Mid 2009 Macbook Pro 17" can't turn on / upgrade logic board?

[subaiku]

Ok guys, this is a two-part question. Recently my Macbook (specs as per title) powered off by itself and couldn't start up again. In recent months it has done that, and it was able to restart but it would get to the grey loading screen halfway and then shut down by itself. If I tried restarting several times, one of those times it would be successful. I never found the exact reason why this was happening. Note, the battery was also bulging at that time, and I guessed it may have something to do with that? But was still working so I left it at that.

But this time, it can't start up at all. Battery shows full. Tried disconnecting the battery and using power cable only. Also no success. So my guess is it's hardware related? Logic board maybe?

The second part is if I do have to have to replace the logic board, might as well take the opportunity to upgrade if possible. What's the latest model of 17" logicboard I can replace with for my model?

 

[Fishrrman]

After 10 years of use, might not be worth repairing unless you can do it for cheap -- under $200 or so.

Otherwise, time to start shopping for a replacement...

 

[Roman78]

The 17" MBP from 2008 and 2009 had Problems with a capacitor which has to be replaced. The C7771 that is.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

At ten years old you have had your money’s worth out of it and any half decent new computer will blow you away with how much better it is. Time for a new one

 

[pshufd]

I have a 2008 17 inch MacBook Pro - the display died last summer. I can use it with an external display and it's a decent machine. I then bought a 2011 17 inch MacBook Pro. It died one month after I bought it. The display won't turn on and I can't use it with an external display. I talked to a repair shop about it and they told me that they could fix it by replacing the logic board or the video but that the parts would come out of a used machine and they would not provide a warranty because they had no idea as to how long the part would last. The guy recommended that I just get something newer. Sometimes it makes sense to put money into old hardware but I think that my attempts at doing this show that it can definitely be throwing bad money after good. I bought a 2015 15 inch MacBook Pro and have been extremely pleased with it.

 

[Roman78]

On the 2011 the GPU dies. There is a simple method to disable the GPU and use the internal Intel instead.

https://realmacmods.com/macbook-2011-radeon-gpu-disable/