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MBP 15 A1286 (Late 2011) Black screen

M

monkeyelvis

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 24, 2014
3
0
I have MBP 15 that I can't seem to get booted up. It cycles the optical drive, and I get the chime, Apple logo lights up as well as the backlight on the screen, but the screen remains black.

I have reset the SMC, but unable to reset the PRAM (I never get anything beyond the initial startup chime.) To my knowledge, a firmware password was never set.

Does anyone have any ideas on what I can try to resurrect this thing? Thanks in advance!
 
monkeyelvis said:
I have MBP 15 that I can't seem to get booted up. It cycles the optical drive, and I get the chime, Apple logo lights up as well as the backlight on the screen, but the screen remains black.

I have reset the SMC, but unable to reset the PRAM (I never get anything beyond the initial startup chime.) To my knowledge, a firmware password was never set.

Does anyone have any ideas on what I can try to resurrect this thing? Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

Radeongate may have hit your Mac.
 
Forgive my ignorance here, I'm a bit of an idiot when it comes to Mac... but what is Radeongate? Is there an issue with this series' onboard video?
 
Nevermind, I googled it. So without AppleCare, I'm screwed is the consensus I'm seeing.
 
monkeyelvis said:
Nevermind, I googled it. So without AppleCare, I'm screwed is the consensus I'm seeing.
Click to expand...
Pretty much, yeah. But you can keep trying to boot it. Maybe safe mode or try with an external or another mac with target disk mode. It might come back to life, but it sounds like this one is pretty much done. Good luck!

Happened to me also. :(
 
Same thing happened to my late 2011 MBP about 2 weeks ago. Dedicated GPU died. First it would freeze with a blue screen and would take 5-6 restarts to into OSX. Once in OSX I could get gfxstatus to change to intergrated only and the laptop would be fine. I brought it to an apple tech and for some reason it passed all their tests (not sure how that's possible). When they tried to reboot the MBP it showed similar behaviour as yours. They then stated it's one of 2 things, bad SSD or bad logic board (IE GPU). Since the SSD is working fine in another MBP and a different HD will not boot the 2011 MBP it's easy to confirm.

Only thing you can do is sign a petition that is going around for apple to extend the warranties on 2011's like they did with 2010's and see what happens. I got a quote on fixing the 2011 and it would cost over $900CAD once parts, labour, taxes were added up. It was $680 CAD for the logic board alone. Since the repair warranty is only good for 90 days and it would only cost an additional $250 for a 2012 refurb with a 1 yr warranty it was a no brainer. Reports of people having to get a 2nd and 3rd repair turned me off from taking a chance on the repair.

If apple does extend the warranty I'm going to get it fixed and sell it. Recoup some of the $$ for the 2012.
 
MBP 15 A1286 (Late 2011) Black screen

Apple needs to do something about this. I've also been hit by Radeongate. Maybe we should've bent our Macbooks and they would've been replaced (sorry I couldn't resist)
 
I am having the same issue. try to boot it on battery after it has cool down. Then install gfxcardstatus and force the integrated GPU.
also sign the petition:
 
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