Macbook pro won't boot.....

[lbaumgardner1]

There is a kernel of hope!

Experienced the exact symptoms discussed so many times in this thread yesterday. I knew my battery was wearing out, so assumed it was that when it went to "sleep" and wouldn't wake up. After leaving it to charge overnight, I was dismayed to find that it still would not wake up. So, I looked up the symptoms and ended up here.

I tried EVERYTHING discussed (except adjusting the RAM...never done anything to the RAM so figured I should leave it well enough alone) with no success. Thought I saw something about letting the battery run all the way down, so left the little light burning and went about doing other things.

I talked to Apple about the nVidia issue—they confirmed (via serial number) that my machine does indeed have the possibly defective card. BUT said that it would not cause a logic board failure so likely my logic board failure was caused by something else. The guy said my symptoms certainly sounded like a logic board failure. So, super bummed to hear it but figured I'd haul myself to get it tested (I don't live in a market close to an Apple store) and hope that the folks at the store tell me otherwise.

Fast forward to 9:30 tonight. I got out the laptop and it was indeed all the way dead (light had gone out). I plugged in my charger and held down the power button until *aha* it made a sort of terrible alert noise—BUT THEN IT CHIMED! Successful startup and I'm using it right now to make this post.

From what I can tell, it was indeed my battery. By running it all the way down, it calibrated the battery (something I've never done before, but Apple suggests you do every month or so apparently). Once I got it up and running again, I checked my battery health in system profiler (again, something I'd never done before) and discovered that I'm lucky it's been working up to now. So I'm taking no risks and doing several things:

1) ordering a new battery
2) taking my mbp into an authorized apple location and having them check the nvidia card (since now i'm aware of the potential problems and i know it may be defective I'll get it fixed and avoid any future problems)
3) set my settings to NOT GO TO SLEEP (and keep it plugged into the wall) until I have the new battery installed (sounded like a few people on here has some trouble later on if they let it sleep) and the new graphics card

btw, it doesn't appear that any of my attempts at resetting PRAM or SMU earlier in the day had any effect as all settings are exactly as I left them.

Hope this helps someone else out there with a similar problem...and I hope I wake up tomorrow and it's all still working fine!

 

[iMalum]

Hey guys,

I first stumbled on this post last night after my Early 2008 MacBook Pro (2.4GHz) began exhibiting the same problems (to those who remained on topic).

The symptoms/problems I experienced:

-was working fine. Put to sleep, and never woke up.
-upon power up, you could hear disc.
-no boot, black screen, no chime.
-no power to USB, tried all the resets (i.e. PRAM).
-no keyboard functionality; no cap-lock light.
-the Mac would still get warm.
-sleep light was weak when open; strong light when closed.

I saw the reply about the Nvidia issue, but then got nervous since my keyboard/USB ports weren't functioning —how could that be related to the GPU? However, then I came across an article by Mobile Magazine, where they confined that the Nvidia issue could cause the GPU to overheat, which would then melt some of the metal onto the Logic Board —thus causing the Logic Board to malfunction/fry.

I was very nervous when going into the Genius Bar. Some people said there were no problems, more people said they wouldn't replace the Logic Board because it wasn't related.

So, today --about 12 hours after the problem started-- I was at the Genius Bar, and told the Genius about the problem I was having. After my explanation, he said "I think I know what's going on here." So I said, "the Nvidia issue?" He said, "Yep. I see it all the time." He didn't even run any tests. He said he just knew based on my explanation (what I listed above). He said he was putting in an order to have the Logic Board replaced. On the order form it says, "replace MLB [Logic Board] for Nvidia issue." He said everything was covered under the Nvidia issue policy --all repairs were free of charge. It going to take about 5 days to get repaired, but wow, what a relief.

I got the feeling that the Logic Board is now officially incorporated into the Nvidia issue policy.

Thanks to everyone who posted. I hope my post gives some of you a little relief.

 

[bowsfixer]

Ram slots

After reading all this thread and playing around for a whole day with my broken MBP, the light in front seems to stay on light not very intense, not booting after the optical disk sound problem.

I seem to be able to pin point the problem as being a damaged memory RAM SLOTS not the RAM itself but the slot. I am able to boot my MBP by putting only one RAM module in the lower slot, as soon as I put another module in the upper one the problem comes back (half lit light in front where you open the screen). It may be just a problem related to the contacts or either the solder have melted around one of the pins so the current is not passing anymore. Looking very closely at the small pins some were a bit loose... So to my best knowledge this is the problem. but how to replace a broken slot?

I personally can live with the only 1GB running MBP. I have the A1150 model back from 2006 running on 10.6. But still wondering how I can fix this by changing the memory slots altogether. Can I buy and replace that piece?

