MBP display not working

[Reggaenald]

The display of my MacBook Pro completely dies some two minutes after turning on the machine.
I get the , I get the progress bar and login screen. I log in. And either shortly after I'm in or during the start up process the screen goes black.
No backlight, not even the screen itself without the backlight is working, it just died completely.
However, this doesn't happen every time the machine is turned on. Some hours have to pass before this happens again. If I try it in the meantime it just doesn't turn on at all.
The Mac runs Big Sur, but I don't know which version exactly.
The machine itself doesn't die. Connecting an external monitor works. Its really just the display.
I thought it might be due to a loose connector inside the machine or something else with the boards that stops working correctly when the machine has warmed up due to the start up. But I'm not sure about that.
I did open it up and disconnected and reconnected everything that had anything to do with the display but to no avail.

I'm thinking about trying to reinstall the version of OS X it shipped with, it's a 2014 13-inch MBP btw, and then reinstall Monterey after a clean wipe and everything, but I don't know it that would actually work.

I really don't know what to do and would greatly appreciate any help or advise, thank you.

 

[DeltaMac]

Sounds more like hardware - maybe the logicboard or the display itself.
Probably not software, but the 2014 does not support Monterey natively, so you would be running a patched system of some kind. Might be good to redo your patched install, and get the version up to the current 12.5.1
But, I think that may not do anything about your display issue.
Maybe you could take to an Apple store. They have often had test software/hardware, specific testing for the entire video system on many MBPros. Might save you some time, in any event.

 

[Fishrrman]

Agree with your assessment. Could be a loose-fitting cable inside.

 

[Reggaenald]

Sounds more like hardware - maybe the logicboard or the display itself.
Probably not software, but the 2014 does not support Monterey natively, so you would be running a patched system of some kind. Might be good to redo your patched install, and get the version up to the current 12.5.1
But, I think that may not do anything about your display issue.
Maybe you could take to an Apple store. They have often had test software/hardware, specific testing for the entire video system on many MBPros. Might save you some time, in any event.

Forgot it ran Big Sur, not Monterey. macOS 11 not 12.
There are also no Apple Stores within 100km from where I live and the only ACSP here is garbage.

 

[Reggaenald]

Agree with your assessment. Could be a loose-fitting cable inside.

Yeah but I checked those already. The cables don't seem to be the problem.

 

[Reggaenald]

I have MacBook Pro that doesn't recognise its own display...

It used to work fine, but at some point the display just turned off, like off off. No backlight, nothing on screen, in Big Sur in Control Center the brightness is greyed out.

But it sometimes does work. Having it run out of battery and sit for a week or more, turning it back on it works, logging into my account it (often) works. Recently my sister logged into her account (it was supposed to be a family laptop) it died after a few minutes after it worked fine for days on my account.

Its a 2014 13" MacBook Pro, it ran Big Sur until today.

Restarting doesn't fix it. Resetting PRAM/NVRAM or SMC doesn't change anything. No malware, nothing insidious, no software or hardware modifications. Deleting her account didn't change anything. Erasing the disk did change anything. Restoring to Mavericks without any data didn't change anything.

Connecting it to an external monitor works fine, so does Screen Sharing. But then, even if no external monitor is connected, in System Info it doesn't show the built in screen, just the most recent external one.

Diagnostics (on Big Sur) didn't reveal anything, so did EtreCheck. I once opened it to clean it and disconnect and reconnect any cables related to the display. Nothing. The camera works fine, though.

If it just straight up didn't work at all that would be unfortunate, but that it does work until it suddenly forgets its own display is so weird and I couldn't find anything about this or similar issues online. Any help would be appreciated as I want to give it back to my sister for school as her Windows laptop is slow and falling apart. And running Windows

 

[Reggaenald]

Sounds more like hardware - maybe the logicboard or the display itself.
Probably not software, but the 2014 does not support Monterey natively, so you would be running a patched system of some kind. Might be good to redo your patched install, and get the version up to the current 12.5.1
But, I think that may not do anything about your display issue.
Maybe you could take to an Apple store. They have often had test software/hardware, specific testing for the entire video system on many MBPros. Might save you some time, in any event.

So I still have this problem, with Mavericks, without any restored data. The display worked fine for days on one account but died after logging into another.

 

[DeltaMac]

Does it then still work when you log in to the other (normal) account?
How long did you use the second account before you lost video? Immediately? 2 minutes (just like last year)? longer, but less than 10 minutes? several hours?
If you lose video, and then you can't get it to reboot into the working user (similar to what you reported last year), then I still suspect it will be hardware--probably the logic board.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Definitely a hardware issue. I forsee a 100km drive in your future!

 

[Reggaenald]

Does it then still work when you log in to the other (normal) account?
How long did you use the second account before you lost video? Immediately? 2 minutes (just like last year)? longer, but less than 10 minutes? several hours?
If you lose video, and then you can't get it to reboot into the working user (similar to what you reported last year), then I still suspect it will be hardware--probably the logic board.

It worked fine when we used it to connect to a scanner to scan some 200 pages from a book, which took many hours and was done over many days, including shutting the lid, putting the Mac to sleep, turning it off and back on again. I wasn't present when it turned off, I guess it happened within 1-2 minutes, because my sister told me she just logged in and wanted to use safari and then it all went black.
I can boot and log into all users, the Mac just forgets its own screen.
I have restored it completely and reinstalled Mavericks, but it still struggles, Sys Info only displays the most recently used display and not the internal one. Will run Hardware Diagnosis tomorrow and see if it shows anything. The camera still works fine though, green light any everything.

 

[DeltaMac]

An intermittent problem will probably not show up in Diagnostics.
But, you might look through your Console logs, which might show when the video was lost.

(note) I would not expect Safari in Mavericks to be very usable (or reliable) now.
Do you need to use Mavericks, maybe for an old app that you need to use?

 

[bogdanw]

I once opened it to clean it and disconnect and reconnect any cables related to the display. Nothing. The camera works fine, though.

It's probably a poor connection, try to connect the cables again.

 

[Reggaenald]

An intermittent problem will probably not show up in Diagnostics.
But, you might look through your Console logs, which might show when the video was lost.

(note) I would not expect Safari in Mavericks to be very usable (or reliable) now.
Do you need to use Mavericks, maybe for an old app that you need to use?

No, I just wanted to check if it’s still present on mavericks. I never intended to use it, I’d like to return to Big Sur with this machine.
I’ll try looking though the console, although I never used it before 😄

 

[Reggaenald]

It's probably a poor connection, try to connect the cables again.

I did that. It seems to not the cables, unfortunately.