Macbook Starting, Yet No Computer Function

[hero12300]

Hi all,

This is my first post on the site, but I must say that I have been following the helpful advice on here for years. Bravo to an excellent site.

This morning, I had a peculiar indicent occur with my Early 2008 (non-unibody) 15" MacBook Pro. As I opened the computer after waking up, the macbook pro did not respond. The screen appeared blank. Even though I tried to turn up the screen brightness, nothing appeared. Additionally, the macbook was hooked up to an external display, yet nothing responded on the external display also.

Realizing that the Macbook Pro had made some funny hard drive noises lately, I took the drive out to test on another computer. Fortunately, the drive still works. Unfortunately, the computer is still not working.

The computer is turning on, as the the LED indicator on the screen release indicates, yet nothing occurs with the screen or the computer as I boot it up.

This seems to be unlike most problems that people experience. Does anyone have any recommendations or proposed remedies on ways to fix this issue?

I appreciate the help.

 

[Moakesy]

It sounds similar (but not exactly the same) as happened to my 2008 uni-body MBP about 4 months ago. There, it got to the white screen and then no further, but it sounds like yours isn't even getting that far.

Long story short for mine was that the hard drive had failed. I hooked up the machine to an iMac and I managed to use some software to recover my files and photos , but the drive was dead. As you can put the drive in another machine, try that....I used DiskWarrior and it was fantastic. Although it confirmed my drive was dead, it did recover the previously lost data for me.

As I was thinking of upgrading anyway, I now have a rMBP and love it. The old machine is still sitting there, whilst I decide if to spend £100 and put a new drive in there and eBay it, or just to accept it's pretty worthless and not bother.

At the very least I think you are probably looking at a replacement drive, I'm sorry to say. Diagnostic software will tell you for sure....

Good luck!

 

[hero12300]

Thank you for the suggestion. I have tested the drive, and it works perfectly on another computer. I am thinking about changing the PRAM battery to see what luck I have with that. I've heard rumors that it can do things like that.

 

[hero12300]

No luck with changing the PRAM battery. Not sure what this means! Does any one else have thoughts on what might be the problem?

 

[msevild]

Early 2008 Non unibody MacBook Pros experienced the same nVidia GPU fails as the model before. If you are turning it on and only get the white sleep LED to stay on that is one symptom. If you are comfortable removing the RAM from the unit from beneath the battery then do that and boot it up. If the LED on the front still stays solid and does not beep or flash at you then you indeed have a bad logic board, most likely due to a failing graphics processor.