 

[blklotus]

Macbook pro 17" fixed

So after reading through most of this forum post, and doing a little research I was able to get my macbook pro to reboot. If you are experiencing the following symptoms this should get you back up and running.

To start with: You were using your macbook and the machine locked up unexpectedly. You did not use a keyboard shortcut to to power down, you simply pushed and held the power button.

Upon trying to restart your machine did the following:
-Latch light came on, dim. If you close the lid, light gets brighter
-When you power on, you can hear the DVD drive clicking and loading
-Black screen, no picture
-No system startup tone
-No keyboard functions/lights
-USB ports have no response

If the above symptoms match what your machine is doing, then here is what happened. (Note, this is what I speculate is happening)
The machines ram or Pram has locked up causing the machine to freeze on startup. This is caused when the machine was unexpectedly powered down and the system did not have a chance to save its configuration.

In order to get your machine working again you will need a fresh stick of ram, that has NOT been used in your macbook before.

How to fix it.

1. Pull out the battery
2. Pull out the ram
3. Get a fresh 1gb stick of ram and install it into the lower slot
4. Power on your machine using only the power cord, leave the battery out
5. At this point you should hear the startup tone and your machine should go to a gray screen. If this does not happen, repeat steps 1 through 4, swapping the fresh ram stick into the upper and lower slot. This can take a lot of tries, mainly because we're trying to get the ram and pram to wipe their memories and force a cold boot. (I assume anyways)
6. If you get the gray screen, power down the machine with the power button and restart it again. The second you restart the machine push and hold "Option" "Command" "P" and "r" all at the same time.
7. Hold all four buttons down until the machine reboots, when it reboots the startup tone will sound at full volume. Release the keys.
8. You should be back in business.

The only additional step I took before I found this process to be effective was I pulled the machine apart and disconnected the cmos battery for 20 minutes. I can't say for certain this aided in the recovery, but in the event you try the above 4 steps and cannot get to the grey screen you might have to pull the cmos battery to fully wipe the machines pram.

 

[Quhp]

Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:......

I recently had this problem with my early 2008 model. My mbp had all the symptoms that have been described for the last 4 years of this thread. And like everyone else- I tried everything. I was completely bummed because I can't afford any repair right now. But, it was indeed the faulty nvidia chip and my mbp is being repaired for no fee. Went to the genuis bar, they didn't even have the hardware to test for the faulty chip but dude said he's just goin to assume it's the chip and we signed the papers. No problem.

So, just wanted to tack onto this thread which I read in its entirety and say that everything came out okay.

 

[ateeling]

'08 MacBook Pro, Won't boot, black screen, No Chime

This thread has gone on for ages, but had I found it on Google it might have saved me some time.

3 days ago I was pushed the Mac OS 10.6.8 Snow Leopard Update. I reset the computer and in would not boot... No chime, no video (black screen).. just the fan operating.

I was able to restore function using the Snow Leopard DVD ('c' on start-up). I ran the verify disk utility and there were no problems noted.

3 days later I had a similar problem. This time no chime, no video and the DVD boot did nothing. Looking at the 'sleep' light, it was at about half intensity (compared to the upper and lower span) with occasional changes .. as if the processor was hung up. DVD drive would spin and there were sound of the drive heads moving. Fan could be heard operating at the lowest setting.

Apparently the keyboard backlighting, sleep light, and charge light are functions of the SMC and at times need to be reset.

What I have done:
1) I have reset the PRAM (to the second start up chime) - fail
2) reset the SMC (remove battery and press power for 5 seconds) - fail
3) Attempted to restart using Verbose mode ('v') and DVD Boot ('c') - fail
4) Reset PRAM again (only to the first chime, finger slipped off button) - sort of worked
5) With the DVD ejected, restart computer normally.

The screen came up to the grey start up screen with apple logo.. the desktop came up as normal.

My AppleCare is over, $49 for phone support, the tech directed me to three articles in the apple/support site (TS2377). Although he really couldn't help me without me forking over the cash, we did agree that it was most likely NOT a hard drive (thus a software update) problem if the computer would not start from the DVD. The screen without video and chime seem to indicate a hardware issue.

From the looks of things many of us have had problems with this and there seems to be two flavors of problem, Fried GPU and misfiring RAM sticks.

I didn't remove or replace the RAM, I did do two PRAM resets, one after clearing the SMC. This may or may not have been the fix; it what I remember.

So....

It is probable I will have this problem again. I wanted to set this post up for the next time so I can better document what I observe.

 

[neenja]

take it in, pretty sure your logic board is dead. i had the same issues and same mbp. took it in and got it replaced for free.