. I can turn the machine off again immediately just by pressing the power button once. PRAM reset doesn't always work.

SMC reset doesn't always work either.

This happens when the battery is both charged, or low on juice.

My machine has already been off under AppleCare where the authorised repair centre failed to find a problem...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsqZfi-_1Y0

Any suggestions?

Another issue with my MacBook Pro in which the sound sometimes disappears upon startup or wake from sleep. This sometimes occurs after the 'boot up' issue.

Here is a video where I've lost the ability to alter the sound.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwaXr8H6qzc


I'm totally frustrated and confused as to what could be the problem. After sending it off once, and it being returned 'flawless'... I decided to shoot these videos to prove that there is an issue.


Thanks in advance... I really appreciate any time taken watching these videos.
 
my friend once had similar problem.
apple support told him to do the usual like reboot whule holding shift key and repair permissions, smc reset, pram reset.

the problem was that he sometimes could not even boot up to even do a permissions repair and couldn't even execute a pram or smc reset at bootup.

applecare replaced the battery and it fixed it. it was faulty.
 
skunnykart said:
my friend once had similar problem.
apple support told him to do the usual like reboot whule holding shift key and repair permissions, smc reset, pram reset.

the problem was that he sometimes could not even boot up to even do a permissions repair and couldn't even execute a pram or smc reset at bootup.

applecare replaced the battery and it fixed it. it was faulty.
Click to expand...

Very interesting! Thanks for your input!

It's quite possibly my battery. Do you know of any apps that stress the battery? Or a battery monitor app?
 
My current cycle count via CoconutBattery is 242...

Can anyone tell me if this is normal? on a 20 month old MacBook Pro Unibody?

Could this shed any light on my power problems?


Rich
 
aimbdd said:
Not really, hah you would have to take it in to be checked.
Click to expand...

Thing is, it's already been in once and they couldn't replicate the problem, so I put the videos online.

I've sent an email to Apple.

I've been told by an authorised repair that it could be the logic board?
 
tjb1 said:
Is anything plugged in via usb when doing this? Mine does this also...but usually only happens when something is plugged in usb
Click to expand...

Sometimes, sometimes not. It's very odd. It's inconsistent.

What are your symptoms?
 
MIDI_EVIL said:
Sometimes, sometimes not. It's very odd. It's inconsistent.

What are your symptoms?
Click to expand...

Sometimes when starting bootcamp after selecting windows, it either freezes on the selection screen or goes to a black screen where it freezes and does not do anything but a press of the power button shuts it down immediately. Also have this problem sometimes with OS X where if a usb drive or something is plugged in it will sometimes hang up on the loading screen.
 
tjb1 said:
Sometimes when starting bootcamp after selecting windows, it either freezes on the selection screen or goes to a black screen where it freezes and does not do anything but a press of the power button shuts it down immediately. Also have this problem sometimes with OS X where if a usb drive or something is plugged in it will sometimes hang up on the loading screen.
Click to expand...

That's it, yeah. Same thing. I've had Windows installed, and since deleted. This problem occurred before that which adds to the confusion. I'm going to take it directly to an Apple store.

It's frustrating because it's affecting my work!
 
MIDI_EVIL said:
That's it, yeah. Same thing. I've had Windows installed, and since deleted. This problem occurred before that which adds to the confusion. I'm going to take it directly to an Apple store.

It's frustrating because it's affecting my work!
Click to expand...

Well let me know what you find out, I dont live close enough to an apple store to make it worth driving to the store to find out what a random crap problem is.
 
tjb1 said:
Well let me know what you find out, I dont live close enough to an apple store to make it worth driving to the store to find out what a random crap problem is.
Click to expand...

I too am having a similar issue with my MBP. I've taken it to Apple and they said it is a software problem with permissions and supposedly fixed it. THey said to try it out and see which was about 3 days ago. Unfortunately it is still suffering from the same issue where it locks up at boot which requires SMC and PRAM reset a couple of times to get it back into the OS. I had upgraded my RAM a while back bit never thought that this could be the problem but as a last ditched effort, I replaced my RAM with the OEM RAM that came with the MBP and the issue seems to have gone away as of today. I will continue to attempt to break it and see if this is the problem but I have dealt with this issue since upgrading from Leopard to Snow Leopard and attributed this to be an OS issue which still may be the case with it being finicky about the RAM. I will let you all know what comes of this but if you don't mind sharing attempts and possible fixes, that would be greatly appreciated. I am too at my wits end about this.....
 
UPDATE:

MBP was sent off to a repair centre, who tested it for hardware and software defects over a 24 hour period. They decided to replace the logic board, which, seems to have rectified the problem!

I'm over the moon! I only purchased AppleCare this summer, and would have been devastated to pay the prices of Apple components...

Phew.
 
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