Mid-2007 MBP: Screen flashes, lock ups and kernel panics

[Bearxor]

Last week, my mid-2007 2.2ghz MBP started to do this:
http://www.bearxor.com/pics/mbpro.mov

So I thought it was a GF8600 problem, so I called Applecare. They told me to take it to the genious bar. I took it to the genius bar on Wednesday and they ran the graphics test, which the machine passed.

So, since it's by not a 8600 problem, the machine is out of warranty. I thought next that it might be a heat problem, so I disassembled it and checked the thermal paste. It was pretty bad so I redid it. Same thing.

It's not a heat problem, I installed smcfancontrol and it reports no more than 54 degrees when it last locked up.

When it first started doing this, I would restart and the box would kernel panic. Usually powering down again would let it restart properly. Now, if kernel panics all the time on startup, even after being off for several hours and even when trying to boot off a leopard DVD.

I have reset the pram and pmu. I have formatted and reinstalled 10.5 and upgraded to 10.5.6. I can boot in to single user mode but can't seem to boot into the os but every so often.

Hopefully, someone has seen this before and can offer some advice. I really don't want to send it off to Apple.

 

[unwittingITdept]

Please help!

I'm having this same problem! I figure it has to be related to the most recent Security Update, because my 2007 MBP went from occasional freezing to not-booting-kernel-panics 5 minutes after claiming to not be able to install the update.

I'm madly searching for solutions, but help would be enormously appreciated.

 

[Jethryn Freyman]

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=7015762&posted=1#post7015762

Is this like what you have been seeing?

 

[Bearxor]

From your initial description, no.

Mine started with the screen flashing like in the video, but did not kernel panic. Once restarted, it kernel panicked but restarting again let it boot up. But it disintegrated in to kernel panics every single boot regardless of the boot device, be it 3 different hard drives, 10.4 or 10.5 dvd's or external firewire drives.

Take your laptop to the apple store and have them run the geforce 8600 test. If it fails, they'll send it off for repair but if it passes, you probably need a new logic board. Hopefully it won't wind up where mine is after a week.